G Chord

Hello all. After a year and a half, I still can't seem to change from any chord to a G chord withing a 3-4 second time frame. Neither my ring finger nor my pinky seem to want to head directly to the high E. I have been using a metronome quite a bit, but I just can't do it very quickly. Any tips or am I doomed to a life of silent gaps between any chord and my G chord.

Try leaving your pinky out of it and use your index, middle and ring fingers instead:

Index - 2nd fret of A string

Middle - 3rd fret of low E string

Ring - 3rd fret of high E string

That's a very common alternate fingering for that chord.

Nicolai

Another alternative is try middle, ring and pinky.

Or you could always play a Barre chord on the 3rd fret if you're ok with these

I just realized that I probably gave you the voicing for what you just told me you couldn't play very well. Sorry 'bout that. You're probably already frustrated enough. In any case, if you can play barre chords then the voicing that Draconus gave you makes a really nice sound. If you're not playing barre chords yet, you can try a tweak of the following voicing - it's a barre chord without the full barre.

Use your index finger to play only the high E and B strings, and don't play the low E string at all (mute it if you can). This sounds almost as nice as the full barre chord. If you have to, you can leave the B string open but it sounds a little funny. To find alternate voicings (fingerings) for any chord, use the site's "Chord Charts" in the "Toolbox". Go to main page, click on "Toolbox", then pick "Chord Charts". That's were the above diagram comes from.

But don't tell anyone that the info came from me. I've been told that I'm too stupid to use anything in the toolbox ; )

Nicolai

Thank you very much. I'll give the Barre chord a try, as well as to continue to fret the G chord.

I got around problems with switching chords by first...1 learn the patterns in your head so you can visualize all the chord patterns you are using in a given song. 2. practice grabbing the forms with your hands now. Go back an forth between 2 chords, then 3 chords all of this without strumming the strings. 3. Practice those forms all the time... like watching TV, or sitting in a lecture or any where you find your self with time.

I used to practice on my right forearm when I had any quit time at home or at work. I went from form to form just practicing how I could land all the fingers in any chord pattern all at once. For me getting to that point of landing all the fingers at once, before I practiced strumming the chord helped me to develop this skill. It is critical to learn how to land all those fingers at once as a unit, not a serise of individual finger moves. It sounds like that may be helpful to you as well. Take it to the metronome after you can land the chord fingering acuratly.

only trying to help by going over a pentatonic scale over and over theres something within that scale that can help you change chords smoothly

Originally Posted by: torellojrjoseph887

only trying to help by going over a pentatonic scale over and over theres something within that scale that can help you change chords smoothly

What happens when you practice scales, riffs, arpeggios, etc. is development of finger dexterity; increased dexterity equals better, smoother, and faster chord changes.

Everything in playing is linked with, and has an effect on, everything else. If you did nothing but practice scales for a week, you'd probably find something that had been problematic before suddenly starts to get easier.