Why Your Chord Changes Are STILL Slow

Hello. Hello. Welcome live, everyone. Nice to see you.

Yes. I'm having why your chord changes are slow and also.

How to stop muting. Chord changes. That's what we're going to be talking about today. Because that, you know, I did a live in my private community the other day, and this is a question that makes multiple people ask. They're like, how do I make my chord changes faster? How do I get them to stop muting and sound better? So this is what we're going to do on today's live. So we have chord changes, all right? And we don't want to.

Practice in a way that makes us keep our chord changes slow. So most people, they'll practice either with themselves or they'll practice with a metronome. And they'll just go very slow. Like, say we're working on a C to G chord change. All right? And they'll just do this, and they'll kind of go at their own speed. You know, what is comfortable for them? Okay. What is comfortable? All right, so this is what we do. We're going back and forth, all right? And then they're like, great. My chord changes aren't getting faster. This is the speed I can do them at. Okay. Not realizing that in order for chord changes to go faster, you have to actually push yourself. Okay. Actually have to push yourself to go faster. Okay, so what does that mean? That means you might have to get a metronome. That's what I recommend. Or some people, they have a hard time practicing with a metronome. They actually prefer a drumbeat. Like a beat, buddy. Okay, so I'm going to put this on here. This is a metronome. And. And I'm gonna put it maybe at like, a hunt. Well, most people can do, like 40 beats per minute pretty easily. 40 to 50. Cause 50 is pretty slow. So this is gonna do. I'm gonna put the metronome on 50, okay? And this is where people are comfortable, okay? So this is where they're comfortable. And they're going, C, G, C, G, C. Okay? And they're like, great. This is as fast as I go. I can't go any faster. And the problem is they never push themselves to go faster. Okay? So if 50 beats per minute, that's 50 clicks on the metronome is the fastest you can go. Here's what you have to do. Okay? You have to go up to 60, and you're like, Lauren, why would I go to 60? I can't even do them at 50. And it's for the Same reason I always use the explanation. So I love sports cars. I like driving fast, too.

And you're driving on the highway, okay? And, you know, sometimes I get a little gas. I put a little bit too much gas in the car, and I look down, and all of a sudden I'm going 100. And I'm like, oh, no, I'm going 100 on the highway. I need to slow down, right? So. So then I come back to the speed limit, which is probably closer to 65. So maybe I come down to, like, 70, okay? So I'm. This is miles per hour, not kilometers per hour. So I'm driving. I go from 100 miles per hour to 70 miles per hour. Now I feel like I'm moving at a snail's pace because I was just going 100 miles per hour. And I got used to how that feel, right? And then I came back down to 70, and now I'm like, you ever do that? And you're like, man, I feel like I'm dragging. And this is what this creates when we put the metronome together. Okay, so let me get this. And we put this on 60, when 50 was your max. You're going to push yourself, all right? And you're going to have to go faster. And you go. You know, and your chords, all of a sudden.

