Here is a cool way to take some of the boredom out of practicing chords on guitar and be able to switch between them in real time, not when your fingers decide to make the transition between chords.

The Big Idea
What we are trying to accomplish is the ability to move from one chord to another. As with learning anything new in music, your motor coordination skills need to be sharpened.

In order to eliminate the hesitation when changing from chord to chord we need to slow everything down and precisely tell you fingers how to move. By slowing everything down, your mind has a chance to coordinate with your fingers and by gradually increasing the speed  of the metronome, you will be able to switch chords on guitar and make yourself sound like a pro.

This concept applies to any type of chords you are learning whether it be open string type chords or more complex jazz chords. Let’s simplify our example and assume we are using an E and a D chord. Practice chords on guitar in the following way.

Step One
Set your metronome to 60 beats per minute.  Listen to the tempo for a few seconds to establish it in you mind. Then tell yourself “what finger goes on what string and on what fret” to make an E chord.  Do the same for the next chord you are learning. Make sure you tell yourself how to make the transition. For example, “my first finger is moving from the 3rd string 1st fret to the 3rd string 2nd fret” etc.

Without strumming, try to move from the first chord to the next chord while the metronome is ticking using all 4 beats to make the transitions. Once you are used to that tempo, play this and add a strum every 4 ticks:

E (tick   tick    tick    tick), D (tick    tick     tick ), G (tick     tick     tick )…

In other words, you will play E on beat one, strumming it only once.  You will then spend beats two, three, and four switching as quickly as possible to D, then spend beats two three and four of the next measure switching as quickly as possible back to E, and so on.  You don’t have to make the strum of the chord last until the next series of 4 beats just make a quick strum and move on to the next chord.

The goal is to be precise and clean, strumming exactly on each downbeat, neither late nor early.  Aim to place all of your fingers down at once, and do not strum until all fingers are in place.

Practice this until you feel comfortable switching chords.

Step Two
If you feel that 60 beats a minute is too fast then slow it down. If you feel that you can switch smoothly between those chords at 60 beats precisely and the sound is good then increase the tempo somewhat and keep doing this until you reach say a goal of 120 beats per minute. This could take more that one practice session it could take a week or a day it really depends on your skill level and your physical being at any point in time. Some days are better than others, you might get up to 120 beats one day then find the next day your at 90 beats, be patient with yourself.

A good idea here is to track your progress as you practice. Keep and piece of paper nearby and write down your tempo of the day.

Once you get up to 120 beats, drop back to 60.

Then play this:

E, tick, D, tick, E, tick, D, tick….

Now your playing the same chords twice as fast by switching between chords on 2 ticks instead of 4 ticks. Continue until you can do 120 comfortably.

Step Three
Go back to 60, and play this:

E         D        E          D         E          D…

You are now switching a chord every second, which is pretty fast.  If you were playing a song that has a tempo of 60 bpm, you would be able to switch from E to D and back again, right in time.

Continue to play and get gradually faster until you reach 120.   You are now switching to a new chord every half-second.  Congratulations!

By the way…
As your fingers learn how to switch between chords, you won’t have to go through this with every chord there is.  You have now trained yourself  to move faster on everything that you play, as long as you know where your fingers are going.   If you do decide to try it with two new chords, you will get through the whole process much more quickly as your skills increase.