Im following along with the courses and got stuck switching Am and Em chords. The instructions are to pivot on the middle finger but i find it easier to lift middle and ring fingers and move them up or down a step.
Question: Do i stick with whats taught here or work with what seems easier when switching chords.
Do what's easiest for you to do ( for now )
As long as you came keep your timing and rhythm in sync with your lessons.
On the side, practice the proper technique taught.
Sooner or later, you'll become fluid with both.
Over time, you will learn two methods of making the same chord.
Pickin' and Grinnin'
I'm following along with the couses as well and was just curious. Do I need to memorize the melodies or do I just use the tablature and once I get somewhat comfortable move along to the next lesson. As of now I'm memorized all of them but the full melody ode to joy could be tough. Thanks again and I'm really enjoying my subscription.
I would memorize those that I want to keep in my repertoire. Those that I am just playing to practice my technique or to learn new things, I would follow the tab or sheet music.
Licks I try to memorize so I can improv to other songs by repeating or just changing it a little to fit the groove. Progressions, I just follow the tab unless I intend to play it a lot or with someone else.
Just my 2 cents.
I'm new to guitar tricks, just got a year membership, but I like it so far. A lot of info. packed in here. There is no way to memrize it all.:)
Roger Gardner
Such good advice is being offered here in this thread!
I agree whole heartedly with everything that has been said about technique, what and how to practice, what to master and what to just get an understanding of beforehand moving on.
Thank you SG, and Roger, for sharing your wisdom!
- Lisa
Hi guys,
Its my first post in the forum so bear with me...
I also got a bit stuck on this leasson but for a diferent reason to which I ask your contribution.
The music sheet is too long for me to memorize it and I often get lost. What do you guys do? Do you print it out? And if so how do you turn the pages while strummimg.
This might be a silly question but I think Im in the right thread to do so. Ć°ÅøĖĀ
Originally Posted by: naveedafridiDo i stick with whats taught here or work with what seems easier when switching chords.
Comprehend completely the desire to learn it correctly the first time.
Although they could be narrowed down to just a few types and finger subtypes, essentially peoples' hands do differ as do their flexibility with age IME. Same with how each person learns best. Some are aural, some visual, others from written instruction. Ideally, a combination of the three.
One thing is absolute when it comes to guitar, or pretty much anything complex IME. Repetition is the mother of skill. Practise anything enough, and it will become rote.
Em->Am->Em->Am.. is a relatively easy chord change early in the one's learning journey. If a novitiate rather than returnee, [u]my advice is to initially try to change chords per Lisa's lesson instruction, and perservere with that methodology for several sessions. If after a time it still feels awkward, go with what feels natural and comfortable to you that affects the changes seamlessly[/u]. Later, you can return and try to master the alternate 'as taught' method change as suggested by SG Supreme.
For instance. Changing between barre Bm to D7 (third fret form) in trying to effect the lift off timing late enough to not effect sounding of Bm whilst placing being able to all fingers simultaneously on the strings necessary for the D7 chord when playing it at the 150BPM tempo required for "She Loves You". I've got it down to 'pretty good', but not perfect. At present, effecting that 100% simultaneous arrival and laydown on D7 (third fret form) fingering is still a work in progress. I'll get it eventually.
By way of another personal anecdote to which success has come more quickly. I use the common conventional form of (open) G. That is to say, the forefinger and index fingering the E (6) & A (5) strings with my ring finger fingering high E (1). When I learned that chord initially forty five years ago, that's how I was taught to form it. Even though I hadn't played in the intervening years, when I returned, that felt completely natural. Insofar as I remember eight months on, it also came to me very easily which is amazing in itself. Despite the elapse of all those years, deep down some motor skill memory must still have been retained.
To the point of the anecdote. I'd been playing this form of open G along with alternates and single base note Gs and barre Gs, and not finding it necessary in any song so far to use the (alternate) open form taught by Lisa of index (2), ring (3) and pinky (4) fingers. That is, until the day before yesterday when I picked up up "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles! o.O
The song's rhythm features a really pretty progression which requires an extremely fast change from G to Gmaj7 which includes two precisely timed liftoffs off the high E string with pinky and forefinger respectively to make it sound just right in between forming the changes from G to Gmaj7 and Gmaj7 to C. Like or not, to practically facilitate this the 2, 3 & 4 G fingering taught by Lisa really was necessary. So I got stuck in.
Now I'm just you're average plodder, no natural or prodigy. It felt unnatural and awkward at first, also having to overcome the tendency to do/form what was already learned. However, within half an hour I had it fluid. Later that same evening it was an alternate G & Gmaj7 no brainer. By the end of next morning's practice, (yesterday) that fingering was etched in my repertoire and I had also mastered the subtlety of the liftoff timings for the changes to have the open strings sounding as they do on the recording with that strumming pattern. By the next practice session that evening, without exaggeration I'd nailed it and could play both the progression and chord per that form as an alternate consistently. This morning? Part of my rote chord inventory. It now seems so easy I wonder why I had avoided it in the first place until I had a motivating reason. Alternating between forming or changing between either are now pretty much no brainers.
Along with determination and perseverence upon which Mr Coolidge's famous quote placed so much approbation, IME repetition until rote is the mother of skill. I find if I want to do something enough, the challenge initially presented is overcome by applying those three qualities.
Originally Posted by: niccoman5[p]
The music sheet is too long for me to memorize it and I often get lost. What do you guys do? Do you print it out? And if so how do you turn the pages while strummimg.
I memorise. There's no way at this juncture I could read notation at the pace I can play. Even should one day I attain that degree of proficiency, as an analogy, it reminds me a lot of one of the keys for managing the workload flying a non-precision instrument approach. The 5 P principle. Everything needs to be precommitted to memory prior to the flight with the approach plate merely for cross check reference during execution of the actual approach.
However as the alternative, (i) print it out, (ii) on separate pages, (iii) buy & use a music stand.
How I do it. The chord progressions for verse and chorus of "Hallalujah" (Buckley version in C) are lengthy involving more than the common three or four note riff changes. I used my Android tablet with tablet stand learning the two from notation committed to memory and aural mimicry without reading it from notation as I played, then putting them together fluidly.