They might start sounding like this, okay, that. What's. That's what might happen with your chords when you go faster. And then you're like, okay, I can still make the chord changes that they sound a little bit sloppy. Let me see if I can even go faster. Let me try 70. Then you go up to 70, and all of a sudden it really just like, completely falls apart. But that's okay. Now what you do. So 50 was your max, right? Now you come back to 55 beats per minute. Okay? So 55 is faster than 50, but it was slower than 60, and it's definitely way slower than 70. And now you try 55, and all of a sudden it might seem a little bit more doable. It's just a little psychology of giving you perspective. And we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone to get our chords to go faster. Okay? So that's one thing is really pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Number two is not always going for perfection, okay? We always want the cords to sound perfect. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. We're going to later in some tips on that. That would help as well. But what was I just talking about? Goodness gracious. Core changes, going faster. So that's one pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Two is actually working on exercises that help you develop dexterity in your fingers and hands. So I have a number of different exercises in my seven level guitar system. I have a number of different exercises that really help focus on working on dexterity in fingers. Okay. And getting those fingers moving. One of them is a spider exercise. Okay. And the easiest one that I start with is just a three finger exercise because most of our chords in the beginning we use three fingers. Okay. I teach two finger chords to start with students, especially my older students. So I taught in person, you know, for a very long time. And I kind of developed this system for teaching students. And I found that students who came in, you know, they struggled a lot with these three fingered chords. And I was finding that a lot of the students were quitting within two or three months because it was so hard. It was so hard for them to do the chords and have fun with the guitar. So I said, you know, what can I do to fix this problem? So instead of thinking the student was the problem, as the teacher, I'm like, I must be the problem. Okay? Because this is something that's coming up consistently. I must be the problem. I need to change. The student doesn't need to change. The teacher needs to change. So I said, let me test this. I'm just going to take away one finger and I'm going to teach my students some two finger chords with some pivot points just to help them get their fingers moving so they can start playing music. And that made all the difference in the world. All of a sudden, my retention of my students in my private studio went from people quitting within two or three months for people to staying five or six years with me. So it was a pretty dramatic increase. And there's an important reason for that. The reason behind that and why I feel that is so important is because students actually believed that they could do it. And be kind says I highly recommend Lauren's seven level program. I joined Lauren's group four years ago and it's been a game changer for me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate that. And the biggest thing, whenever you do something new, whether it's learning guitar, Rome was not built in a day, William. That's right. Whenever you're doing something new, the biggest indicator of success is whether you believe in yourself and whether you think it's possible. Okay? That is the biggest indicator of success. If you believe that the outcome is possible for you, you will have a higher likelihood of success. So that's why, you know, in my course, I go through the two finger changes and we work on these dexterity exercises so that you can see yourself getting better. You can see yourself improving, and that motivates you because you're. You're getting better. So back to that spider exercise. If you don't have my course, I do have spider exercises here on YouTube as well for free. If you don't have money to. To buy a course, that's okay, too. So we've got a spider exercise. Okay. And I just use the first three fingers. And I would start at frets 5, 6, and 7 because it doesn't have as much of a stretch. And you're going to go 1, 2, 3. You can do all down picks with your picking hand. You can see my picking hand there. Okay. And for some of you, you know, your spider exercise in the beginning might look a bit like this. You know, your fingers feel like they have a mind of their own. But the more you do this, the more control you are going to have over your fingers, the easier it's going to be to do these chord changes. All right, so there is one, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. But two, there's also building flexibility and dexterity in your fingers. And I think a lot of people underestimate that. You know, they'll sit here on the cords and it's like, great. We can do chord changes all day and that over time eventually will help. But we want to focus on the foundation of which is act just getting the fingers moving. So doing some sort of spider exercise, you know, for five minutes when you warm up, is a great way to get started. Mark says three weeks and I'm playing chords. Thank you, Lauren. This is way better than the guitar teacher I tried 20 years ago. Well, you're welcome. And Rob says, I agree. Playing two finger chords and working your way up to three fingers helps a lot. It really does. It really does. Nitha says, I was just practicing C2D seconds before she came on. I'm thinking of taking the seventh level. I hope you do, because there's a really. There's a lot of great tips in there. And you know the difference between, like, learning free on here on YouTube? Like, I have a lot of stuff for free here on YouTube, and I understand that not everyone can afford, you know, 297 for a course, which is what my seven level program costs, but that's about a year's worth of lessons. And if you had to do that in My music school, we charge about $200 a month for one lesson every week. So it's much less than in person lessons. And it is super helpful, and it gives you the game plan. Okay. So many students, like, I came over from YouTube because I liked your teaching, and I really just wanted the step by step. I wanted a process for learning. Okay. And that's kind of what I'm trying to give you here, is a process. My chords are slow. What do I do? One, we work on getting out of our comfort zone. Work with the metronome or look up drum track at 60 beats per minute on YouTube. Say you like rock and roll. Look up a rock drum track. You like country. Look up a country drum track. Some people find it easier to work with a drum track than a metronome. So I always want to tell people there is that. Option number two is working on some sort of finger exercise that focuses on getting your fingers moving. Okay. A spider exercise is a great one for beginners. Okay. And again, in the beginning, it might be a little bit sloppy, but that's okay. The next thing is perfection. Okay. And this is where we're gonna. We're gonna shift into a little bit. Making our chords sound better is, you know, to go faster, we have to give up a little bit of perfection. Okay? Yes. I want your chords to sound absolutely beautiful. When you play a C chord, I don't want it to sound like that either. Okay. So when you play a C chord, you play a G chord. I want your guitar to ring. I want it to sound beautiful. But to go faster, we have to sacrifice perfection. So we can go very slow and make sure all of our strings are ringing out. I'm going to show you that in a few minutes. But when we're trying to push ourselves out of our comfort zone.

