One Minute Changes (Guitar Lesson BC-115) Guitar for beginners Stage 1

This is Stage 1, Lesson 5 of Justin's Beginner Guitar Course.

In this lesson we are going to learn an awesome exercise that will make your chord changes loads faster. Really!!!

The Justinguitar Beginners Guitar Course, a series of over 100 lessons on guitar for beginners. Text support is on the web site and also in a proper old skool paper book which can be ordered from the web site of your local music store :)

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

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Have fun :)

.

Hello, Justin here.

Welcome now to your first "1 Minute Changes".

Now, this is a little exercise I developed a long time ago

when I was teaching in a primary school
and I couldn't get the kids to practice guitar.

So I made up a little exercise that was kind of a competition

to see who could make the most chord changes
in one minute

and what was really weird was
that they all practiced loads, really enjoyed it

and got really good at doing their chord changes.

So, I kinda took the idea and applied it
to some older people and found

that it worked for them as well and then most...nearly....

...or in fact all of my beginner students
over the last few years have used this technique

to get their chord changes faster
because it's kinda the hardest thing.

If you thought maybe, you know,
having a slight pain in your fingers playing these chords

was a little bit of a hard uphill battle,
now the changing between the chords,

is really gonna cause you a bit of problems
because that's actually the...

...probably the hardest step when you first start
playing the guitar

is getting those chord changes.
It's not that hard, it just takes practice.

So you gotta stick with it.

Now, what I'm gonna show you is a really,
really kinda tried and tested method

for getting your chord changes faster.

So, what we're gonna do is,
we're gonna pick a pair of chords.

We might do first, say, D and A.

First, as a first one.
It doesn't really matter which ones you choose

but let's say D and A chord.

And we're gonna try and make
as many changes between D and A

as we can in one minute.

So you need some sort of timer device, right?

I use the little countdown timer on my iPhone
but you could use things like egg timer

or anything else that's got a countdown timer.

I'm sure there are countdown liners...
countdown liners ...countdown TIMERS online

if you have a look around,
if you did a google search I'm sure you'd find one.

So, maybe using something like that

and the idea would literally be
that you have a look at your clock or your watch

and you go: "Right here, OK, it's starting...now!

(plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12..."

...and you just keep going for a whole minute,
trying to make as many possible changes as you can

in that time.

And when you have arrived at the end of that minute
and you know how many you've done,

in your practice schedule, you write the number of changes
that you made in the little box.

And this is really good now for your motivation

because you get to watch yourself improve.

Every time you're practicing you got a target

'cause you know: "Last time I practiced,
well, I got like seven changes in a minute.

OK, I'm definitely gonna beat that this time.
Alright, let's go for eight!"

You know, it's a really good idea
to write it down in your practice schedule

and then compete with yourself.
And a lot of it's kinda mental.

You gotta be pushing yourself,
really trying to make it faster, trying everytime.

Have the mindset that you're going really,
really as quick as possible.

Now, you can't make the chords kinda rubbish, right?

If the fingers are on the wrong strings,
you know, then it's kinda not right

- or the wrong frets - but if the chord's not perfect, that's OK

'cause this exercise is about trying to get your fingers
to move quickly.

That's the point of it.

So, if it's like it's not quite perfect, that's OK.

You can still count it.

Now, counting it: how to count it.

There's been quite a lot of debate about this.

I actually intended when I wrote this exercise
in the first time I taught it online

that one cycle would be counted as one.

So if you went D to A and then back to D, that would be one.

And everytime you got back to D you'd count.

So you go: (plays) 1,2,3,4,etc.

Now, a lot of people kind of misconstrued that little bit
and they thought it was:

(plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6...

Now, to tell the truth, it doesn't really matter
which one you choose to use.

If you wanna do one whole cycle as counting one
or if you wanna do...you know,

count it each time you change chords at all then that's OK.
It's up to you.

As long as you keep using the same system it's fine.

Now, even though I originally said
one complete cycle is one, I think, probably

it's a bit easier just everytime you change chords
to make your count.

So you're going: (plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6...

So that's probably not a bad way to do it.

I reckon that might be slightly better
but it doesn't really matter.

Now , what's your target?

Well, when you first start trying to do
these 1 Minute Changes, you'll probably find

that you get between six and eight or nine,
that'd be pretty damn good actually,

eight or nine would be the high end
of how many changes people get

in their first 1 Minute Changes.

So, have a little go at picking
each one of the combinations now,

so it'll be D and A, D and E and A and E

and take each one for one minute, see how many
you can get, write it in you practice routine.

The target is 30 complete changes
or if you're counting everytime you change chords

you're aiming for 60 which is one chord change a second.

Now when you get to that sort of speed
you should be able to play your songs

fairly comfortably. So, that's the reason for that.

It's really speed, speed. Trying to get those fingers
moving faster, that's the whole picture, dudes,

and so lots and lots of work on this
and it will lead to good things. I promise you.

So, get into that. Practice hard
and I'll see you for another lesson very soon.

There's one more thing I wanna tell you about

which is how to join me
when we've gotta play something together

and I'll do that usually by counting in.

So normally I'll just count you a "3,4" and then
we would start together on count 1.

That's the normal way of doing things.

Sometimes count a whole bar,
like "1,2,3,4" and then we start.

I think that's a little bit long-winded,
especially in this sort of situation.

So, often I'll just count like - I'll go: "3,4" (plays)
and then we'd start playing at the same time.

So, just watch out for that "3,4" count-along.

OK, let's check out what's in your practice routine.