Online Guitar Lessons – Learn How To Play Guitar Today

Learn How to Play Guitar Chord Changes Faster

Posted by: Learn Guitar on October 3, 2008 Under: Learn Guitar Chords |

I have had a particular suspicion for a very long time; this suspicion is that so many new guitar players decide to concentrate upon playing lead because learning to play rhythm properly is deceptively difficult.

Learning chord shapes can be significantly harder than learning scales and building technique and speed between chord changes takes quite a bit of effort.

If you are struggling to get your left hand working faster, allowing you to play faster, more complex rhythms, then read on, I am going to give you a few tips.

Building Finger Strength

When I first started playing guitar I had the craziest teacher, and one of the strangest things he ever told me to do was to practice playing rhythm guitar whilst wearing a pair of tight fitting leather gloves. Of course, I now realise he had me do this to build finger strength, it is extremely difficult to play a clean chord when you are wearing gloves, the strength required to actually fret the notes of the chord is very high. Although I would not tell a student to try playing wearing gloves, it did work, my finger strength increased dramatically over a very short period of time.

The real problem with building finger strength is that if you do not approach it as a training regime, you are likely to cause actual damage to your hands. You should never over stress muscles and tendons repeatedly over an extended period, ask any player who has suffered from tendinitis just how much it hurts.

The best way to build finger strength is not by playing the guitar, but by using a specialist exercise device, kind of like a set of weights for your fingers.

The device fits in your hand and has a set of four finger rests; each is individually sprung and can be depressed individually.

These are available in most good music shops and are idea to keep in your pocket to be used at any time. I used to spend two hours a day using one of these gadgets, on the train to and from work.

Playing With Rhythm

Once you have a regime in place to begin building finger strength you need to start looking at the way you actually play rhythm, some people have a very natural almost flowing style; others tend to fight the fret board, making more work for themselves.

Consider the fact that you only need to lift your fingers from the fret board by a couple of millimeters to make a chord change, don’t waste time lifting your fingers too high or removing them from the neck entirely, simply stop fretting the current chord by lifting your finger tips enough to stop the note sounding and then move to the new chord shape, practice this technique alongside your strength building exercises and you will find your chord changes become faster, smoother and cleaner in a very short period of time.