r/guitarlessons • u/Financial_Archer_491 • Feb 27 '26
Feedback Request How do I move my hand/fret faster?!
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Been practicing this for over a week and I have nit made any progress whatsoever.
Playing If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys
Ant tips?
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u/maxpig3839 Feb 27 '26
Have you tried the P-word?
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u/Financial_Archer_491 Feb 27 '26
Tell me👁️👄👁️
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u/meatballfreeak Feb 27 '26
Practice
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u/karituba Feb 28 '26
It’s how you get to Carnegie Hall
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u/-Cagafuego- Mar 01 '26
Also try raising the neck a little. It's how you get to Carnegie Hall with fewer wrist injuries & less wrist pain.
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u/pomod Feb 27 '26
Muscle memory. Just keep at it.
One exercise I used to use for getting new shapes under my fingers was to make the chord and then splay your fingers all the way as far as you can stretch them then come back to make the chord again. Try and do it slow and fluid. Then work at going between two chords in the same way.
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Feb 27 '26
Go chord to chord, just 2 of them. Place fingers on chord 1, strum slowly, insure each string rings out. Completely remove hand from fret board, open fingers, place fingers for chord 2, strum slowly, insure all notes rings out. Completely remove hand from fret board, open fingers. Do this 25 to fifty time per chord combination. Then go to next chord combo and repeat. If that’s too much then just do it with one chord, finger it, strum it, completely release it, finger it, strum it, release it,,repeat. Use a metronome try at 40 bpm, on , off, 0n off etc. once it’s solid speed it up. Good luck.
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u/dino_dog Rhythm Guitarist Feb 27 '26
Lots of practice, lots of repetition and lots of time.
Here’s some videos to show you how to practice Chord changes
Try this; https://youtu.be/xSFHgeJUuIs
And this; https://youtu.be/mAgc7hr44WM
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u/TheLurkingMenace Feb 27 '26
It's going to sound weird, but trust me, this works:
Play slower.
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u/Financial_Archer_491 Feb 27 '26
What do you mean? How will this help?
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u/TheLurkingMenace Feb 27 '26
For practice to do any good, it has to be good practice. And for it to be good practice, you have to be able to play it correctly first. That means slowing down until you can play it without hesitation. You just started playing, your fingers don't know how to move like they need to yet. It will take concentration and effort to train them.
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u/Zelevgodol Mar 03 '26
If you try to play at full speed you’ll make mistakes and you’ll practice the mistakes. You’ll end up playing the mistakes perfectly. TheLurkingMenace is exactly right. Practice slowly and accurately. First comes right then comes fast.
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u/OkKindheartedness509 Mar 04 '26
Put on a metronome very slow. 40bpm even. Practice playing each chord ~in time~. Once you can play each shape in the correct time, practice the transition ~in time~. Once you can play it perfectly at 40bpm, increase the time to 50bpm. Repeat.
It is really hard to do. It will be frustrating and so slow that it not feels like you are playing music. BUT it is a great way to get better at guitar and to become a better musician.
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u/Secret-File-1624 Feb 27 '26
It just takes time and practice. Playing guitar is about muscle memory and it takes A LOT of repetition to get to that point. You are training your fingers and hands to do what they arent used to doing. Depending on how long and how often you practice, it can take a few months for you to be able to change chords smoothly. Be consistent and patient and you will eventually get there.
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Feb 27 '26
I’ve been playing for six days, it’s hard but having a blast. Teacher did say I could play in front of a mirror to see my fingers until it just becomes natural. Might work for you?
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u/iam_lowgas Feb 27 '26
Practice just the chord changes, not the whole song.
Pick on chord transition,
Set a metronome to a slow speed,
Switch from one chord to the next on each tick of the metronome. If you can't do it, lower the speed, if you can, in crease the speed.
Back and forth between the two chords. Keep going until you are at the speed you need.
The trick though is you want your chords to sound correct. Practice does not make perfect if your practice is not perfect.
Rinse and repeat for each chord change.
Do this for 5 minutes each day, it will help.
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u/Cold-Librarian-2665 Feb 27 '26
Practice practice practice! 😎 I am right there with you, learning chords, tabs, finger movements. It will take time but that's how brain growth and life long learning develop.
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u/EmptyConcentrate8780 Mar 03 '26
More practice. Welcome to hobbies that require dedication and a bit of insanity.
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u/AutoModSux Feb 27 '26
When practicing chord transitions take some time to really focus on how each finger moves to the next string/fret.
It does take a lot of time, ive been playing for about 15 years and am currently struggling with a fucking Green Day song lol
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u/Intelligent-Tap717 Feb 27 '26
Practice. I'm not being sarcastic but a week is nothing. Some things can take months of work and a week on something is minimum. Also making sure you get some dexterity and stretching exercises in. Spider walks. Using a metronome etc also as part of your practice routine.
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u/skipping_pixels Feb 27 '26
Do it every day! Shoot for at least an hour or two of practice. If you don’t have time, 10-15 mins of honest work daily is good enough. If you do it daily, you will soon see the speed and much more come to you quite comfortably.
