Ok.
By now you've got three chords, a little bit of a pretend song to practice with me on and maybe you've gotten this far in the lesson and you're
about to toss your guitar in the fireplace because this is hard, it hurts, it doesn't feel natural and maybe it's just going slower than you would like.
Alright let's talk about that for a second.
Remember what we've said.
This is new to your hand, the stretching is new and your calluses are not quite there yet.
Maybe if you're a smaller player and you feel like this is a great big neck and it's hard to reach around it, this is a lot at once and I understand that.
Time will improve this, the basics are all right here, what you need to know
but if it's just so much that your practices are having to be really short because it's too quick or you get tired out or frustrated.
Whatever the case may be.
Let's take a look at a little bit of a shortcut that we can take now and ease up a little bit.
Let's start with that big bad G chord. All six strings.
That is a mouthful.
That is a big chord and if that stretch particularly this one right here is giving you a bad time, let's back off and turn that into a little chord.
That looks like this.
We'll play with the third finger back where it belongs on the third fret and that's all we're going to do and we're only going to play three strings.
This is a little baby G chord alright. Three strings.
What we've done is we've taken the work load off of the left hand
and we've told the right hand listen you better only hit three strings
because if you start wandering around you aren't going to like what we get.
So three strings only and one finger over here only.
That's your baby G chord and guess what? We have a baby C chord we can put with this.
It's also only one finger, it's a C note by the way. This was a G note, here's our C note.
Three strings only for your baby C chord and if your right hand stays in bounds over here and only plays three strings it sounds pretty good.
If the right hand wanders it's a little bad. So three strings only.
Then with the D chord, I'm sorry, there's not a lot we can do with that but you can drop it to a two fingered version.
That's really tiny but this chord is not usually one that gives people trouble.
So let's try three string version of all of those.
This is our G.
Our C, one finger on the first fret on the second string. Take a look at the chord chart.
Our little baby C chord.
Then the D. Let's go ahead and get them all.
It's not too bad. They are recognizable, you can still tell it's the key to G and you can do that with the song that I played for you earlier.
Same thing works, go back and play the song with just these and get these transitions down.
Now if that's too much of a small step for you or that helps and you want to go a little farther then we can add more.
You could try adding those two.
Remember the big G chord looks like this so maybe that ring finger is the one giving you trouble, start here.
Leave this one out of the picture. No big string on the bottom.
Ok, that works.
That's a G chord.
What we're trying to do right now is ease your left hand into this if it's too much at once.
There's a nice four string version of the C chord.
Remember the full one looks like this. Let's leave that ring finger out because it's the trouble maker.
So now we've got four and five string versions of everything and it looks like this.
Four strings on our C.
Now the D, it's easy.
Then back to five strings.
Now go back for all of them and get that ring finger back on the job when you're ready.
I'll say it one more time. Don't play until it hurts.
It takes time for your calluses to develop and people get a lot of questions about what these things really are
because my calluses right now you can see from the playing I'm doing.
You can see indentations in the tips of my fingers.
It's not painful and it's not uncomfortable but they don't have to look nasty either.
A couple hours after I'm done playing your finger reshapes itself and they're done.
Mine don't tend to be dry.
Calluses don't have to be dry, flaky, nasty looking things it's just basically a toughened up portion of your skin that can handle this.
If you're playing a nylon string guitar this should go a little bit faster for you.
It doesn't quite require the calluses that these do for two reasons.
One is the strings are not as abrasive and second of all the strings are softer.
It's easier to fret a note without buzzing
and you end up finding out that it requires a lot less mashing your finger into the string to make a good sound.
If you're playing with a steel string plan on this taking some time.
Don't be impatient with it and do not play until it hurts.
If you play until it hurts what tends to happen is your technique will actually get worse.
You stop learning good things and you start learning bad habits that you'll have to undo later so I really don't encourage that.
In terms of dealing with your hands cramping that's obviously a muscle strength and stamina issue.
We talked about this in an earlier lesson but pay attention to your thumb position as you're fretting these chords.
You'll notice as I play my thumb waves up here a lot and I get away with that
because I have the hand strength to do it and my fingers relatively know how to fret strings without too much buzzing going on.
So I can get away with that. Plus it's nice to be able to reach over the top and fret a bass note that way.
I do it on purpose.
However, when you're learning
or if you're taking strict traditional classical style they will ask you to drop your thumb down like it's on a button behind the fret
and one of the advantages of that is that it opens your hand up, it points your fingers straight into the fret board
and it actually puts your muscles in a little bit different position so you can switch back and forth .
If you're starting to cramp trying to do this drop that thumb, try some of your repetitions in a little bit different position.
In my opinion that's not confusing because you will use different hand positions anyway.
Just like I talked about earlier you will use different ways of fretting a chord.
One day you might play a G like this another day you might play a G like this.
As I said, you're not breaking any rules that is using what works.
Sometimes what works is what sounds right.
Sometimes what works is when you get tired and you have to move to keep playing.
That also works it's the same notes and the same jobs getting done so don't be afraid to experiment a little bit with positioning your hands.
I think probably the biggest mistake beginners are inclined to make is because playing guitar is hard work and you've got to try really hard so
what you do is you get tense and you push too hard or you squeeze too hard and that will hurt in a fairly short order.
So if you're having hand cramps go back through the next time you practice and consciously focus on relaxing.
Take a little loop through our circle of chords, maybe make one trip and when you get back home to the G chord take your fingers completely off
the guitar and stretch them out a little bit, give them a break and then go again.
That actually has two advantages.
One is it gives your fingers a rest and second of all it forces your fingers to start thinking, I came from clear down here and I have to get to a G chord.
Did I know where to go? How good is that picture in my mind?
How good is the muscle memory to find that chord when you've come from completely somewhere else?
It's got two advantages and that's a nice exercise to work on and it'll probably minimize the cramps you're having.
If your cramps are really bad, what works for me and your mileage may vary
but one thing I like to do before or after I practice just take my hands and stick them in the hottest water possible they can stand.
Which really has the effect of nothing more than warming up and loosening up your muscles and tendons and that can help to.
Experiment with that but most of all caution, caution, caution be careful you are not overdoing this.
Don't stress about this.
Guitar playing is supposed to be fun and relaxing even when you're learning something.
If you're in pain back off and take a deep breath and try to enjoy it.
Ok. I hope the troubleshooting section helps you a little bit if it does not one of the things I like about JamPlay
is that you can write in to me or one of the other instructors and say " I'm still frustrated, I'm still having problems
and describe what the problem is that you're having and we can answer it on the forum or even in another video.
Let me know how you're doing.
Work on those transitions and I hope to see you again on the next lesson.
Thank you very much.