A fun way to train on chords.

SailingUke said:

This is a great idea, but you should pick chords that are in the same key, else you might be transitioning between chords you would not see in a song.
Uncle Rod's boot camp uses practice sheets made up from songs.
My suggestion is you pick a chord progression from the hat, not individual chords.
Example C-Am-Dm-F-C (I,vi,ii,V,I) do it in different keys.

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Icelander53 said:

My training partner suggested this and I didn't think that much of the idea at first but we tried it and found it to be excellent for our chord training.

It's a simple idea and I'm sure many already use it and I'm pretty sure it's been posted here before but I haven't come acrossed it so I'll just put it out there for beginners to try.

We wrote down the chords we know on little pieces of paper ( 20 or so for us at this point) We put them in a paper bag and take turns picking blind three chords at a time. Then we put on the metronome, choosing a speed based on the difficulty of the chords and then play them over in order about 20 times or so. We work through the whole bag every practice session and it's making a very noticeable difference in our chord transitioning, speed, and smoothness. The combinations are different every time and that is really great for learning how to move between chords.

Maybe this will help you also. I hope so.

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SailingUke said:

This is a great idea, but you should pick chords that are in the same key, else you might be transitioning between chords you would not see in a song.
Uncle Rod's boot camp uses practice sheets made up from songs.
My suggestion is you pick a chord progression from the hat, not individual chords.
Example C-Am-Dm-F-C (I,vi,ii,V,I) do it in different keys.

Click to expand...

SailingUke said:

This is a great idea, but you should pick chords that are in the same key, else you might be transitioning between chords you would not see in a song.
Uncle Rod's boot camp uses practice sheets made up from songs.
My suggestion is you pick a chord progression from the hat, not individual chords.
Example C-Am-Dm-F-C (I,vi,ii,V,I) do it in different keys.

Click to expand...

OldePhart said:

Probably the most efficient approach is to create several sets containing the chords for a particular key...and only those chords. Then use your draw from a hat idea to create different progressions of those chords. The reason that this is probably more efficient than drawing all chords, or drawing a predefined sequence, is that this will let you learn all sequences of chords likely to be found in a key.

In the first case you end up practicing a lot of transitions that you will literally never use in real life. In the second case you can easily get stuck in a rut playing something like C G Am F too much and think you're making great progress...until you encounter a song where you have to play a transition from C to F!

So, for the key of C, for example, you would have a hat with C Dm Em F G G7 Am (we'll look at Bdim and some variations of the other chords, later). Now, I'd have about 20 C chords, 7 F, 4 G, 4 G7, 4 Am, 2 Dm, and 1 Em in your hat. Pull them out for different arrangements as you described. In addition to learning to transition between chords, you will be training your ear to recognize what the key of C sounds like.

You can do the same in other popular keys. For pop music this will most likely be the keys of G, D, A, and E.

When that starts to get boring, add a Bdim to your "key of C hat". To begin to get a jazzy feel, throw in maj7 chords for C and F and dominant 7 chords for G, Am7. Just a few, to start, then you can toss in more. Do similar (with appropriate chords of course) to your other key hats.

Just a thought.

John

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Originally Posted by SailingUke

This is a great idea, but you should pick chords that are in the same key, else you might be transitioning between chords you would not see in a song.
Uncle Rod's boot camp uses practice sheets made up from songs.
My suggestion is you pick a chord progression from the hat, not individual chords.
Example C-Am-Dm-F-C (I,vi,ii,V,I) do it in different keys.

peaceweaver3 said:

I like both ideas.

In the progression above, F is the iv chord.

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OldePhart said:

Probably the most efficient approach is to create several sets containing the chords for a particular key...and only those chords. Then use your draw from a hat idea to create different progressions of those chords. The reason that this is probably more efficient than drawing all chords, or drawing a predefined sequence, is that this will let you learn all sequences of chords likely to be found in a key.

In the first case you end up practicing a lot of transitions that you will literally never use in real life. In the second case you can easily get stuck in a rut playing something like C G Am F too much and think you're making great progress...until you encounter a song where you have to play a transition from C to F!

So, for the key of C, for example, you would have a hat with C Dm Em F G G7 Am (we'll look at Bdim and some variations of the other chords, later). Now, I'd have about 20 C chords, 7 F, 4 G, 4 G7, 4 Am, 2 Dm, and 1 Em in your hat. Pull them out for different arrangements as you described. In addition to learning to transition between chords, you will be training your ear to recognize what the key of C sounds like.

You can do the same in other popular keys. For pop music this will most likely be the keys of G, D, A, and E.

When that starts to get boring, add a Bdim to your "key of C hat". To begin to get a jazzy feel, throw in maj7 chords for C and F and dominant 7 chords for G, Am7. Just a few, to start, then you can toss in more. Do similar (with appropriate chords of course) to your other key hats.

Just a thought.

John

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fretie said:

OldePhart that's a great suggestion for chord practice.

Do you have any similar ideas for practicing common chords in the second and third position?

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Uke-Conn said:

There are just loads of resources here, plus Justin is a genuinely fun, enthusiastic and engaging kind of guy.

http://justinguitar.com/

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OldePhart said:

Probably the most efficient approach is to create several sets containing the chords for a particular key...and only those chords. Then use your draw from a hat idea to create different progressions of those chords. The reason that this is probably more efficient than drawing all chords, or drawing a predefined sequence, is that this will let you learn all sequences of chords likely to be found in a key.

In the first case you end up practicing a lot of transitions that you will literally never use in real life. In the second case you can easily get stuck in a rut playing something like C G Am F too much and think you're making great progress...until you encounter a song where you have to play a transition from C to F!

So, for the key of C, for example, you would have a hat with C Dm Em F G G7 Am (we'll look at Bdim and some variations of the other chords, later). Now, I'd have about 20 C chords, 7 F, 4 G, 4 G7, 4 Am, 2 Dm, and 1 Em in your hat. Pull them out for different arrangements as you described. In addition to learning to transition between chords, you will be training your ear to recognize what the key of C sounds like.

You can do the same in other popular keys. For pop music this will most likely be the keys of G, D, A, and E.

When that starts to get boring, add a Bdim to your "key of C hat". To begin to get a jazzy feel, throw in maj7 chords for C and F and dominant 7 chords for G, Am7. Just a few, to start, then you can toss in more. Do similar (with appropriate chords of course) to your other key hats.

Just a thought.

John

Click to expand...