r/guitarlessons • u/SixStringShef • 7h ago
Lesson Switch Chords While Strumming (Beginner Lesson)
https://youtu.be/lZgwFgNY0B4Hi! If you have trouble switching chords and strumming at the same time, you're not alone. It's probably the most common hurdle for players new to strumming.
The way most guitarists get through this problem is by releasing the hand just a bit early. On the last upstroke of a pattern, right before the chord change, we usually let go of chord 1 and actually strum the open strings to keep time while we change. Typically this is so fast and so subtle that your ear won't even notice it.
This doesn't get taught or talked about a lot, and I think it's because a lot of players eventually do this without even thinking about it.
That said, it can be hard to make yourself do this if you're not used to it. It's a lot of coordination. So I usually give my students a simple exercise to practice it: we play the downstroke of chord 1, the upstroke where we release, and then the downstroke of chord 2.
The attached video is a quick 3 minute lesson where you can see this in action, along with some of the details I think are worth looking out for.
Happy practicing!
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u/CollectionClassic105 7h ago
This is the thing that finally made chord changes click for me, once I stopped treating the strum as something that had to wait for the fretting hand. One addition that helped: practice it slow with a metronome at like 60bpm and deliberately hit that open-string strum out loud, so you hear it's not a mistake, then speed up and it just disappears into the pattern.
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u/SixStringShef 7h ago
Absolutely! Great point. Practicing slowly lets you actually think about what you're doing, do it purposefully, and ultimately teach your hand to get comfortable with it. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
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u/CollectionClassic105 7h ago
Exactly, and that 'slow is smooth' part is the key. It's one of those things that feels like it's taking forever when you're doing it, but then you look back and realize it just clicked at some point.
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u/SixStringShef 7h ago
Absolutely! And the unfortunate thing is that when you try to rush it and skip the slow part, eventually you have to go back and fix it by going slow anyway. I've made that mistake. I think everyone playing guitar has at some point
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u/CollectionClassic105 7h ago
Totally, and having to go back and fix it later is what makes it take even longer in the end. Kinda like learning the hard way, I guess.
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