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help on strumming please
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Subject: help on strumming please From: ermintrudeclaire Date: 09 Jul 01 - 04:03 PM I am currently trying to learn to play the guitar and am doing ok on the picking side but I can get the strum rhythum right. Each time i change a chord i have to pause the strum to get my fingers to line up...any tips or should i just give up! How long did people take to learn to play guitar (i know, you're always learning, but how long to actually play a recognisable tune?) |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: UB Ed Date: 09 Jul 01 - 04:06 PM Keep it up Claire; its a rhythm you'll get with practice. What did you ever do about your strap? |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Clinton Hammond Date: 09 Jul 01 - 04:07 PM This sounds like not so much a strum problem, but a fretting problem... It takes some good time to get yer left hand to move from one chord to another quickly and efficently... just keep at it, and it'll come sooner or later... |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: mousethief Date: 09 Jul 01 - 04:09 PM Practice, practice, practice. Soon you'll be wondering what you ever thought was difficult! But at first, it does seem painfully slow and awkward shifting chords. And it happens every time you learn a new chord form, for as long as you play guitar. To me, anyway. Keep plugging! Don't give up! Alex |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 09 Jul 01 - 05:55 PM How long? I suppose it depends how old you are when you start.The older you are the longer that kind of thing takes.
I can't remember, but I think it'd have been about a year as a young adult. That's a long time ago. I seem to remember going an an anti-bomb march one Easter, and wishing I could play the songs. And next year I was, just about. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: GUEST,RichM Date: 09 Jul 01 - 06:12 PM And remember to relax your hand. Beginners have a tendency to really clamp down on a chord. (I just made this chord, and byjeez, I ain't letting it go till it squeals). Let your hand relax at least every minute or so. Open it and gently shake it. What you eventually (hopefully sooner) learn is to press down with the minimum force needed. Your hand needs to learn to float between chords. If your fretting hand feels sore or tired, stop. Learning guitar is as much a physical exercise as a mental one.* Good luck, and know that we all went through this initial phase. Rich McCarthy |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 09 Jul 01 - 06:15 PM And lots of other people did, and didn't stick with it, and they wish they had. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Grab Date: 09 Jul 01 - 06:42 PM Some chords, the empty space in between isn't a big deal - the strings are either damped by your fingers as you change chords or make something which is recognisably OK in between. A classic example would be all or most fingers off an A chord on the up-stroke, then play A normally on the down-stroke. If it sounds intentional, you'll get away with it! :-) Don't make this a crutch though - ultimately, you do need to be able to change cleanly to do this convincingly. If you use a strumming rhythm like "down-up-down-up-down-rest" for 3/4, you can change in the rest without anyone hearing. For starting, just do something slow and easy with only 2 or 3 chords, like Clementine or Amazing Grace, just with down-strums, and don't rush it. The classic mistake is to play quickly when you've got the chord there, then a 5-second pause while you change, then another few bars - the best answer when you want to do a song, especially when you're singing, is to play at a speed you can do consistently, including the time taken for changes. Trust us, it will speed up. Time-wise, I think it took me about 6 months to get 3 basic chords pretty sorted. Not that I stayed playing 3 chords all that time - I'd gone through other new and interesting chords to screw up, like B7, and progressed onto cocking up F and Bm in a random fashion. And to get a strummed tune that was recognisably what I wanted, and at the speed I wanted - hmm, maybe a couple of months. But I was still playing the other stuff, and it wasn't until 6 months or so later that I could consistently finger-pick those same basic chords with any sort of consistency. Finger-picking is the more stringent test - chords will still sound if one or more of your fingers aren't in place, but finger-picking just won't do anything! One thing to remember. Playing guitar is like playing chess. You need to learn what all the moves and rules are, and for a while when you're learning you forget how to do stuff. It doesn't take long to learn it though, and anyone can learn the basic moves and play a roughly OK game (or song). But to play really well at the world level - that's where natural talent and years of practice comes in! Rick Fielding's got it, Clinton's good too - me, I'll never get paid for doing what I do! :-) Doesn't stop it being damn good fun though... Graham. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Mountain Dog Date: 09 Jul 01 - 06:44 PM One piece of advice given to me by a friend years ago has served me well with regard to better fretting.* Keep your fingers as close to the fingerboard as you can while repositioning; this means they don't have to travel as far from one chord shape to the next and it can help to keep both fatigue and frustration in check. (My buddy gently made this suggestion when he noticed that my fingers had a marked tendency to rear back from the neck like an outraged tarantula whilst seeking the next chord. After lots of practice and assiduous application of his suggestion, my fingers still manage to make plenty of mistakes, but at least now they now scuttle swiftly across the fingerboard like a water-strider on a placid pond...) |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Angie Date: 09 Jul 01 - 07:19 PM oh dear, i have taken four months to be able to play four chords in less than a minute....i think i'll stick to the whistle |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 09 Jul 01 - 07:27 PM Four chords is ample, especially if you've got a good capo. Four chords in a minute in only four moths? That sounds ok to me.
