Acoustic Guitar Funk

I've been enjoying this little funk workout on my acoustic guitar the last week or so. I hope you'll enjoy it too.





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5 Tips for guitar chord practice

There are lots and lots of guitar chords out there. How do you go about learning them? This article offers some responses with 5 tips to get your guitar chord practice organized into fighting shape.

1. Plan your chord learning

There are a lot of chords to learn, so map out a plan of what ones you need to learn and follow it. You don't have to include every chord under the sun in your plan. Select the kinds of chords you need for your chosen style of music and forget about the rest.

 

2. Keep working on new chords

Always have at least one new chord to work on in your practice sessions. Some chords might not take long to learn, they are a small increment upon those you know already. Other times you might attack a new kind of chord that requires more strength or agility and it takes you a while to master. Either way, as long as you keep working on at least one new one you'll keep growing.

 

3. Work on chords away from your guitar

You can do a lot of work to help learn more chords outside of your guitar practice space. Carry a few chord diagrams around in your pocket, or get a mobile application so you can view and study chords on your mobile phone. Use this time to memorize chord shapes so you don't have to figure out what the shape is when you do have your guitar in hand.

4. Work slowly and lightly

When you practice chords it is a good idea to work slowly and without applying pressure to the strings. When you work slowly you can focus on making the correct movements and optimizing the way you move your fingers so they have less distance to travel as you change chords. By using only a light touch of your finger tips on the strings you can reduce muscle tension and help improve the accuracy of your finger placement.

Of course, you have to speed up some of the time too so you can develop the same skills of economy of movement and accuracy at normal playing speed.

5. Put new chords to work when you use them

If you learn a new chord shape but don't play it regularly you'll end up losing the skill you worked hard to acquire. So whenever you learn a new chord or a new way to play a chord put it to work in the songs you play. You can change the way you play a song's chords to use the new shape so you won't forget it.

There are so many guitar chords that you won't find time to learn and play them all. When you organize your chord learning at all stages of playing you'll learn more and faster and you'll retain what you learn better.

Focus your efforts on the chords you need by creating a plan. Include some new chords in your plan and time to review those you already learned. Use time away from your guitar to reinforce what you learn during practice time, and work slowly and lightly to make the most of practice. Finally, remember to put those chords to work so you don't forget them.

 

Photo by Dan Zen.

Introduction to CAGED chords

 

This tutorial for intermediate guitarists provides a short introduction to the CAGED chord system. If you’ve been learning guitar for a while you might have heard of the CAGED chord system. In this tutorial you’ll to discover just what the CAGED system is and learn what it can do for your guitar playing. You’ll also see a few examples of CAGED chords and how to use them.

 

Why Learn CAGED?

There are two main reasons for learning how to use the CAGED chord system:

 

1. It offers you a means to play just about any chord anywhere on the fretboard without having to jump up and down from the low frets to the high frets.

 

2. You can play the same chord in several different registers and inversions to create different sounds for it.

 

Now you know why CAGED could be useful to you, let’s see what it is and how you go about learning it.

 

How To Play CAGED

The CAGED system takes its name from the five open chord positions it is based on. To play CAGED chords you take the open position C, A, G, E and D chord shapes and make them moveable.

 

To make these chords moveable you need to finger them so that the open strings become closed strings. These closed formations can then be moved around the fretboard. The easiest way to understand this is to look at the chord diagrams below that show the five shapes – C, A, G, E, D - in closed positions at the second fret. Note that the chord names all change because those shapes are all one whole step (or two frets) up from the open chords.

 

                   

 

All of these shapes can all be altered or extended to create minor chords, 7 chords, 6 chords, etc. For example, think of the open chord shapes for Em, Am and Dm and see how they could be used with this system.

 

Tips To Practice CAGED

Now you know what the chord shapes look like, so all that remains is to head off to the practice room and get to work on them. Before you go though, a couple of words of advice from my experience.

 

The new fingerings of the CAGED system are pretty hard and will probably take a while to learn. Some of the bars and stretches involved are very hard to do, especially if you start at the head end of the neck.

 

Take your time to develop these and don’t force too much so you don’t injure yourself. I found it’s best to start higher up the neck where less stretching is required and work down from there.

 

It’s also a good idea to work through the patterns in different ways. This avoids boredom and you don’t force on the same stretches all the time. Here are a few ideas, I’m sure you can think up plenty more of your own.

 

1. Practice one chord at a time, play it in all its forms and positions along the neck.

 

2. Practice one fretboard position at a time, play all the forms and learn the names of the resulting chords at that position.

 

3. Practice common progressions using I-IV, I-IV-V chords in different forms and positions.

 

4. A challenging, but useful, way to practice following the cycle of fourths and cycle of fifths was suggested by reader Johnny Lee.

 

Photo by Dottie Mae.