E Chord Practice songs

I don't find the E chord comes up all that often for me so I don't give it regular attention. For me the most common PITA is actually D to Em I'm drowning in Drunken Sailors and Waheyed till nothing rises up in the morning .

I'm much the same. If I do find I need to play in E, I either capo 2 or play my ADF#B tuned soprano and play D shapes. I notice a few of my guitarist friends do the same.

In getting Hallelujah into a singable key (for me) I found I needed an E chord. I tried 444x and also E7. I thought E7 sounded better and it made transition to and from the surrounding chords so I went with E7. I was lucky on that occasion because E7 doesn't always work.

I got comfortable with Em by playing G and putting my pinky down on the third string and even now I finger Em with 2nd, 3rd & 4th fingers and I find that also makes D to Em easier. I've recently been trying to play Em with the first three fingers as it's a bit easier on the baritone that way but it's taking time because I often resort to the 2 3 4 finger method.
 
I can personally play the 4442 without any bother but the 1402 drives me nuts, the 4447 isn't too bad but certain combinations make stumble.

C Am F G7 goes
E C#m A B7 and to be honest thats as far as I'm competent to play in E

I don't find the E chord comes up all that often for me so I don't give it regular attention. For me the most common PITA is actually D to Em I'm drowning in Drunken Sailors and Waheyed till nothing rises up in the morning .
I have big fingers and I've always played the D chord with my middle, ring, and pinkie fingers. That leaves my index finger free to sneak down and find the A string. Over time I've gotten to anchoring that A string just as I make the chord change, then I slide it up to where ever I want. It sounds complicated, but actually it isn't, and it has helped getting into the E and the E minor pretty easy. I walk my fingers into the chords that way a lot, and as often as not, I have a finger anchored somewhere in the process. It is not something I do consciously, it just started on its own.

The E chord, to me it is a movable D chord, and once you learn to think of it as such, that A string is all you have to worry about. Also, when you think about it, when you are doing that movable D, that gives you your E, an F, a G, and so on up the neck, dropping the finger on the C string back two frets with the finger on the A string gives you your diminished chords, your minor 6th chords, and a lot of seventh chords. So you see, owning that E is just the first step to a treasure chest for chords. Not being familiar with it puts all those chords out of your reach as well, and most of those are not key or E chords, they are going to show up in all the keys.
 
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I have big fingers and I've always played the D chord with my middle, ring, and pinkie fingers. That leaves my index finger free to sneak down and find the A string. Over time I've gotten to anchoring that A string just as I make the chord change, then I slide it up to where ever I want. It sounds complicated, but actually it isn't, and it has helped getting into the E and the E minor pretty easy. I walk my fingers into the chords that way a lot, and as often as not, I have a finger anchored somewhere in the process. It is not something I do consciously, it just started on its own.

Me too - although my fingers aren't that big, I don't really walk to the E or Em from D but I definitely seek the A string with my index and seek to lead / anchor with my littlest finger. Sometimes when I'm playing well, some chord transitions just seem to happen, that's what I want all of the time, I'd also like to stop being surprised when that happens too :)
 
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For anyone that's interested I've found a couple of good practice songs (both thanks to TenThumbs Productions on youtube. That guy's awesome!). 1st one is House of The Rising Sun using the 1402 E chord and 2nd is Country Roads using the 4442 e chord. Now just practice, practice, practice and hopefully at least one of them sticks (if not both).
 
I made up my own little progression in 4/4 time playing E 2 measures D 2 measures A 2 measures E 2 measures and just repeat that over and over every day as a warm up exercise. If your capable of doing it, I like using barre technique for E, middle finger only for D.
 
If you know this song, it may help you.

Awesome :) I can't believe I've just spent the last half-an-hour playing this over and over. And that Hitachi jingle! Bloody earworm!
 
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Thank you for the reply, jollyboy!

In the key of E, I often have to shift my left finger position one fret up. Same thing often happens with key of G and D. With this shift, I almost can do it. ^^
Fun practice.

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