There are a lot of songs out there for the guitar and most of them involve two chords or more to play. However, the difficult aspect of playing chords isn’t forming them, but transitioning between them.
Once you master the technique of transitioning smoothly between two chords, you can really present yourself as a professional when you play any guitar tunes. Here are a few tips to improve your chord transitions when you play the guitar.
1. Know the chords before you play them.
When you learn guitar chords to play, your fingers know exactly where they need to be when the time comes to play. If your fingers hesitate before they make it to the next chord, work on solidifying those chords into the memory of your fingers so that you can form them with your eyes closed.
2. Work through the progressions slowly.
We all know that you’re going to need to play fast eventually, but now is not the time when you’re developing smooth chord transitions. Practice at a tempo that allows you to play a progression perfectly before you decide to increase the speed.
3. Plan the path of your fingers.
Sometimes a couple chords might have your fingers tripping over each other on their way to the next chord formation. Plan where you’re going to place your fingers next and how they’re going to get there in order to avoid your fingers getting tangled up in the process.
4. Go between two chords over and over again.
A little monotony isn’t a bad thing when you have a difficult set of chords to get through and you might need to bite the bullet and hash it out. When two chords can’t seem to transition, play between those chords over and over again to ingrain them into your muscle memory.
5. Place your fingers on the frets simultaneously.
Learning chords to play can get you into a habit of placing your fingers on the frets one at a time, but you’ll be slowing down your technique. When you form a chord, practice placing all of your fingers on the strings at the same time.
This will shorten the amount of time you need to play each chord and increase your playing speed overall.
6. Strum through the transitions.
There are going to be subtle hesitations between each chord when you first begin, but you need to continue to strum through the pauses. If a pause is only for half a second, playing through it gives a more fluent feel to the progression.
Whether you like it or not, you’re going to need to learn to play guitar chords because they’re everywhere. Focus on creating very smooth transitions and fluent formations and your audience will start to recognize you as a professional.
