Chord Changes

liquid_wind

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I have been playing about a week, but I can't seem to get chords very well it takes a while to figure the best fingering for each tab. Are there any good exercises to help learn these.
 
hey, when I first started it took me ages to learn how to change chords. I had to physically use my right hand to put my fingers on some chords! I could strum one chord then it would take about 10 seconds to finger the next chord. Now I can do all of that easily and I can learn new patterns and things quite quickly.

The best idea in my opinion is to keep up the practice and just remember that you're starting out at something from the start and won't be excellent without practice. That helped keep me sane.

You might want to pick a song with few chord changes, or even just practice strumming and changing between a C then G then F then E minor! A good song for this is Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I have the chords for all of that if you want it. This is the first song I learned properly.

In respect of chord fingerings the best plan is to try and watch someone doing it on youtube. I often download the video using realplayer then slow it down and copy how that person does it from there. There are tonnes of tabs here that people are willing to help with. Start by searching using the button at the top of the page, the answer may already be there. If all else fails simply ask someone at the forum and they'll help out.

Welcome to the forum!
 
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It will all come to you if you keep practicing! Also watch all the tutorial videos online here at UU, Aldrine always explains where to put which finger. If you keep playing that stuff, your muscles will some day take over and you won't need to think anymore when playing the chords.
 
Don't get discouraged

Don't get discouraged. You have to develop muscle and eye hand coordination when using something that is sensitive to touch, your instrument.

One week is not enough, physiologically, to accomplish this. Your dendrites/neurons of the synapse connections in your brain need time to develop, reinforce signals and mature. Also, through repitition your muscles will develop "memory". In theory, even if you cut your head off, your hand muscles would still move to the next chord (for a short while while blood is still supplied to the muscles. Have you ever seen a chicken run around with it's head cut off?). Muscle memory is also very useful if you have drank too much beer.

If you continue you will get better and will reach the point when you can switch chords and not even think about. If I were you I would make sure you deep six playing by looking at the music and play by memory/ear else you will never get very much better.

By reference it took me almost three weeks before I was adept at changing chords.
 
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I started playing Uke in June and I still have issues with some chord switching, especialy chords I know to chords I am learning.

I still have a hard time learning a new song even if it is chords I know just in a different chord pattren ie: C Em Am G Jack Johnsons "Breakdown" or G Em C Am Donavan Frankenreiters "Free".

It will come to you what works for me is to just work on a chord switch, say G to BbDim till it comes then and a chord like D7 till you get that then toss in a Am and you are now plaing "Keep your eyes on the hands".
I'll do one down strum till I get the switch then 2 down then down up down between switches and so on...

Like all good things it takes time find some songs you like and play and play.

You will be suprised how fast you will pick it up then you find chords that are the same fingering even thou they have different names like the Bbdim is C#dim and E6 is C#m6 and all the others then the first position, second position and the others and so on and on ...
 
Are there any sort of techniques you use to switch chords faster, or is it just practice?

I am having a lot of trouble switching to the G chord. For instance, I can go from G to C easily, but I have a difficult time going from C to G. My timing has gone down a little bit since i started playing, but I am still having a hard time.

I played guitar a long time ago, and I remember having a similar problem. After playing for about a year I still was slow to switch chords. I realize that practice does help you get faster, but if my ukulele experience mimics my guitar experience at all, it'll take me much longer than 3 weeks to learn to switch chords.
 
Are there any sort of techniques you use to switch chords faster, or is it just practice?

Here's what I did: I found a handful of chords I had trouble switching between and just kept playing them over and over and over, until it came naturally. Start out very slow, switch between the chords that give you the most trouble and when you can do that without mistake, increase your speed. Before you know it, you'll be able to do it without thinking about it.
 
Here's what I did: I found a handful of chords I had trouble switching between and just kept playing them over and over and over, until it came naturally. Start out very slow, switch between the chords that give you the most trouble and when you can do that without mistake, increase your speed. Before you know it, you'll be able to do it without thinking about it.

I did the same thing. If there was a part of a song with a troublesome chord progression, I just strummed each chord once, switched to the next and kept doing that until I got the progression down comfortably (forget about the strumming pattern and actually playing the song for the time being). Just work on switching from one chord to the next.
 
Start out very slow, switch between the chords that give you the most trouble and when you can do that without mistake, increase your speed.

Yes. Make haste slowly.

It's not a race, and if you keep practicing too quickly -- with all the mistakes - what you'll end up doing is training your muscle memory incorrectly.

The chord changing thing will come. Make haste slowly.
 
I have been playing about a week, but I can't seem to get chords very well it takes a while to figure the best fingering for each tab. Are there any good exercises to help learn these.

Confidence is a good teacher. Start with a couple of chords like C, G, F. Get your hand trained to go to each position. Strum a few times on each chord, then go to the next. Actually, C -- F -- C -- G -repeat- sounds good. Keep doing it.

After you get to where you can change positions reasonably fast, then start changing up the timing. Once you realize that it can be done (and you are doing it! ie, CONFIDENCE), playing is a simple matter of learning the shape of other chords and progressions for other songs.

Yeah, it's called practice. But it's good fun, too.
 
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