Quote:
Originally Posted by Goat Mick
Here's what I did when I was first learning to play. Every night when I sat down to watch TV I would have a guitar on my lap. While watching TV and not focusing as hard on the guitar I would make the chord shapes and just give it a quite strum with my thumb to make sure all the notes rang out clearly. After a while the chords would come easily and I wouldn't have to concentrate so much on fingering the chord. This is something you need to do in addition to your normal practice time and it helps if it's football season.  |
That's so funny. That's
exactly what I did when I was starting out. I love sports, but get impatient just watching entire games --I feel like I'm wasting time. But then, when I started quietly practice my chords while watching, I felt I could watch an entire game AND accomplish something important.
Anyway, back to the OP question. I just want to echo some of the great advice so far:
Justin Guitar's "one minute chord changes" are an awesome exercise.
The step up metronome thing is also great -- plus it also gets you used to playing to a metronome (very important)
But I want to add that once you are relatively comfortable with a few chords and changing them (not perfect, or super fast, just kinda comfortable) then go learn new chords and keep adding chords. Don't wait to totally perfect your technique before moving on. You'll find that the new challenges suddenly makes the previous chords easier to do.
Good luck -- you're gonna have a lot of fun!