[ronzov]

I have been trying to teach myself to play for a few weeks now, and am having a hard time changing between cords. I know what cord I want to play in my head but my fingers aren't paying any attention. How long does this process normally take a person to learn, I want to learn badly but this is %&%$#&% me off.

[allthumbs]

Try this lesson.Playing Chords

[Dhaygood]

If you have Patience, relax, and go slow it will come alot quicker than trying to force it. This is natural when you're first starting. You're fingers will soon start remembering.

[Calvin08]

I have only been playing for about 2 weeks now and can transition to and from the chords I know, which is roughly around 9 or 10 I think.

What helped me was going slow and watching the transition to see what your fingers need to do. This will train your brain to know where to move the fingers on command.

Hope my two cents was worth while.

[starsailor]

+1 to Calvin, take it slowly ronzov, use the chords you know and put some runs together, use part of your practice putting these together and do a few a day and gradually the speed will come, if you can find an easy song to practice with 3 chords this will help your speed and being able to play a song will boost your confidence, once you've nailed a chord run it tends to stick but it is important to relax, the beginners biggest enemy is frustration so there must always be an element of fun in your practice, hope this helps in some way.

Best Wishes

Chris

[Mattbmusic]

As with most things with Guitar...You have to go slow to go fast. Start very slow and gradually work your way up.

You mentioned that you fingers arn't doing what they're suppose to. That's because you're teaching them to do something. Believe it or not it takes between 20 - 80 repititions for muscle memory and your brain to work together.

Start off with some easy chord transitions such as:

Switch from G to Em
Switch from C to Am

Then put them all together

Here are a few more:

E to A
A to D

Break everything down to simple tasks and then build.

You'll get it!
~Matt

[Stratrat]

Just like anything involving fine motor skills, it takes time to build "muscle memory". This is why golfers spend hours upon hours working on their golf swing, baseball players put a lot of time in batting practice, etc. You have to train your fingers where to go on the fretboard to form chords and develop the muscle memory that allows you to do it without having to think about it. Eventually when you think of a 'G' chord it's not "hmmm, this finger goes here.....this one goes here, no, here...." - your fingers "know" the shape of a 'G' chord and you can just do it. That takes a lot of time and practice - if you've only been playing for a few weeks, just have patience and keep at it, you'll get it!

[ragser]

All I can say is. Learning how to change between chords sucks. It really drove me mad at first since I knew how to do it but as you say, the fingers just won't listen. Fortunately, you will learn this pretty quick if you're just patient and take it slow.

[felixdcat]

Just take 2 chords - e.g. G and Em. First start slowly, always relaxed and practice them with minimum movement. Do it until you get the two, then switch to another.

[murphaph]

It's also fair to say that once you break the back of them it's not as slow a process for all time. You get faster at learning new chords. I can still vividly remember being totally unable to even form a D chord, nevermind switch between A and D (my first song). It seems impossible at first but you just keep doing it slowly and then the fingers remember somehow. It's actually weird how these things work!