Hey, so for today’s blog I wanted to share with you a tip I have learned for changing between chords faster. You might find starting out on guitar can be fun! There are plenty of cool little riffs you can play such as smoke on the water or 7 nation army that you may have already learned. However, to really take that step and get to the next level, we must be able to smoothly change between our basic open chords. At the start it can seem impossible to change from one chord to another in such little time. It might be frustrating for you trying to learn one of your favourite songs when you know the chords individually, but you just can't seem to piece it together. This can sometimes lead to people getting disinterested and maybe even giving up altogether. The real addiction for me with guitar was when I was able to play along to one of my favourite songs at a fairly basic level. At the time, it seemed like I had broken through a barrier. Then I kept building on that breakthrough. 10 mins of practice a week became 1 hour daily sessions where I kept wanting to grow and learn progressively more difficult songs. This is the psychology we can tap into with this simple exercise. If any of this is confusing there is also a video below explaining and showing how the exercise works. Intermediate and advanced players can use this technique too!
The metronome game:
So how does this work?
First of all we need a good understanding of what a metronome is and what it’s used for.
A metronome is a device which produces a sound at regular intervals that can be set to a certain speed. For example if I set my metronome to 70bpm ( beats per minute ) the metronome will output 70 clicks per minute. The lower the number the more distance there is between the ticks, which results in a slower pace. The higher the number the less distance there is between ticks resulting in a quicker pace (It’s good to think of rhythm as the distance between notes). So low number = slow, high number = fast.
The metronome counts out the beats in a bar. (1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 ) etc. It gives us an audible reference to which we can place our strums. Now we can use this to our advantage for training chord changing because we have something that is telling us we need to change to the next chord. It’s like a ticking clock, we know we only have a certain amount of time to change. We start off with a large gap between changes, eventually the gap between chord changes gets shorter and shorter as we increase the speed of the metronome.
Level 1: We select 2 chords that we want to train. Lets go for E minor to G. Set the metronome to 60bpm.
The metronome is now counting out the beats of our bar. ( 1 2 3 4 ) after 4 we return back to 1, and continue the count. For level 1 we want to strum the first chord on the 1st beat with a downstroke. We must wait and count the rest of the beats in the bar. Then, when the beat reaches back to the 1 again we strum the next chord G.
MAKE SURE TO COUNT THE BEATS OUT LOUD AS YOU DO THIS.
Strum on the 1st beat - Wait for the rest of the bar to end - strum the next chord on the first beat of the next bar - wait for the rest of the bar to end - back to the start.
the space in between allows us a reasonable chance to change our fingers and get to the next chord.
Increase the speed to 90 or 100 bpm before moving on to level 2.
Level 2: Adding a second downstroke.
Now we have 2 strums on each chord. We strum on the 1 and the 2, we pause for the 3 and the 4. This shortens our allocated time to change our fingers to the next chord. It’s getting more difficult now to change to the next chord on time.
Now we only have the 3 and the 4 as our time to change!
Make sure to keep counting out the beats in your head as you do this so you know what beat you are on, tap your foot on the floor with the metronome too!
Slowly but surely we are now improving the muscle memory of our hand to change from one chord to the next in a strategic way. Keep increasing the speed of the metronome by 10 Bpm everyday.
Level 3: change between 4 chords + another strum added on the 3rd beat of each bar.
Only move on to level 3 when you have mastered level 1 and 2. Level 3 is basically nearly there. After this you will be able to change freely between chords if you keep practicing and increasing the speed of the metronome. We now have 3 strums per chord with only the 4th beat of each bar as our opportunity to change to the next chord. Start this level slow at around 60bpm. Increase by 5-10 when you are ready. Change out the chord for others such as D, F, or A, etc.
Continue to count the beats out as you strum, it can be awkward to stop on the 3 and leave the 4 go without playing.
Afterthoughts:
This is also brilliant practice for your sense of rhythm. Feeling and playing along with a pulse, developing an accurate sense of when the next strum should be strummed. This is such an underrated tool to have in your armoury. Being a rock with the metronome. Remember the golden rule, it’s far better to play slowly and in time over being out of time and sloppy when playing at faster speeds. The speed will come don’t worry. Rome wasn’t built in a day. If your foundations are as solid as they can be, you can build anything you want on top of them.
Intermediate or advanced level players:
Use more complex bare chord shapes ( dominant 7th to an A shape minor 7th chord etc )
Practice your scales this way. Pick 2 scales. Start scale 1 and play from bottom to top and back to bottom again. Leave a 2 beat gap and start scale 2.
Blog coming soon!
