Now just for review let's go back to the C chord.
We've still got that one ringing nice and clear and then the G chord.
I hope you see something on your own between those two chords.
Watch this transition again.
C.
G.
There is a very specific reason why I taught you to fret the notes on a G chord in this shape.
There's other ways you can do it.
The way I was taught when I was really small was this way.
That also works and in fact I use it. I will show you during the course of my lessons several different ways to fret each chord and I do use them all.
There's usually one that is the most common one or the one I use the most.
If you're playing a long jam session
and your hands are getting tired one of the ways you can prevent cramps is to switch around how you're fretting these notes.
It's all legal. There's no hard and fast rules here.
The rule is don't kill strings and don't hurt your hand so whichever one is more comfortable for you is going to be the one that you settle on
but watch this again.
We came from a C chord and we need to pull off a transition here relatively smoothly and quickly
and going from that C chord to this new G chord, there's not a lot of movement there.
I pay attention to which fingers are moving to where and what's the minimum amount they can possibly move to get the job done.
If you notice all you're doing from the C chord, these two fingers stay in precisely the same shape, they stay in the same fret,
they both just lift up and move down a string.
Pay attention to that because that's actually something that's saving you time, saving you effort
and it also helps you remember where you're going next.
This is a pretty smooth transition.
All we're doing is this. That's the biggest part of the job. Two of the notes are done. This one comes up, this one goes down.
That's a nice transition between those two chords and then you probably can tell they're related.
These chords are in the same key and we'll talk more about that in a little bit.
Here you go. C. G.
This will be a place where I encourage you to stop the tape and take a little time doing exactly this.
Strum four times on a C. Then a G four times.
At first you will need to pause a little bit and find your fingers and that's ok
but what your goal is here is to have that right hand stay on the same rhythm.
You're going to be tapping your foot and you're going to be counting and there's going to be no pause between those chords.
That's success. That's what we're going for.
Again, focus on the fact that there's not a lot of movement here.
The shapes are new to you. The calluses are new to you but what's going on down here is a relatively minimal amount of movement.
Teach your mind to think that way.
This is not hard it is just new and that you fix with practice.
What I'd like you to do now is practice off the tape and do it exactly like this or do it with me if you'd like.
We're going to count four strums on each chord and switch back and forth.
It goes like this.
One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
Again, the goal is this hand becomes a metronome it's doing the same pace and it's not waiting for lefty over here to get the chord change done.
When you've got that done or you're really close come back and undo the pause button and we'll move on.