Practicing Chord Transitions

Let's walk through the process of how to get comfortable with a new chord, and work it into a chord progression!

When you're working with an unfamiliar chord shape, the first thing we want to do is get comfortable playing the chord in isolation. Make the chord, and strum it slowly to make sure every string is ringing.

Once you've got the chord ringing loud and clear, take your hand off the neck, and then make the chord again. Make sure it still sounds good.

Repeat this 10 or 20 times (or many more, if you need) until you're confident and accurate when making the chord shape.

A mistake I see frequently is getting your fingers in position one at a time. At first, for beginners, this is unavoidable. But as we move out of the beginner stage we want to get used to the idea of moving all of our fingers to the correct spot at the same time.

Think about it - when you make the open C chord, for example, we need to use three of our fingers. If you move each finger individually, you have 3 steps to accomplish to make C. Maybe you are very quick at it, but it's still 3 steps - and that will limit you.

We only want to have one step. Our entire hand moves fluidly and simultaneously into the correct spot.

Now that we're friendly with our new chord, we can apply it to a chord progression.

If you didn't learn your new chord from a real song, just choose any other chord - bonus points if the chord you choose is a drastically different shape.

With a set of chords in mind now (or at least 2), simply repeat the progression 10, 20, or more times - with a strong focus on moving the entire hand at once, smoothly between chords. If you aren't able to do this - go back to practicing the unfamiliar chord in isolation.

If after some time of this, you still haven't gotten comfortable with the chord shape - take a break. Work on something else. Come back to it after a short diversion, or even the next day. A break between practice sessions like this is an effective tool for building muscle memory - but you have to actually come back to it for that to work!

This is the fastest and most effective method I have for learning to incorporate a new chord shape into our playing, and it's what I personally use! I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.