This is okay. As long as your fingers are getting on the right strings. If you're doing the chord changes and they're not getting on the right strings, that's not good. We don't want them to be on the wrong strings. They have to. If you're going fast and your chords are sounding, like, muted, but at least they're getting on the right str strings. That's okay. Okay. That is okay. When you're trying to push speed, we can always slow it down and work on perfection. And that's what we're going to do now. Okay. The biggest. I'm going to tell you, the biggest reason students mute their chords as beginner players is right here. It's the guitar. It's the positioning of the guitar. Because when we're beginning beginners, what do we do? We look down at the guitar and we realize if you have your guitar in hand, look down at your guitar. Keep. So your guitar should be like this. Straight up and down. Not like this. Okay? It should be like this. But the thing is, when your guitar is straight up and down like this, and you look down at guitar, you're like, I can't see all the strings, right? So you're like, lauren, I'm trying to put my fingers on the right strings, but I can't see them. So what do we do? Right, what do we do? We do this with the guitar. And I'm over exaggerating, but some people, I've seen, some of my students, and the guitar is this angle. We angle the guitar like this. And when we do that, look what happens to my fretboard. The angle of the fretboard changes. So when we play chords, in order to play chords cleanly, I'm going to take my phone and I'm going to pretend that this pen is the finger and this is the fretboard. To play a chord cleanly, you have to do this, okay? You have to be perpendicular. Okay? I'm going to hold this perpendicular to the guitar. If the guitar starts doing this, what happens? Look at the angle. Look at the angle underneath here. Guess what that means? The bottom of your finger is going to start catching the string below. And that's what happens with a lot of people, particularly on D chords. I saw someone over here ask about a D chord, particularly on the C chord. With the C chord is usually the third finger. When you get to three finger. Like a lot of my students, they don't tend to have a problem with the two finger C chord. Where the problem comes in is when they add the third finger because it's such a stretch. It's three frets, right? And what they do is that, you know, they're looking down. The guitar is like this. And now. And now. Now that D string is muted. Now watch. I'm not going to change my fingers at all. All I'm going to do is straighten out the guitar. It's clean. Now watch. I'm going to put the guitar back to where it was.

Hear it? It's muted again. I'm tilt guilty. I like that. I'm going to have to. Are you tilt guilty? I'm going to use that as like a thumbnail. I like that so much, Matt. I'm writing it down. Tilt guilty. I have never Heard that before. But I think that is such a great title for a video. You just can't feel free. Your check is in the mail. That's great.

And again, I would say 80% of students, this is what the issue is in the beginning, because it is. It's tricky. You're trying to find a balance between.

Doing this and being able to see the strings and being able to play your chords. So my recommendation is, if you're working on, like, Lauren, I'm just learning three finger chords. I'm trying to do the C chord. What I recommend you do is you put the fingers down, okay? Get them in the right spots. Look at your guitar. If your guitar is not straight up and down, fix it. Then start strumming the chord, okay? And if it's clean, guess what? You can probably play the chords cleanly. And then when you go to practice, if you do this to work on your chord changes and you start hearing this.

Understand, it's. It's not you, it's the guitar. Okay? It is actually the guitar and the angle the guitar. I find for most students, a lot of it fixed. Yeah. Richard says he's tilt guilty. If you're tilt guilty, I love this. This is like, my new thing. Now. If you are tilt guilty, I want to see it in the chat. Because you might be. You probably won't be surprised. There's going to be a lot of people like, I'm tilt guilty. So if you are tilt guilty, I want to see a comment in the chat saying, I am tilt guilty. Because I just love that so much. Good. Stu. Great. Me.

So that's step number one. And you're like, lauren, okay, I'm not tilt guilty anymore. Okay? I can actually play with the guitar straight up and down. I don't have to look at the strings. I'm still getting muting. Okay, now what we have to do is now this is when we slow things down and we try to get perfect. Yeah. Debbie's tilt guilty. Odell's tilt guilty. American girl, tilt guilty. We're all tilt guilty.

So once you get past that, the next step is. Okay, I'm going to see what's going on here. I have to dissect. I'm a scientist. My background is in science. So I now have to experiment and see where the problem is. So if I take a C chord, because that's the one. And I'll do a D chord as well, since someone asked about a D chord earlier. And if I'm going through, my chord sounds like that, and I'm looking down, I'm like, no, my guitar really is straight up and down. So I can't say it's the guitar at this point. Now I can say me. Okay? So now I would say the first string sounds fine. So maybe there's nothing wrong with that finger. But then I go to hit the string below the D string. It's muted. So that tells me I have to fix my third finger. In this case, my knuckle is collapsed, so I have to bend my knuckle a little bit. Or it could be just moving. If you can see my little third finger moving the finger up just a little bit, I'll tell you a guilty fault of mine. I cannot play a G chord.

