One Minute Changes (Guitar Lesson IM-122) How to play IF Stage 2

In this lesson we're looking at changing between open chords and barre chords, quite fun!

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.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

.

Hi, how ya doing, Justin here!

Welcome to IM-122,
which is One Minute Changes.

We're going to be focusing on open chords

to E-shape major and minor bar chords.

Now hopefully most of you remember
back to the beginner's course

doing a little thing called Air Changes,

where you learnt to form the shape of the chord
in the air before you put it down.

Now that's one of the best ways of changing

between your open chords
and your bar chords.

It's a little bit tricky
and I know many of you,

when you get to your bar chords,

are going to want to either put down
the bar chord first, then the shape

or the shape and then the bar.
They're both cool.

To be honest most people that start with the shape
and then put the bar down

afterwards kind of change as they develop
and they practice

and they end up
putting the bar chord down first.

But really,
what you should be doing

is putting the whole grip down
at the same time.

Now, it's tricky,

but learning it now really gets your fingers
into the habit of forming,

particularly the first finger
kind of rolling onto its side.

Because that kind of happens in the air

so when you put it down
it's no so much that you put it on flat

and then roll it backwards,

which is kind of how I'm teaching you
and encouraging you to do it.

it's a great way to learn to do it,
to get the position right.

But, as soon as you've got the position right,

you want to learn
to just put it down that way

with that bar on the side already.

So what I've picked is
five really common chord changes

between an open chord shape
and a bar chord shape.

And we're going to go through those

just like we did in the beginner's course
with the one minute changes

where you're going to set
your countdown timer for one minute

and you're going to do as many
of those particular chord changes as you can

for that one minute
and write into your little practice schedule

how many changes you've done.

It's a really super duper way

and any of you guys that are just jumping
into the Intermediate Course

and haven't gone to look
at the Beginner's Course before,

it's a really, really effective way
of developing your chord changes.

It's not just a beginner's technique,

it's something that you can use
at the highest level

when you're learning new chords.

Going from the chords you know
to a new chord

as fast as you can for a minute
really trains the fingers up good.

So, let's get to a close-up

and check out exactly what I mean
by these air changes,

for those of you that don't remember,

and I'll try and give you a couple hints
on getting that first finger rolled back to.

So let's get to a close up.

The first change on our one minute changes sheet
for this foundation two is between

an A open chord
and a G bar chord.

Now I know that you can play G open
and you can play A to G like that

but as an exercise, it's a great one to be doing
A like this and then jumping over

Can you see that when I'm doing that,

it's not like I'm going to put that bar on,
rolling back,

and then put the chord shape down.

It's jumping straight from A to the G.

It's there already,
it's happening in the air.

Weeeeeeeeeee!

And then down.

And the same with the A,
it's form the chord,

there we are, we haven't put it down.
Now it's down.

It's really important to try
and develop this skill

where they're kind of
getting to their positions in the air.

It's pretty funny to do it slowly

because it's almost like I'm trying to force them
but they do it by themselves.

I just can't concentrate on it,
you'll probably find the same thing.

Don't concentrate too much
on how the fingers are moving.

But what's the trick here really,
when you're first learning to do this ?

This is to bring them up and then point them all out
and then try to form the chord

so you kind of get a little thing in the middle
where you're completely releasing the shape.

That's a good way to start with it
but as soon as you're through it,

try and get them so they just form the shape.
Now, the bar, which is the big part here :

Now, as I've explained to you earlier,

you're going to put the bar down straight,
and then roll onto the side,

and then put the shape down.

But what you should find is that,
if you've been practicing it enough,

you can kind of put that shape down sideways
so when you start doing these

look at it in the air
before you put the chord down

and make sure that the first finger
is not square on, flat like that.

When you're looking down in it,
when you're seeing it

you'll see a little kind of angle going
backwards across the neck.

That's what you're looking for.

