If you have looked over the open chords that we know so far, you will see they all have strange shapes. How can you get from one to another as quickly as possible? To solve our problem, we'll take 5 of the easier chords ( A, E, D, Am, and Em) and see what we can do with them. Changing between chords can be difficult, especially with your first few goes, but there are a few tricks that we can do to make life easier for us. Below are two chords, A and E. at first glance they look like completely different fingerings, but there are a lot of similarities.
Notice how the fingers 2 and 3 are together in both chords? We can use this to our advantage and keep them in that position, all we have to do it move them up 2 strings (towards the thickest) and then change where the first finger goes. These little tricks and shapes are common in chords, it’s best to study them and see which ones are easiest to switch between. There is a chord chart HERE where you can see all the shapes and identify patterns.
Another technique to use is associating the chords with shapes. For instance, ‘D’ to me looks like a sideways letter D and ‘A’ looks like a line. Find the best way to remember them for you and make that connection. It makes learning the shapes much easier!
Below are some exercises that give a series of chords. The challenge is to play through each one and change from one chord to another within 2 seconds. Run over each exercise until you are fluent and confident enough with every one!