Find 3 Finger Chords Frustrating - Try The Easy C Chord and The Easy G Chord

Welcome back to your next video. Hopefully you have learned the E minor and that D69 chord very well, or at least well enough because the next two chords we're going to learn are based around that E minor chord. Now, I teach chords in this way because I find a lot of guitar teachers throw students into these three fingered chords, which for beginners can be quite cumbersome. I've worked with a lot of students who have come to me from other teachers and they've been playing guitar for a year and they can barely switch chords. And it's because their teacher didn't really focus on the foundation of getting the fingers and the dexterity working in their fingers. So I take a slightly different approach, which is we start by just moving two fingers at a time and then we'll add the third finger in down the road. So you already know your E minor chord. So the two chords I'm going to add into the mix here is a C chord and I'm also going to add a G chord. They're structured in this way, so that only requires us to move our first finger and our second fingers. So hopefully you know your E chord or your E minor. We're going to start right there and I'm going to show you how to get into your G chord. So starting from E minor. So just a quick reminder, that's the first finger on the fifth string, second fret, and it's also the second finger on the fourth string, second fret. So just like in the previous video, I'm going to show you the zoomed out way first and then I'll go in for a close up. So let's start with E minor, which we have on our guitar and we can strum all six strings. To get to a G chord, we're going to lift up our second finger and you're going to slide the first finger forward a little bit and move the second finger up to the top string on the third fret.

And then to get back to E minor, you would lift up your second finger, slide your first finger back and put the second finger under the first. Now you're back to E minor.

To get back to G, lift up the second finger slow, slide the first finger forward, bring the second finger up to the third fret on the top string and strum.

Now for this chord, since we're not using the full chord, if you strum all six strings, that's okay. It's not going to sound perfect because we're missing a note on this bottom string. If you Want to just strum the first three or four strings. You're going to get this really deep G sound. So that's what I would use. But if you get all. Don't worry, in a short time we're going to be adding that extra note in. So let's go back to E minor. So we're going to put our fingers back into the E minor and we're going to get back into G a couple more times. So we'll lift up the second finger and we're going to move that to the third fret on the top string. And then to get back to E minor, just move that second finger underneath and you're back into E minor. So very easy chord switch. Now, to get to our C chord, we're also going to start at E minor. But for this chord, we're going to leave our second finger in place and we're going to move the first finger. So to get to E minor from C, we're going to lift up that first finger, slide the second finger back a little bit, and move the first finger to the second string, first fret, and on this chord, you would just strum the bottom four strings. Now to get back to E minor, all you have to do is lift up the first finger and put it right above the second finger. To get back to C, we're gonna leave the second finger in place, lift up the first finger and take it to the second string, first fret, and we're gonna play the bottom four strings of the guitar. And then we're gonna go back to E minor.

So one more time to get to C, lift up the first fret finger, move it down to the second string, first fret, and play the bottom four strings. And that's how you get between your E minor chord, your C chord, your E minor, and your G chord. So let me go in for a close up on that and I will show you how to get in and out of these chords.

Okay. Welcome to the Close up. So I'm going to show you how to get in between the E minor and the C chord and the E minor in the G chord, as well as how to get in between the C and G ch with E minor. So that's the one you should already know by now. And to get to G, we're going to take the second finger off, slide the first finger up, and put the second finger up on the third string or, sorry, the third fret on the top string and we're going to strum for a G chord to get back to E, lift up the second finger, slide the first finger back.

And put the second finger right back onto the first string. So again to get to G, lift up the second finger, slide the first finger forward, Second finger comes up to the third fret on the top string G, take it back to E minor, lift up that second finger, slide the first finger back to make room for the second finger to go right back underneath. That's how to get in and out of your G chord. Now let's talk about how to get in and out of the C chord. So on this, the second finger is not going to move. The second finger is going to do the sliding. So we're going to lift up the first finger, slide the second finger back a little bit, and the first finger is going to come down to this first fret on the second string. And that is your C chord. We're just going to strum the bottom four strings. Alright? So to get back to E minor, lift up the first finger, put it right above the second finger on the fifth string. To get back to C, lift up that first finger, bring it down to the first fret of the second string, that is C. And to get back to E minor, first finger back up.

To get back to C, first finger up and down to the second string, first fret.

And that is your C chord. Now I'm going to talk about how to get in between G and C. There really is no trick to this. But you'll notice that my fingers are on the same angle. So the first finger is lower and behind the second string. So you're just gonna have to practice going back and forth between the two chords and working your way through. But I wanted you to know that the angle is the same. Alright, so the second finger is going to come down to the fourth string, first finger to the second string, and then third finger up to the top string, second finger right below. So you're just going to have to practice switching between those two different positions. There's no easy way about it. You're going to have to move your fingers. But this will help you work on your muscle memory. It'll also help you work on your finger dexterity as well. What I want you to do is I want you to practice switching between them. So I want you to practice going between E minor and C. E minor in G as well as C and G. I showed you on a close up how to get between C and G. And you'll want to practice getting between those two chords.

And then E minor to C.

And E minor to G.

So by practicing these chords, we're at least starting to get our fingers moving a bit, which is helpful, because in the beginning, we really need to build up the dexterity of the fingers. And trust me, it's a lot easier to move just two fingers than it is to move all three at a time. And for these chords, we're really only just moving one finger at a time. If we're going between E minor and C and E minor and G, G to G to C, you have to move a couple fingers, but at least the angle is the same. So practice very hard work. Work on these chords, and once you feel that you've got a decent grip on them, that you're doing around, like, 40 beats per minute, want you to go and add your D chord into the mix.