Without muting my A string. If I play with my second finger directly on the string, I always mute the A string because I have small hands, okay? I don't have big, hulking hands that I can curl around. So for me to play a G chord cleanly, I have to see the second finger. I have to have my finger just a little bit above the fretboard. I don't know if you can see that. But my finger's not directly on the string because sometimes I can't bend that knuckle enough. I don't know. It's just my hand. So I have to play this finger just slightly higher, and it cleans the chord up. Okay? But that. That's me, and that's my fingers, and that's my physics, okay? Because everyone. Everyone's body's different. Everyone has different, you know, length fingers, different thickness fingers. Some people's knuckles bend better. Some people's knuckles collapse. Okay? So we have to figure out a little bit what works with our hand. And these changes are usually very, very small. Very, very small. Okay? So you could solve that on my G chord. It's just moving things up. The other thing, if you're muting the high E string a lot, and you can do this on the D chord, too. Usually the D chord, the high E string, gets muted because this knuckle is not bent enough. And usually because the guitar is like this. So again, check the angle of the guitar. But if the guitar is straight up and down, it's usually because this knuckle on the third finger is not bent enough. But a lot of people mute the high E string because their hand on the back is collapsed like this. I call this waiter's pose. Okay? There's waiter's pose and there's praying mantis. They both have. Neither of them are good. Okay? So praying mantis will cause a lot of pain on the outside of your wrist. It's like your overextending the wrist. I see people who play like this and I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm in so much pain for you. But a lot of it is waiter's pose in our thumb, we choke up the guitar. Like we're really trying to strangle the guitar. Your hand just loosely goes around the guitar. Okay. So there should be space under here. All right. You can put a pen underneath. There should be space under here. We should not be collapsing our palm into the guitar because that takes our stretch away. And then we end up muting the high E string. Okay. So those are, those are very, very common issues there on that. I just going to back up because I saw someone ask. Someone said a really good question here. Yeah, this just opened my eyes to a major issue I have. Yeah. CC chords are brutal for me. Why is the D chord. Chord still so hard after six months? And it, you know, the D chord is one of those chords that is a pain in the butt. The C chord is too. And eventually, you know, check all these things we talked about today first. Okay. And, and I saw someone asked a question about calluses. I'll talk about those in a second. The thing is, I always tell students and they don't believe me, but, but this will happen. People don't believe me until it happens to them. I tell them, I said, listen, particularly on the D chord. I find this is a very common thing. I say, you know, it's, it's, it's not going to sound good for a while. And then all of a sudden, one morning you're gonna wake up and you're gonna play your chord and it's gonna sound perfect. You're not gonna know what the heck you did to do that. Okay. And in all honesty, you're not gonna. You're like, oh my God, it just worked. What did I do? You don't know it. And part of it is what we were talking about early. Your hand is getting more flexible. Your hand is stretching out. You're getting more dexterity. Lori, if you're someone with short fingers, you might want to go to a three quarter size guitar. All right. I have a lot of students who love the, the GS, the Taylor GS minis or, or like the Baby Martins. You can get a three quarter size guitar. Great for people with smaller fingers who can't stretch as much. Okay. That's an option. Also, I have a lot of students who have arthritis that prefer to play on a three quarter size guitar for that same reason, the stretch is not as much. And you three quarter size guitars in both electric and acoustic as well. Okay. So. So that's a good option for people who are shorter or even have arthritis. Now. Calluses. Calluses take time to develop. They develop faster on an acoustic because of the strings and the strength it needs. If you really want to develop calluses, you just do this. It's like sandpaper. I have my other thing, there's a little d' addario hand grip thing, but it's at my studio up in New Hampshire. And if you take the rubber piece off, there's strings and it's almost like a strength grip thing. But the best way to develop calluses is one, to play the guitar as much as possible. But also you can just. On the round wound strings, these, these thicker strings, you can just take your hands and do this. You'll develop some calluses. If I remember, I was learning the intro to Jolene. I did this during COVID and I had lost the callus on my thumb for my finger picking hand because I hadn't finger picked in a while. So actually you will lose calluses if you stop playing. Your calluses will soften. Okay. That's the downside. You got to keep playing. And I was learning to play the intro to Jolene, which has a lot of like a lot of this type of stuff. And it took me, I was practicing 15 minutes a day, fair consistently using the thumb. I was practicing 15 minutes a day. And after about five or six days, I developed a blister. The blister broke and my callus started forming. So it takes, if you really, really work at it, you can start developing your calluses probably within the first week. They will get thicker with time. And I have a lot of people when I was playing a lot, like I used to busk in Boston, I used to busk in Cambridge in Porter Square. And I would play for about three hours straight, you know, two and a half, three hours consistently playing the guitar. So you can imagine I have very, very thick calluses on my fingers to be able to play that long without being in pain. And a lot of times what would happen is my calluses would crack and then they would start peeling and splitting. So that's another normal thing as a guitar player. So. So just be aware of that. Matt says I learned my first anything via Lauren's videos. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. By Led Zeppelin is a great D chord song. Yeah, there's A lot of great songs that use D chords. Even another good song if you want to play it. All D's is Free Falling. I think I have a beginner tutorial here on YouTube for free falling. And.

