[mapletrees]

Imperfectly - you don't want the low F# as the bass note of that B chord in general...sometimes a tune might call for it (the first 3 chords of Hendrix' Wind Cries Mary use that shape) - but it's the exception, not the rule.

Just a couple things....there's 10,000 things I've heard for working on the switching of chords....I'm tempted to say just keep at it - but if you've read another post of mine - I should be ashamed!

- try fingering an A chord at the 2nd fret with just your ring finger on strings 2, 3, 4,...then 'slide' up to a B chord with your ring finger only and just plop the index finger at the 5th string, 2nd fret...see if that gets you anywhere

- for chords in general that give me trouble I do the following:

Play the chord 6 times or so, switch to another chord and play it 6 times, then repeat ......doing 5 times on each, then doing 4 times on each.....then 3 times etc....if I still can't do it well......repeat the whole process again....seems to target the particular muscles that just don't want to do what the brain says....hope it helps...


- here's one thing you want to avoid....a lot of times in a tune there will be just a few tricky chord changes that give you trouble. A lot of folks will play through the song 26,365 times and have the same exact problems 26,365 times.

Uggga Bugggga!

Isolate the difficulties.

If its C to F or whatever, you do want to "just keep at it".... but you want to make sure you are in fact practicing what you mean to practice - you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to discipline yourself and actually practice what you intended to. Maybe you will have to play C to F literally 500 times. That's perfectly fine...just don't play a whole song 500 times trying to get that one difficult switch. You'll go nuts and you probably won't get anywhere.

[ 03-02-2001: Message edited by: mapletrees ]