One Minute Changes (Guitar Lesson IM-132) How to play IF Stage 3

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-132.
Stage 3, Lesson 2.

In this guitar lesson we look at changing between A Shape and E Shape barre chords. It's kinda tricky and will take a bit of practice. It's great way of training your fingers to get into the right shape for the A Shape barres if you just learned them.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-132-1MinuteChanges.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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Have fun :)

.

Hi how you doin'? Justin here.
Welcome to IM 132,

which is the One Minute Changes
for foundation Three.

In this series of chord changes,

we're gonna be timing ourselves for a minute,

trying to do the chord changes as fast as we can

between the E Major and Minor barre chord shapes,

and the A shape Major chords.

Now I know you've only just learned
the A shape Major chords,

and I know they're going to be a bit tricky,

but that's kinda' part of the point here,

to get you brain used to working

and getting that new chord shape
under your fingers as quick as you can.

We're not aiming for perfection here, of course,

so if the B string is not quite ringing out perfectly

then you can kind of live with it
for a little while.

But hopefully, your continuous practice
of your strum, pick out, and strum

on the individual chords will kind of counteract with this

and then, at the end of foundation three,

you'll be able to jump to the chord quickly

and get whole of the notes ringing out.
That's the idea.

So don't let it be too sloppy,
but don't be too fussy about it either,

that's really important.

Now the other thing,
when you're using this A shape barre chord,

you'll find that the barre slips back a bit.

Now I'm gonna go to a close-up
and just give you a couple of looks at it

so you can see the way
that your hand kind of re-positions itself

when you're changing between barre chords.

Lets do that now.

The first chord change we're looking at

is an A chord using an E shape,
changing to a D chord using an A shape.

Now there's a couple of things here
that I just want you to see and be aware of.

The first is the first finger.

Now, you can see that the first finger is changing
from covering all strings

and being quite close to the barre,
all the way along,

to the D chord,
where it's kind of angling out a little bit.

It's because it's not functioning as a barre anymore.

It doesn't need to be right along
next to the barre all the time,

cause it's only hitting that one note, remember.

The third finger is covering that little barre
and the thinnest string is muted.

Now if you do that, what you'll find is that
your thumb can stay in more or less the same place,

and you can see now
if you watch the bottom of my hand,

my hand is kind of swinging,
a bit like that.

It's kind of pivoting if you like.

There's the E, there's the D.

And if you get used to that,

you'll find that
you can do the chord changes very quickly.

And that's this little pivot movement
that gets you from one to the other.

You'll also notice here that the third finger
is going from there,

and it's just kind of
little finger gets out of the way,

third finger slides across,

and then it's already in place.

Sometimes it's got a bit of an angle on it as well,

because of the way our hand is moving

there's a slight angle of the third finger.

Don't make it too much, that would be bad,

cause it still has to be the closer
to the fret on the second string, 

the more likely you'll gonna have
to get a good note out of it.

So it should be kind of square, you know.

But it can be a little bit angled,

in order to facilitate getting a nice fast chord change.

. . .

The other two fingers, of course,
are just coming off.

So they're there, then we don't need of them,
they're just sort of hanging around,

you know,where ever they fill comfortable.

Don't try to tuck them away like this,
that would be really bad.

So just be cool with that change,
trying to get the swing.

Of course remembering first finger as well
is muting the 6th string here.

So when it goes back onto the 6th string,

you have to relax it enough,

that it kind of glides back over
to cover the 6th string.

And then as it comes down for the D,

it's kind of angling around
and slipping off the thicker string,

and then it's just pressing the top of it
to keep the thicker string muted.

The next chord change that I've recommended
is F# to C#.

F# of course is in the E shape,
and C# is in the A shape.

Now the trick here with this one is getting the jump.

And I always think of leading here
with my third finger.

So when I'm on here,

I'm already thinking
where my third finger will go,

and I'm hoping my first finger is going to follow.

Rather than trying to lead with the barre.

A lot of you have probably got into the habit
of looking where the barre will go,

and then putting the shape down.

Which is generally fine,
but remember the barre now is with the third finger.

So I find it helpful to look at the third finger,

where the third finger's gonna lead.

Again, remembering that the barre of course
is going from that straight shape

to allow to have that bit of an angle there,

now that you can see with the first finger,
that's OK.

. . .

Third on the list, we've got the chord B to D#.

. . .

This is an interesting one

because you'll find
that your thumb has to jump backwards.

And it's always more difficult
to jump backwards with your thumb.

So be aware of what your thumb is doing there.

It's a little bit like the barre chord movement
that we talked about earlier on,

when we're playing the chord relaxed, shifting,

and then with that chords changing then pressing again.

So, most of the fingers are not really
coming off the strings

It's not like when we're doing changes
to open chords

where they all come off
and then reform the new chord shape.

We're kind of trying to keep them in contact
with the strings as much as we can.

It'll help you keep your finger movement
to a minimum as well, if you're doing that.

And it'll also help you keep the strings muted.

. . .

It's that kind of being able to move them still
without getting to many open strings ringing out.

The third chord change we're looking at is
G minor to C.

Nothing particularly difficult about that,

it's just keeping the second finger out of the way.

Nothing really too difficult there,
if you can do G to C,

then G minor to C shouldn't be more difficult

other than the fact that with the G minor

you're gonna have to have that little bit of
extra pressure on the barre.

And the last one of the series,
we have here an Ab minor to an E,

which is a lot further up the neck.
It's quite an odd change.

. . .

It's just a big jump really, this one.

. . .

So again, think here about leading with the third finger
when you're making the change.

Think here the barre,
making sure it's going on upside.

So from the A,
as we're moving backwards,

we're thinking of getting that first finger on the side,
nicely positioned.

Trying to keep the first finger at least
in contact with the strings all the time.

Actually just think of it,
looking at it now,

it seems my third finger is staying in contact
with all of the strings as well.

So, you can try that if you like.

I wouldn't be too convinced
that's exactly the method everyone should do.

But just exactly what I'm doing now
is a really good thing to be doing

before you start pressurizing yourself
with officially one minute changes.

Just trying to get the chord change moving it

you know,
watching how your hand's moving,

really a good idea.

Well, there you have your one minute changes
for foundation three.

Please remember that,
if you find any particularly easy,

to drop them and exchange them
for ones that you find really hard,

cause you should always be now practicing
the things you find the hardest.

Always practice what you can't do,
don't practice what you can.

Get your timer out,
work on them as quickly as you can.

Remember, as I said before,

be fussy, but not too fussy
about the quality of the chord,

cause you've got your chord practice,
that you should be doing separately,

which will work with this to give you, hopefully,
a fast good chord change by the end of it.

Have fun with that.

I'll see you for another lesson sometime very soon.

Take care. Bye bye.

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