It's all D chords.

And what we call suspended chords. So you probably see my finger.

My fingers moving and lifting up. It's a very. And then that's in. That's in Led Zeppelin. Stairway to Heaven.

There's no capo on that. Yeah.

So that's also in Stairway Heaven. It's in a lot of songs. Like, I think Indigo Girls is, like, another one. It's very common in, like, 90s songs.

I can't remember how that song goes.

It's a really cool little D DSUS little trick. It's fun. Eve of Destruction is another one. D DSUS two. DSUS four. Yep. Yeah. The suspended is the thing that builds the finger memory. Yeah. GNR Patience. Yep. That's another one that has stuck. Has that in there. You're absolutely correct. Once you hear it. Once you hear that.

Once you hear that, once you're like. You start recognizing it in other music, and you're like, oh, that's cool. I know what that's. I know what that is.

Smaller mic. I know I. I had another microphone that was a little thinner, but I try to keep myself, you know, surrounded around the microphone. I haven't figured out how to get, like, a lapel mic to work. You think I'd be able to get that? I tried it once. It didn't work. So I use the podcast mic for when I go live. When playing an F, keep your thumb on the neck to brace the finger. Yeah. So when you're playing bar chords, everyone starts up here with F. Okay. And this is the hardest spot. The hardest. My guitar sounds like it's a little out of tune after I turned the heat on over here. Not too bad. Oh, the A. There we go. That one's out. See, you always got to tune your guitar. Even when you tune your guitar, you got to retune it, especially when you turn the heat on. All right, so bar chords, F. Okay, so everyone starts up here.

You can even hear. Mine was just muted there. Had to fix my fingers. See, even I mute bar chords still. And I've been playing guitar for 20 years. F is the hardest place to play a bar chord. Okay? Now, the cool thing about bar chords and why they're so great is that they're shapes.

That you can move all around the guitar. So my recommendation, if you're learning bar Chords is to start in the middle around fret five or fret seven, because the string tension is much less in the middle. And part of playing bar chords is about strength. Okay? So you do need a strength component. You eventually will develop a little callus on the side of your finger. So basically, your first finger becomes a little capo. And, you know, so I would recommend starting here and working your way back. It's always going to be easier to play it on an electric guitar because the electric guitar is thinner. And a lot of students then ask me, like, Lauren, how do I get my chord changes faster when I'm going from a bar chord to, like, an open chord? And that's a great question. And so usually I will start people, we'll put a capo. You know, I'll put a capo maybe on the fifth fret. And I said, okay, we're going to go F to C, because the cool thing about that is the C chord has a pivot point. We can leave our third finger in place. And now you. You can start practicing rotating in and out of a bar chord. Okay.

Because. Because again, it's all about muscle memory. So once you get this shape in your fingers, because this shape is also the shape for, like, a B minor chord, it's just everything's moved down one string. So if you can develop the muscle memory for this shape, you can start moving it around the guitar. And again, I start here because the strings are thinner, they're lighter. It's more likely that you are going to get a clean sound. Yeah. Joseph said. Or put a capo on the second or third to play the bar chord exactly. Just like I did here. I. I use the fifth fret.

Either way, it doesn't matter to me. And I have a course, Power and bar chord Mastery. And I have some exercises to kind of like to help you, you know, get used to the. The bar chord shape without even barring your. You know, without barring the guitar and having it sound nice. Because a lot of it is strengthened and comes down to muscle memory. And again, going back to the beginning, Relaxation. Relaxation. Is your hand stretched out enough for this? I know students, they jump into bar chords way too early. They're very, very frustrating. They're amazing. You know, I was working on a song with some students. We were actually doing Torn by Natalie Imbruglia, which I'm going to do a video here. And cool thing about bar chords is you can get percussive with it.