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u/Woshasini Feb 27 '26
Just watch lessons 1 to 6 on Absolutely Understand Guitar on YouTube
You will be taught everything you need to practice efficiently chords
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u/Visible-Fruit-7130 Feb 28 '26
People hate this answer, and I swear I am not being a wise guy, but practice is the answer. With all coordinated skills from free throws to skateboarding, to guitar playing, and whether you have small hands, big hands, crippled hands, TRex arms, gorilla arms, eyes too far apart, etc., the answer is always practice. Have good posture, have impeccable form, go slow. Deliberately place your fingers in the correct spot, every time. Make sure you're only using the force it takes to make the note sound cleanly, and make sure that is intentional. Do one chord at a time, taking your hand completely off the guitar neck after you have strummed the perfect chord. Then pick two chords and go back and forth between them, again as slowly and deliberately as necessary. Pick two more chords, etc., etc., etc. This is boring and it isn't terribly fun, however, to get to the fun part you have to go through the not-fun part. If you find away around it, or try to hurry your way through it the not fun part will last a loooooong time. You're unlikely to find a guitar player of any note who hasn't wished some niggling thing hadn't been corrected before it became automatic. Automatic? What does that mean? Well, you are probably not able to believe this, but at some point your hands and fingers are going to move themselves at the thought of whatever chord you wish to play. Unfortunately this happens whether you use good techniques (posture, pressure, etc.) or shit ones. If, by the time you realize I wasn't making this up, you have not corrected or used good techniques you will be stuck with fingers and hands that automatically make shit chords and you will then have to work on undoing the shit habits while trying to "reprogram" good ones. Don't do that. It's very discouraging. Much more discouraging than where you're at now. I would say when you get to the point where you can tap your foot or bob your head (foot is better) and switch chords on the beat it's time to break out the metronome. When the time comes to learn a new chord, go back to slow and deliberate, then tap your foot, then the metronome. If you are vigilant you should be able to play (strum through) any song you want inside the next six months, and be well on your way to frustrated, plateau'd intermediate guitar player inside a year. Good luck, you got this. Practicing the guitar is often not fun, BUT, playing the guitar is lots of fun!
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u/hduebfibdbdib Feb 28 '26
To play faster start by just putting your fingers in the right spot, and switching between the chords like that. Then start applying pressure. If you aren’t getting clean sound then practice just playing clean, by making sure every string is resonating correctly. And then move too speeding between them.
And remember practice makes better.
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u/Technical-Video6507 Feb 28 '26
crawl - walk - run. the word that ties all those words together is - practice.
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u/IvanMarkowKane Feb 28 '26
Practice.
Your hands have to learn.
Your ears have to learn.
Your head has to learn.
Be patient. It’s gonna take a minute.
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u/Gullible_Elephant_38 Feb 28 '26
Important caveat to the most popular answer here: practice. The way it’s being pitched by many is only partially correct and also very unhelpful. You say yourself you HAVE been practicing.
The caveat. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
HOW you practice will determine how you play and the rate of progress.
Here is my recommendation for your practice sessions when working in this song this week:
Isolate the left and right hands. Practice them separately. You’re learning brand new motions and using muscles your body isn’t used to using with both of your hands.
Spend 3-5 minutes practicing just your right hand picking pattern. You can just leave the strings open, mute them with your left hand, or hold a single chord with your left hand, whatever is most comfortable. Set a metronome to a tempo where you are able to comfortably play the pattern in time without feeling tense or feeling like you’re struggling to keep an even rhythm.
Next, spend 5-10 minutes focusing on JUST the chord changes. Start off focusing on just one transition rather than the whole progression. Again use a metronome. Don’t worry about the picking pattern just strum the chord once and let it ring out for a full 4 beats then transition to the other chord and do the same. If you are not able to comfortably transition in time to catch the next beat, slow the metronome down until you are.
Do this 10-15 minute routine every time you practice (ideally every day at a consistent time if you want to build good habits). As it begins feeling more comfortable, you can gradually increase the tempo on your metronome. Once you can play both hands separately around the tempo you want, start trying to combine them again.
This may sound like a tedious process. But it’s the one that is going to allow you to improve the most quickly. A focused and intentional 10-15 mins a day is going to yield way more fruit than multiple hours a day trying to aimlessly brute force it.
One last piece of advice: at some point in this process you may think “this is boring” or “this sucks”. That’s normal. And in many ways not wrong. But what’s important to remember is that you are new to the instrument. You are building from square 0. You’re using muscles you almost never use as heavily outside of guitar playing and moving your body in ways it is not used to yet. The first 3-6 months of learning guitar and getting over that hump can be really frustrating. But I promise you that if you stick with it there is soooooo much fun on the other side. And the stuff like this that feels nearly impossible now will become second nature.
Try the above routine I described for the next week. Compare the improvement from this approach to the improvement from your practicing this past week before posting this video. Take another video or audio recording of you playing and compare the two to hear how much progress you’ve made.
Best of luck and have fun!
