Let’s talk about an important topic: Chord changes. How to change chords smoothly and how to implement new chords quickly.

In this video, I will give you ten tips on how to improve your chord changes. Some of these tips will be pretty basic and probably familiar to you, but make sure that you stick around. 

I will give you some of my favorite chord change approaches using the fretted notes of the chords along with the circle of fifths.  

The goal is to add more practical steps between learning the chords and playing them. 

We are going to be using two things: The fingerstyle technique and the circle of fifths. 

Practicing the chords with the fingerstyle technique allows you to isolate the notes of a chord, which can’t be done with the strumming technique. 

If you are a strummer, you can still practice these exercises and improve your chords.  

The Circle of Fifths is a tool that helps us visualize all the natural and altered notes in a circle. We call it Circle of Fifths because all the notes have a distance of a perfect fifth interval. 

If we start with the natural note C, we can move up a fifth and play the G. From the note G, we can go up a fifth and play the D, etc. 

Once we have all the notes, we can then decide to play each one of them as a major or a minor chord. We will be playing the chords in the order given by this circle. 

The Circle of Fifths is a system that forces us to play chords that don’t belong to the same key, which is excellent for developing ear training and muscle memory. 

If you are a beginner, you probably want to practice the chords up to the E major, so you don’t have to deal with bar chords, and as you become better, you can slowly move up the circle. 

We have a lot to cover, so let’s get started. The first three tips will cover the left-hand technique. From tip four, we will dive into more practical exercises.

1. KEEP THE THUMB DOWN LIKE A CLASSICAL GUITAR PLAYER

One of the first steps to change chords faster is to lower your thumb. Keep it down right in the middle. By lowering the thumb, you will instantly improve the control and stretch of your fingers. As you become better with the chord changes, you will be able to bring the thumb up and play the bass note of some chords. However, when you practice the chords, keep it down. 

2.KEEP SPACE BETWEEN THE PALM AND BOTTOM NECK

This should come naturally as soon as you lower the thumb. Now the reason why we need the space between the bottom neck and the palm is that it improves the stability of your hand. When the palm is stuck to the bottom neck, it brings a lot of tension to the muscle and tendons. When you try to change chord, it takes twice the energy and time to do the change because the ligaments are already under stress. So, keep the space between the palm and bottom neck. 

3. PRESS DOWN WITH YOUR FINGERTIP, NOT YOU PHALANGES. 

Make sure you press the string down with the fingertip. This is kind of straightforward, and I am sure you already know that. The problem is, it can happen that when you change chord, your fingers go all over the place, and you press the frets with the wrong part of the finger. Now, I am going to show you how to fix that in tip five, but you must always keep an eye on the way you press these notes. Always use the fingertip. 

4.LEARN THE CHORDS IN FIFTHS

The circle of 5th is a great tool that we can use to practice chords as it allows you to sequence a lot of chords that don’t belong to just one key. 

Play the chords slowly and take your time between the chord change. You can either strum the chords lightly or pluck them with the thumb, index, middle, and ring finger. 

5.FOCUS ON THE FRETTED NOTES

Practice the chords by only playing the fretted notes. Follow the circle of fifths to play each chord. 

6.MOVE THE CHORDS SYMMETRICALLY

If we focus on the fretted notes of the chord, we can move them symmetrically up and down the neck. Now, this is going to improve not only the chord change but also the chord shape. By repeating the same chord many times in different positions, you will naturally improve the muscle memory for this particular chord shape. 

7.MOVE DIFFERENT SHAPES SYMMETRICALLY

We can combine two or more chords and move them symmetrically up and down the neck. 

8.TWO NOTES CHORD

We can make chord changes easier by plucking just two notes of a chord. If I am playing a chord progression such as C, Am, F, and G, I can decide to pluck just the root note of the chord. The most important thing about this approach is that you want to play the notes with the same finger you use when you play the chord. 

In this case, I am simplifying the chords, and I am adding more learning steps that will take me to the final chord.

9.ADD THE 3rd AND 5th TO THE CHORD

Once you have the root note in place, you can then add the third to each chord. And then, the fifth. 

10.REPEAT THE SAME PROCESS WITH THE MINOR CHORDS

Playing all these exercises with the minor chords is more challenging as we have fewer chords in open position. The only minor chords we can play in open positions are the D minor, E minor, and A minor. All the other chords will be played with bar chords or at least four fretted notes. 

FINAL. JUST PLAY! 

The first time I saw Justin Guitar playing the A major like this, I thought it was ridiculous. I never even think of playing the chord as he does. 

Fast forward to now, and you see me playing the A major like this all the time. Sometimes we focus very little on the fingers we use. We learn one chord shape, and we keep it the same no matter what. But you can improve your chord change by being smart with the fingering. If you play a C major going to G major, the best option would be to play it like this. It makes sense compared to playing the G major like this.