When it's in the air like that,
now I'm checking it's got the angle,

then I'm putting the whole chord shape down
all at the same time.

It's there, it's hovering,
and then press it down.

So that's the first change, A to G.
Really good one to do.

You'll notice here too,
something else interesting :

Do you see the thumb there?

The thumb's hanging around on the top
and then look,

it has to disappear for the G chord.

So what the thumb is doing here
is muting the thickest string.

It's kind of a little bit more of an advanced technique
but it's something to be aware of

as you develop your guitar playing
for both the D chord and A chord,

the thumb might want to hang over
and just touch ever so slightly.

But what it does mean is that
when you change to your bar chord

that the thumb has to shift around the back

and then it's going to come back over again
and shift around the back.

That's part of the skill set
that you're going to be learning here.

Now the next chord, D chord,

definitely it's a nice idea to have the thumb there
muting the thick E string.

Just because it's the note E

and E on the D chord
doesn't really sound very good

so we definitely don't want that one ringing out

so thumb can just touch it
on the top there.

It is literally just touching it.
If you're not use to this technique,

it only takes the slightest touch
to get that note muted.

So we're going D and then
we're going to F# minor.

It's a really nice common chord change.

Again, forming it, getting the bar at the side,
putting the shape down.

If you have to stretch the fingers out in between
to help them kind of reset

and as soon as you're through
that start to look at the path

that they're going to take
to get between each of the chords.

Next up, we've got a interesting one,
C to Ab.

Now, with C, again make sure
you've got your fingers at a nice angle

and that they're not like this.
if they're too square on the frets,

you'll find that you'll be stretching
between the 2nd and 3rd fingers.

So just as a bit of a revision,
make sure the fingers are round like that.

When I'm looking at a C chord,
I'm kind of looking down my fingers.

My eye line is looking
straight down my fingers.

If I can see the whole of my finger
like a little arch,

then I know that they're not in the right place.

So, fingers at a nice angle there for the C chord
and now we're going to an A flat chord.

Which is an interesting one

because now we've got our fingers
in a completely different shape,

we've got to slide them up
and there's the chord, put them down.

It's just practice.

And you're just trying to get

See the shape is already there
and then you're putting it down.

Doing it really slowly
and really just thinking

about trying to get it in a nice shape
before you put it down.

That's the aim here,
that's what you're looking for.

And we've got G to G flat.

G, I don't mind really,
you can do the 2 finger G,

you can even do the folk G
if you want without you're first finger.

It doesn't really matter,

pick one and practice doing that chord
and then to G flat major.

G

G flat major.

Now can you see how the shape,
there it is?

That's it, the chord shape is there.

You can't see it
but that's like an inch off the neck.

Trying to get that chord shape formed in the air
before we get there.

Lastly, we've got E to F sharp minor.

Very, very common chord sequence this one.
And it's just forming the chord.

There's the chord again.
We're just working the chord.

From one shape to the next.

And back again. Trying to form.
There's the chord shape.

You should be all right
with the open chords already, right?

You've done air changes,

you're used to putting the grip down
all at once

so now it's really concentrating.

There we go, look! 3rd and 4th finger
are kind of locked together there.

They're ready, they're in preparation
for that chord change.

That's the trick.

Well, that's the one-minute changes
for the foundation two practice routine.

It's really, really important that you get used
to forming these bar chords in the air

before you put them down.
Unless you get that skill right,

you will never get your chord changes
between open chords and bar chords

or bar chords and other bar chords
smooth and comfortable.

They'll always feel a bit jerky,

it'll always be putting the bar down,
rolling it back, putting the shape down.

It's really difficult to get the changes
fast enough

to put them into a song
if you're doing it that way.

So really try and focus now on this,

shifting the shape in the air
between the chord changes.

It's quite a big deal, really important.
Not that difficult.

It's just practice. Like everything else on the instrument,
it's just practice.

You'll be cool. Practice hard and I'll see you
for another lesson some time really soon.

Bye bye!