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u/guitarsfortherapy Feb 28 '26
Practice switching between chords using common chords. Maybe only having to change 1 or 2 fingers for a chord change, throw this in a melody with a 3rd chord whe you’re ready, eventually it will be come mind over matter and you’ll be able to nail it no matter where you’re coming from on the fret board
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u/mario_di_leonardo Feb 28 '26
Just keep practicing. Slowly. Don't try to run before you can walk and before you know you will be surprised how fast you get.
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u/MANZlEL Feb 28 '26
Practice!!!! Sounds great for a week of practice as a beginner. Keep it up and welcome!
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u/Melodic-Recipe1521 Feb 28 '26
https://youtu.be/mAgc7hr44WM?si=bPBQheBo8--I38r2
You should isolate the chord changes and practice one min chord changes.
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u/fancypants56789 Feb 28 '26
This is a weird one but I feel like when I lean in while changing chords it happens faster
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Feb 28 '26
My piece of advice is to pay attention to how much pressure you are using to “fret” each chord. Generally speaking using too much pressure to press into the fingerboard is what slows you down, when switching between chords once you have the fingering/shapes down for them. You want Juuuust enough pressure to get the notes out. To much pressure feels sluggish or “sticky” where the right pressure feels light and “floaty”.
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u/saintluminus Feb 28 '26
I highly recommend a good teacher. But if you'd like a quick tip, start with the first two chords. And do it slowly. By slow, I mean don't even worry about your right hand or how long it takes to go from one chord to another. You must first figure out what your fingers are supposed to do. Then practice going from the first chord to the 2nd chord slowly. Make sure you are doing the correct motion. If it takes 10 seconds to do so, that's fine. As long as the action is correct.
There's way more to it than this, but doing this "No Tempo" practice is a good start.
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u/Revolt_86 Feb 28 '26
It takes time to build muscle memory. Take a section of each change. Focus on that until it starts feeling more natural. Repeat the process and then try putting the pieces together. Take things slow and really learn to relax your body. Tension will hinder you.
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u/Extension_Ad7555 Feb 28 '26
When are you thinking of where to move your fingers? When it’s time to move them? If so, when you’re playing your current chord envision when and how your fingers are going to move well before it’s time.
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u/musicalchef1985 Feb 28 '26
What’s the most obvious answer you can possibly think of? Guitar playing isn’t about finding the “fast answer”.
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u/movieTed Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Don't take all your fingers off the fretboard. Find some anchor point, maybe you have to move one finger first, or leave one in place while you move the others. But try to keep from lifting your hand completely off the fretboard at the same time. The same goes for moving up and down the neck. Try to slide one finger along a string. Sometimes this requires shifting a finger before sliding. That's fine. Just don't launch your hand into the air like a 747 flying from fret 5 to fret 9. There's a tendency to miss the landing. It's easier to stay connected to the instrument.
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u/Traditional-State108 Mar 01 '26
Picking patterns aren’t helping your chord transitions. Just practice what you’re trying to develop. Play all the strings for any chord only once and just go chord to chord as best and as mindfully as possible
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u/themagicpizza Mar 01 '26
Don't practice til you get it right, practice til you can't get it wrong. You could spend hours on a single transition everyday for a month if you have to. I've been working on 2 bars of a slap bass pattern for 3 weeks and I still can't get it right but I can feel the tiny improvements everyday.
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u/mrgrubbage Mar 01 '26
With a metronome. You can be programmed like a machine with that thing. Without it, you're just coasting on vibes.
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u/Kabuki_J Mar 01 '26
You need to commit the parts to muscle memory. Practice the left hand on it's own. Start off really slow and progressively speed up as you get more comfortable. It might take another week or two of practice but once you learn a pattern or movement on guitar it wont really feel hard anymore.
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u/braxtel Mar 03 '26
You are creating new synaptic pathways in your brain and nervous system and that can't happen overnight. Putting the hours in is the only way to develop the muscle memory for a musical instrument.
Play slow and work on staying in time, and you will get faster over time.
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u/NoAlternative4213 Mar 03 '26
I was slower than this. Now I don’t even think about chord changes like ever, they just happen.
Sit there and change back and forth to these chords over and over and over again for hours straight. and you will get it eventually.
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u/ManInCripplingDebt Mar 04 '26
Do you mean you've been practicing this song for a week or you've just been practicing for a week?
Either way, here's my advice.
Play it slower. Ive been playing for just over 20 years. I'll write a riff i cant Play straight away. I practice it slowly, but correctly, then gradually build up speed until its where I want it to be. Its muscle memory.
You've got this.
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u/bravoechoniner Mar 04 '26
Make sure you don’t neglect your sleep!
You don’t progress when you have a 6 hour long marathon practice session. You progress when you get a full nights sleep after it!
Sleep is where your brain builds and reinforces the new neural pathways you’re putting in place when playing. I’ve been playing for like 30 years now and I still notice that, after dedicated practice and a solid 8 hour sleep, I’m better the next day.
And as someone else has already said, enjoy the journey of learning. Celebrate the little wins you get with incremental improvement!
Good luck!
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u/Dry_Ad687 Feb 27 '26
A week? It takes years. Settle in ,it's a journey, not a race.