Changing Chords

Changing chords takes a lot of practice at first, because the new chord must be found fromscratch as quickly as possible. To make this easier, it is important for the fingers to take theshortest route possible from the one chord to the other, while maintaining the generalposition of the left hand. First, try the G7 chord a few times by itself so as to become familiarwith it.







The G7 chord







Notice that the G7 chord uses all six strings.
The next stage is to play a C chord, change to the G7, then back to the C. Here are the pointsto watch:

• Notice that the first finger only has to move a short distance, from the second string tothe first. In the same way the second and third fingers also only have to move a dis-tance of one string, from the fourth and fifth to the fifth and sixth.
• Try the movement several times with just the left hand. Then, when you feel reason-ably familiar with the movement, play the chords with the right-hand thumb as before,remembering that the C chord uses only five strings.
• Notice how the G7 chord seems to need to resolve to the C chord. We’ll discuss thisfurther at a later point—for now just try to hear the relationship.

After those changes are coming smoothly, try adding the F chord to complete the groupmost closely related to the C chord. Practice them in the order C, F, G7, C.

Notice that the first finger covers two strings. The technique of covering more than onestring with the first finger is known as “barring,” as explained below. For now, simply turnthe finger sideways so that the pad can cover the two strings.

The F chord

Tags: chord, finger, fifth, movement, string, changing