There are lots of songs you can do with one chord anyway. Especially if you supplement the chord with silence at the appropriate bits. You can pretend it's for dramatic effect. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: shankmac Date: 10 Jul 01 - 10:11 AM Try starting to change the chord before the down stroke. It usually does not matter so much if you have all your fingers clear of the strings on the up stroke, giving you time to hit the chord on the down. Through time the change will happen automatically so keep going. Remember its difficult to play whistle and sing at the same time and there is nothing as good as singing out loud. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: dwditty Date: 10 Jul 01 - 10:24 AM ClintonHammond is right. The muscles must learn how to do what your brain wants them to. No different than learning to walk or talk as a child. Keep at it. Just sit for hours at a time, strumming slowly, while going from one chord to another. After about a week, add a third chord, and so on. As mousetheif said, you'll look back and wonder what the big deal was. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: dwditty Date: 10 Jul 01 - 10:25 AM Or, forget strumming and learn to fingerpick. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: A Wandering Minstrel Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:26 AM McGrath, You are never too old to learn, After playing guitar for near 30 years I found a song with a Csus in it the other day! Claire, It has to be practice I'm afraid. However, Try starting out with chords that have minimal finger-positioning change A-D or Am-Em til you can do it without looking. Then build up to say Am-C and then to more complex finger changes such as C-G. Then add in a third change say Am-C-G or C-G-D. Hey now you can play a whole slew of tunes! best of luck AWM |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: SINSULL Date: 10 Jul 01 - 12:40 PM So how come my teacher has given me the F to C change to start with along with G7, G, Am, and I forget the sixth? Sadism? |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: GUEST,RichM Date: 10 Jul 01 - 01:03 PM Sinsull, you'll find moving from a particular chord--say F to C--may be more difficult than other chords at first.
Keep at it, it does get easier with time. Remember, if your fretting hand feels cramped, stop and rest for a minute or so. Rich |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: ermintrudeclaire Date: 11 Jul 01 - 06:14 AM Thank you everyone - your support and advice makes me want to carry on! I have a really good guitar teacher who beleives in doing a bit of everything to keep it interesting so I am doing some fingerpicking as well and scales (find scales the easiest at the moment) Rich McCarthy- you are right my fingers do really ache - i will attempt not to assasinate the guitar in future. UB Ed - I took the plunge and drilled a hole in the plastic cap on the heel of the guitar (think it is the heel....) and have also bought myself a nice soft strap with multicoloured froggies on it. (I am just a big kid really!) thanks again folks.. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 11 Jul 01 - 07:53 AM its difficult to play whistle and sing at the same time
You can say that again! You'd have to have two heads to do that kind of thing. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: canoer Date: 11 Jul 01 - 08:11 AM Claire, one thing I do (when I remember to) is to look ahead one chord. For instance, as soon as I have the A secure, I look to see that the next will be a D. When I get to the point of actually changing to D, looking ahead seems to provide my hand a jump-start of sorts. This is in addition to trying to apply the good advice already given above. --LarryC |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:37 AM When I taught myself guitar, I started with a folk guitar method book. It wanted me to get all the fingers down at once for each chord. It wasn't working. So I went back to the music store and bought a classical guitar book. (I had had piano and knew the notes that go into the chords.) Given the classical book, I understood the instrument much better and was able to "construct" the chords one finger at a time while strumming. In a few months I had their locations down so well I was able to hit every chord all at once. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Amos Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:43 AM ANother thing that helps is to visualize the fingerings when you're otherwise idle -- preparing for sleep especially -- imagine it extra large with all the strings held down exactly right and changing smoothly from chord to chord. The cogntiive part smooths out remarkably fast doing this kind of drill in odd moments and the physical part follows nicely along after. Same for finerpicking patterns for the right hand. Luck and godspeed, A |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Don Firth Date: 12 Jul 01 - 10:56 AM GUEST,leeneia's suggestion is a good one. Classic guitarists don't always play block chords as folk guitarists usually do. They play only the notes they actually need at any given point, thus they can "walk" their left-hand fingers around the fingerboard. I've noticed that the best folk guitarists, especially fingerpickers, tend to do the same thing. The nice thing about getting acquainted with classic guitar technique, even for playing folk guitar, is that classic technique is the most efficient way of playing. This is not just because it's "classic technique," but because classical music on the guitar can get extremely complex and difficult. Classic guitarists have to find the most efficient way to do it. But above all, keep the left hand as relaxed as possible (which may sound ridiculous at this point) and don't use more pressure on the strings than you need. Keep at it, and have fun! Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Marion Date: 12 Jul 01 - 11:36 AM Claire, you might also want to take a hard look at how you're fingering the chords - in many cases you have a few options, but one option might be better than others in terms of how fluently it allows you to change to the other chords you're likely to want to change it to. For example, both G and A have an easier, more intuitive fingering and a harder, less intuitive fingering (in isolation)... but in both cases the second way is more practical precisely because it makes changes more fluent. Don't hesitate to ask here for advice on fingering a specific chord or specific chord change (start a new thread for it though). We've had many a great thread dedicated to a single chord. And McGrath, you don't need two heads - you just need to be able to use your nose. When I was a rotten kid, I taught myself to play recorder duets, one recorder to each nostril... Marion |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: Bert Date: 12 Jul 01 - 11:45 AM Although I'm the last person to be giving guitar advice. Here it is anyway from someone who fakes it all the time. Practice the chord changes, the finger positions only without strumming or picking. Start simple, D to A7 to D to A7 just moving your fingers back and forth and forming the chord, press the strings down but don't strum. You can do this silently while everyone else in watching TV. And when you are strumming, remember what Shankmac just said, "Try starting to change the chord before the down stroke." If you start your fingers moving ahead of time then they'll be in position when you need them. |
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Subject: RE: help on strumming please From: GUEST,RichM Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:08 PM Marion, you have a *nose* for music, it seems :) Rich |
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