This next lesson is going to be what I like to call “Common Fingers.” Some people will say, “You’re using an anchor,” and if you don’t know what an anchor is, I’m sure you do but the definition of an anchor really is, something that holds something in place, okay. So, that’s what you’re going to have some of these fingers acting as when you’re moving from chord to chord. You’re going to have some fingers acting as an anchor. And I like to call it “Common fingers” because between certain chords, you have certain fingers that are going to be stay in the exact same place. So, that finger position is common between chords, okay. So, I’m going to give a quick lesson on this and then I also, I want you to check out under the instructional in the drop down menu under I. There’s the instruction and video called, Basic Chords and Chord Progressions, okay.
Now, that you guys know what’s these basic chords I’ve been showing you, I want you to put them in to action with a little bit of this and then that video as well. So, I want you to start out—for this one, I can remember that video what I start out with, but I’m sure I’ve started out with the G chord. So, make that four finger G that I explained to you in the lesson before. If you can’t remember, when your sixth string, the thicker string, this middle finger is on the 3rd fret, the next string down your five-string and pointer finger, 2nd fret. The two middle are open and your two lower strings. So, your one and two strings. You’ll be in high E, bring your pinky on the 3rd frets.
Once you to strum that chord, the four-finger G. I want you to lift all your fingers up except your ring. Whenever you’re lifting these fingers up to move and we’re in our G and you lift these fingers up to move to a D chord and you want to make sure that this ring finger stays put. Now, I’ve been a beginner, I’ve been in your shoes about two years ago and I can remember going from this G to the D chord, I would tell myself and I tried to talk to my hand and say, look, ring finger stay put, but my ring finger wasn’t having it. So, I’d go for my G to my D, but in the process, my ring finger felt like he could chill with the rest of my fingers and lift up off the front board and you don’t want that.
Alright, so what I used to do is I will hold my ring finger down. So, you play your G chord, hold that down and I move my others to that D chord, play it and then I would hold it down, move my other fingers back to the G. After a while, your fingers will start listening to you and they’ll learn to move independently. Once you start learning to move independently, it becomes easier to move from G to D and back. And like I just said and I’ll say it again, when your first starting, your fingers is not many times in life, if basically this is your first instrument, if you learn to play piano before or violin which you know is similar to guitar or anything like that, you may have taught your fingers to move independently. There are some things in life, yeah, you’ll learn to move fingers independently for the most part, these fingers and your thumb have moved as B unit.
Now, when you start to learn and play guitar and you want this finger to stay put while the other three move or this finger don’t move while this lifts up, it’s going to be something new to you, alright and just like everything else. It's going to be frustrating when it's new, but it's going to get better quickly and once you reach that, that point where everything starts clicking, then you’re going to be fine. So, don’t get frustrated. Just stay motivated and keep doing it and practice some of these basic chord progressions like a G, keep this finger here, it doesn’t move, it's that anchor that we talked about to the D chord.
Now, once you’ve got the G to the D mastered, because I know what you can do and I want you to stay in this D. And if you-you may not remember this, but this pointer finger here in this position is also the same position as it is for an A. So, the D chord, A towards that pointer finger, D chord, A. It doesn’t move at all, same position. Okay, so the second little kind of drill like I should say for chord moving from chord to chord, make your D chord, strum that ones then you’re going to lift this middle finger up and pop it over on your fourth string, 2nd fret. And then in this ring finger, it's going to kind of feel awkward at first, but you want to just push it and it’s going to go from sliding up and then once it gets just about to that fret, it's going to kick under. And once it kicks under, it's going to go up onto the 2nd fret of that B string and that’s you’re A chord.
When you go from your A back to your D, just slide this guy down, lift your ring up back to the high E, your one string and that’s your D chord. So D, to you’re A, to D, to A, and then if you want to get really fancy, your can go from your D, to you’re a, to your D, to your G, to your D, to you’re a, to your D, to your G. So, I’m going to leave that. The main thing for this is I want you to realize is, when you’re moving from chord to chord, look at the chords, see if there’s any that are similar. So, look at your chord, if you’re going from a G chord to the D, alright, look at these fingers. This is the G chord, this is D. So, if there are any fingers that are stationary, don’t move and yes, it’s this ring finger. So, it's a common finger or you can also think of it was an anchor. It's holding your hand in the right place and once you get used to using these anchors, that’s why after we’re playing, I can go from a C to a D, to the D to an A, C to the G to D, A because I played them so many times and I looked for stuff like that anchors and that’s what I want you guys look to forward, to common fingers and anchors.
So right now, up top on the drop down menu, click on I for instructional and go down to the instructional lesson on basic chords and beginner chord progressions or basic chord progressions. I can’t recall what I named it, but there’s some good chord progressions in there that are little different I thin k, but that’ll be some good practice for you. Remember, if you have any questions, you can send your questions to question@freeandeasyguitar.com or hop on the forums and ask your questions there, thousands of people there are ready and willing to help you. Lots of them are beginners and they’ve been through the same stuff or they’re going through the same stuff right now, as you are and lots of other people are more experienced and they’ve been through them, so they know how to help your through.
So check it out and remember to tell your friends about freeandeasyguitar.com and you guys can start your little band. So, take care!
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