I think it's. I don't know if it Goes to a G or a G minor there. But you can hear how with bar chords. One, I can just slide along the guitar, but two, I can get these percussive elements in my rhythm. Okay. Even if you think of, like.

Okay, like, Stairway to Heaven type stuff, you can get really cool sounds out of your guitar with bar chords, but do not rush into them. Explain putting pressure right next to the fret. On the fret and in the middle of the frets. Yeah. So in terms of fret pressure, I'll give you this example here. I use the high E string. Okay. So you need the least amount of pressure at the front side. The side towards the body of the guitar. The further you are, the closer you are to the headstock, the more pressure you need. All right. This is why an A chord is so difficult for some people if you play with three fingers, because, you know, you have to shove three fingers into this second fret, and this finger ends up in the back of the fret. So most likely, this is the one that gets muted because you need a little bit more pressure. Okay. So if I. I'm gonna go here on this third fret, and I'm just gonna play until. There it is. Okay. So that's how much pressure I need to get that note to ring. Now I'm gonna back it up, keep the same pressure. Look at that. I just moved back, like, a quarter of an inch, and it's already starting to get buzzy.

Now it's, like, almost dead. And it's completely dead. And by the time I get to the back of the fret, it's just a dead. All right. Same amount of pressure. So the closer you are to the front of the fret, the less pressure you need to actually make the guitar sound. Okay. And that's another reason with the C chord, a lot of people play with that third finger towards the back of the fret. Okay. So you might want to get that closer to the front of the fret. Okay. Same with. I find with the D chord, sometimes people play with this finger back here. Stretching this to the front can also help. Again, the closer you are to the front the fret, the less pressure you need to push and also can help clean up your chords. Gypsy says it took me seven months on my acoustic to be able to put it in songs. I truly believe once you have your beginner basic chords down, start practicing them, as many students will take a long time to master. Yeah, and I agree with you. Get the open chords down so that you have those in your repertoire. Because there's so much you can do with open chords. And if you work with a good teacher, they can use a capo a lot of times to eliminate bar chords in songs for you. So you can really do a lot with open chords, but in the background, be practicing the bar chords. And if you want to start incorporating them into songs, I usually recommend songs that have like, you know, one bar chord in the verse or one bar chord in the chorus so it doesn't ruin the whole song for you, but gives you an opportunity to throw them into a musical context. So what about bending with different fingers and with the narrow frets at 12ish. Yeah. So you're talking. What about bending with different fingers? Well, you know, for me, fortunately, my hand, this is where having small hands helps. You know, if I were going to play a bar, eventually I am going to run out of space and for it to be comfortable, you know, and if you have bigger hands, it'll get uncomfortable sooner. And that's when you can play, like, partial chords.

Why? A lot of electric guitar players probably play inversions and stuff up there. Pinky bends. Are you talking about like bends.

Like bending a string or actually bending the pinky? Because. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to. To bend the pinky. And again, that's where you could go back to a spider. Yeah. So pinky bends. I would never bend a note with my pinky. It's just. It's a weak finger. I always do bends with the third finger.

You know, and it's much easier to do them on an electric guitar with thinner strings. So when I play my electric. My electric, I use hybrid strings. So I have a thicker strings on the. On the top side of the guitar, the thick strings. And then on the bottom of the fretboard, I have very thin strings because for me, it's very hard for me to bend notes in pitch with thicker strings. Okay. And probably the same on an acoustic because these strings are thicker. But when you're doing a bend, you want to push into the guitar and up.

Okay. I don't typically bend with my pinky because it's just a weak finger. I would rather, you know, I rather move the finger up and bend. So I usually do bendings, you know, with my. With my third finger, just because it's the stronger finger for me. Yeah, yeah. And it'll be easier on an electric than an acoustic. But that's what I always bend.

With my third finger because that's. That's my strong finger. And I can also. You can see my Thumb is above here. Some people like this. Some people, you know, some people are for this, against this. I like to leverage and use that as like almost like a fulcrum to really get that to, to bend. But I have all three fingers. I'm using all three fingers. I'm not just using the third finger. I'm using all three. I'm pushing into the fretboard and up.

