How do I practice guitar to join a church worship band?!
Question: In order to join the church band, I need to be good with chords. How can I learn to play a lot of chords fast? like transition from one chord to another chord fast. I have a chord book. So I just want to know how should I pracice? Should I play A to B, then A to C, then A to D, etc? I need to know how to play transition from chord to chord fast. Please help!
Answers: In order to join the church band, I need to be good with chords. How can I learn to play a lot of chords fast? like transition from one chord to another chord fast. I have a chord book. So I just want to know how should I pracice? Should I play A to B, then A to C, then A to D, etc? I need to know how to play transition from chord to chord fast. Please help!
I was a Worship Pastor for a while. Now I'm a Senior Pastor, and my College Degree is in music performance so I can tell exactly what you need...
The answer to this question is simple. Practice Practice Practice. Nothing else will help you as much as practicing switching chords. But it sounds like you know that since you are wanting to know HOW to practice.
In most worship music (as well as rock) any given song will have 3-5 different chords in it. The way to figure out which chords you will need to switch is by counting.
For example: If your main chord in a song is "G" then assign the number 1 to "G"... play your G Chord.
Now, the main chords in ANY song will be the numbers 1, 4, 5, and 6. So count it up. If "G" is 1... and music goes like this: ABCDEFG ABCDEFG ABCDEFG....
Start on G and count
G(that is 1)
A(that is 2)
B (that is 3)
C (that is 4)
D (that is 5)
E (that is 6)
So now you know if you main chord is "G" the other chords will be C, D, and E. The only trick is that the #6 chord is always going to be minor. So G, C, D, and Eminor.
Try it with C! If the C Chord is you main chord for the song, your other chords will be... (count it out starting with 1 for C)...
1 (C),
2 (D),
3 (E),
4 (F),
5 (G),
6 (Aminor)...
So there you have it! If your main chord is "C" then your other chords will be F, G, and Aminor!! Pretty cool, huh!
So once you figure out what your main chord will be you can figure out which chords to practice with. So obviously practicing switching between C and and B won't be much help. But practicing switching between C, F, G, and Amin would be GREAT practice!
I hope that helps. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me.
It doesn't matter what order. It is just practicing constantly. D is a bit harder to finger but you need to keep working fingering the chords. Also with the strumming hand practice with a metronome up and down. Like 1, 2, 3, 4 and 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. Keep it up and good luck.
Good question.....with all the many chord books out there, it gets quite confusing, doesn't it?.......the worst thing you can do would be to try to play full six string chords......they're just too difficult to transfer quickly from a low to high position or vice versa ....the trick here is to use 3, or at most, 4 string formations and try to voice them on the lower (heavier) strings.....this provides a nice full rhythm sound if you're accompanying someone...also, by selecting the proper formations in the same general position you won't have to be hopping so far around the fingerboard......I strongly recommend a book by Bucky Pizzarelli called "Modern Guitar Technique... A Touch of Class".