Struggle with chord switch

[Shivanshu]

Hi Guys,

I know you’ve seen/heard this question many times before, and the answers are pretty much the standard ones, like “Keep practising”, “Break it down to small sections”, “Go back and work on one chord at a time”, “imagine the next chord change in your mind first” and so on, but I’d still ask.

I’m on Beginners journey, section 5, trying to switch between chords. Problems are:

1. Right hand breaks the rhythm, while I focus on switching chords, completely wrecking the song rhythm.

2. While switching, I either press the wrong strings for a chord or they buzz/mute, cos fingers are too far/close to the frets.

Playing from last 9 months and progress is completely halted. Can’t play any songs normally. Any advices, from your own experiences, as to what to do for this?

Thanks,

S

Discussion

[Tomas]

Hi Shivanshu,

Hah… you’re right on track according to my timeline.

Read the section on 6 – 12 months: https://www.tomasmichaud.com/how-long-to-learn-guitar/

It might be a good time to review.

[Shivanshu]

Hello Tomas,

Thank you for sharing the link with me. It helped boosting up the confidence. I found that I was trying too hard, so I took a break of 2 days, and then started with the basics, Spider walk and scales. What I found that a relaxed mind helps to play better chords.

What I also realised that my left shoulder was getting too much stiff while playing the chords, leading to too much tension while changing, along with irregular breathing. I’m currently working on removing the stiffness problem and I also make sure that I’m totally relaxed and breathing while changing chords and it’s working.

Thank you so much for the break down and the course. I’ll keep you updated about the progress.

Thank you,

[Author]

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