Okay. Have you ever, or do you use a slide? I don't know how to play slide guitar. I know the concept of it. I've never used one. It's definitely not, Definitely not with my, my wheel. Wheelhouse. Yeah. Stevie Ray Vaughn uses thick strings. Hey, exactly. And that's what it is. It's. It's a preference. You'll get better sounds with thicker strings. I just admit, you know, I, I am female and I'm not as. My hands are not as strong as a man, so I have no issue with saying that. So I just, I just tend to use lighter strings because for me it just makes it easier to. To bend and pitch. But understand there are trade offs with the guitar. If you use thicker strings, you will get a better sound. That's why I like those hybrid strings, because I can use the thicker strings on the top so that when you're playing, you know, you're.

When you're playing your, your power chords and your bar chords, you can get the beefiness on the bottom, but then I can do the bends and get them, get them in tune. So like, my Ibanez has hybrid strings. So on the bottom is nines, which are thinner electric guitar strings. And on the top are tens. Did I say that right? Bottom is nines, which is thinner strings. On, on the thicker strings, I have tens. Okay. So slightly they're called. I don't have, I don't have a pack here, but they're hybrid strings. D' Addario sells them. They're. They're pretty cool. Yeah. So someone said. Yeah. After a stroke there. Theirs is hard to work. Yeah. And if you're someone who has, you know, weakness in your hands or you had a stroke or you have arthritis, listen there, there's no problem with going to lighter strings, okay? Whatever you need to do to make the guitar playable is what you need to do. It's about having fun. It's not worrying about, like, what other people think or people being like, you know, I get so much crap. People all the time are like, that's not a C chord. You can't play a C chord with two fingers. Yes. I Could play a C chord with one finger if I wanted to. That's a C chord. If you just play the bottom three strings, G, B, E or sorry, gce.

It's not the greatest sounding C chord, but it is a C chord. And if you learn music theory, you'll understand why it's a C chord. But, you know, there's no right or wrong way to do it. I had a woman who used to take in person lessons with me, and she had. She really is. She had bad arthritis in her frettingham, and she just wasn't able to play bar chords. It was like the pressure she needed to create them was just too much. It aggravated her arthritis. So what we did instead is we stuck with open chords. If there was a song that I could use a capo to get rid of the bar chords for her, I would. Or we would use like modified versions of chords on the bottom strings. This way she didn't have to bar. Okay? So, you know, that's the great thing about guitar and a big thing that I preach even in my lessons, even in my seven level guitar system. Guitar is a journey, okay? And if, you know, life is also a journey and it's different for everyone, okay? We all come to guitar for different reasons. You know, we want to be like our. Our favorite idols or. Or maybe we're trying to honor a loved one. Maybe someone left us a guitar or. You know, for me, it was. It was my voice, you know, because I grew up in a very strict Italian household. You. You did. You just said yes. Yes, ma'. Am.

So the guitar actually gave me a way to express myself, gave me an outlet for my emotions and, you know, allowed me to just kind of manage my emotions during very difficult times in life. So that was. That was a great thing for me. And I know lots of people who are coming to music because they are going through a dark period and they're looking for that help. They're looking for that healing and that solace that music provides. So I will never tell someone that they can't do it. Or I might not have the exact method. Like, so say you're someone who doesn't have hands. I don't have a method to play guitar with your feet, but there are videos out there of people who are very good at the guitar and they don't have any hands. They play with their feet. They figure out a way to do it. Okay. And if you're someone. I have many students. You know, Lauren, I'm missing this finger. This. You know, I You know, I lost this finger in an accident when I was a kid or I was a mechanic and you know, I'm missing two fingers on this hand. What do I do? There's always ways to do it. Okay? There's always ways. And maybe it's going to be you're going to play lead guitar instead of chords. Maybe you're going to play melody instead of playing chords. Or maybe, you know, maybe you're a righty, but you're going to play the guitar lefty because you have all the fingers on your right hand. All right? So usually a right handed person plays with their, their left hand as the fretting hand. Well, if you're missing two or three fingers on your left hand, but you have all your fingers on your right hand, you might want to flip the guitar around and play as a lefty because now you've got all your fingers for fretting, strumming. Yeah, maybe you're not going to be the greatest finger picker, but you still can. You can still finger pick with just these three fingers really good. You can do a lot with just these three fingers. Finger picking and maybe. And that's all you need to hold a pick, you know, or this. You know, there's different ways. You know, I know I show people hold the pick like this, but if you don't have an index finger, you can hold it like this. And if you don't have an index finger or a middle finger, hold it like this. Or you get one of. I don't know if I have the Black Mountain pick here. I thought I kept one here. There's Black mountain picks that you can. They must be on my desk over there. You can clip to your thumb. You don't even have to hold the pick. All right, There are options. There are tools out there. Okay? And go back to what I said in the beginning. You have to believe that this is possible, right? You have to believe that you can play this instrument and that you're gonna be able to do it. And that's the great thing, Even about my 7 level with the community, because there's other people in there who are just like you. And they're like, I did this too. I just, you know, I didn't think I was gonna be able to do this. And six months down the road, look at me now, I can actually do it. So it's great to have that little support system as well. But I wanna tell you that if you want to play the guitar, you can. Okay? You just have to figure out the methodology that works for you, whether it's me, whether it's another teacher here on YouTube, whether it's an in person teacher, if you have a great teacher locally, that is always, always the best method. But unfortunately, those are hard to come by in person. Okay? So it is really hard to come by a good teacher that knows specifically how to teach beginners. It's very hard for very, very good guitar players to go back to that beginner level and break things down because they're, they're so advanced. It's. It's really hard for them to go backwards. And they're great guitar players, they're phenomenal guitar players, but they might not be the greatest guitar teachers. Okay. And I've had a number of students who've come through my course and they're like, I took lessons with this teacher for three or four months and I learned more from you in a week than I did with them in four months. And that happens. And that's what happens when you have structure too. Because a lot of in person. And I took guitar lessons too. In person. I was like, this person sucks.

