Jam Babble

When you first start learning to play guitar, no matter how you choose to learn, you’re going to have to break through a mental barrier that exists. This is especially true when start trying to learn major and minor chords.

You see the positions we want our hands to go in aren’t natural to anything we’ve tried to do before. Also the concept of strumming with one hand, making a chord with the other then changing to another chord without stopping strumming takes some serious concentration as well.

Add on top of this that eventually you want to be able to play guitar faster and there’s a lot going on at once.

I want to help set your mind at ease a little. All beginner guitar players have this trouble at first. They tend to stumble feeling like their hands just can’t do it. They can’t form these chords. It isn’t true and all beginners face this.

Here are a few things you can try as you’re learning this new skill.

1 – Separate strumming from fretting. For the first little bit just practice making chords with your left hand. Switch between the different chords and aim for getting the right shape.

2 – When playing chords, even when you stumble making a particular chord shape don’t stop strumming keep on moving ahead. Separating out your strumming hand and fretting hand in your mind is important since they are independent.

Like most things in guitar you want to first aim for proper technique and then add in speed. Doing these two things (practicing chords shapes without strumming and continuing to strum even when you have trouble keeping up with your fretting hand) will improve your ability over all.