But it's the difference between a good teacher and a bad. I've had good teachers and I've had bad teachers. And I tried to imitate one of my teachers that I had. Thank you, Matt, for your four pound donation. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And I love the little coffee. The little bird with the coffee. That's a great one. Thank you so much, Matt, and appreciate. And thank you for the tilt. Guilty. I'm totally using that. We'll give you credit. But I modeled my teaching author teacher I had when I finally took lessons because I was so frustrated. I had been learning the guitar on my own for like 10 years, and I really wanted to get good at it. And I was like, everyone else has been playing guitar for like one or two years, and they're way better than me. I've been playing guitar for 10 years, years. And the thing is, I didn't know what I didn't know. Like, I didn't know how to finger pick. Like, how do I teach myself to finger pick? I don't. I don't know the technique. What's the best way to do it? So I worked with the teacher so that I could find the things. Thank you, Joseph. Appreciate it. You're the best. Thank you guys for your little donations. I love it. Thanks for being here with me on Saturday morning. And she had everything. She had worksheets and everything was laid out in like a Map. And you knew exactly what was coming up. You knew exactly what was next. And when I started teaching, I was like, that's how I want to teach. I want my students to come in the door and know that I've put some time in to their lessons before they even walk through my door. Because a lot of teachers, what they do is they wing it. Okay? There's a lot of teachers who wing it. They wait for you to come in the door. You know, what do you want to work on this week? You're like, I don't know. I thought you had a game plan for me. You're supposed to tell me what we're working on this week. You know, I noticed the neck angle is higher, and it's still best. Yeah. So I always have my neck like this. This is the most. Actually the most ergonomic. Let me be 100% honest before some music purist yells at me, because they always do. The most ergonomic position is what we call classical position, which is this. Okay. Which. Which is your guitar in between your legs, neck pointing really high because this takes all the pressure off the wrist. I don't particularly like to play my classical guitar like this. I think it feels weird. I don't mind playing my electric like it. But for me, I prefer to put the hump. Where's the hump? This hump on my thigh. I put it on the side, and then I use my guitar strap. If you do not have a guitar strap, you should get one. I use my guitar strap to help me keep the neck of the guitar in a high position so that I can still get the benefits of having the guitar up tall. Okay. So you never want your guitar to be like this. You definitely do not want it to be like that because look at my wrist. But that's not going to help you. So up like this. Okay. This way. Nice bend in your elbow. You don't have too much of a creak in your wrist. No praying mantis. Okay. This. When you get. When you start lowering the neck, the praying mantis starts hurting. All right, that happens. So. Good question. That is the most ergonomic way to play. What is your opinion of a Yamaha F G800 guitar for a beginner? I don't know, because it's not always the model of the guitar. It Sometimes it's the size of the guitar. So I always tell students, the best guitar is the guitar that is most comfortable for you to hold. And it should be, preferably, if you can. If you can spend $500 on a guitar you're going to get a really good guitar. Okay. Better than like the entry level ones. It used to be 300, but I think with inflation now even 300 to 500 is a good range to spend particularly on an acoustic because acoustics, the quality of the guitar will greatly improve. They're also easier to play. Now this guitar here, this isn't a grand auditorium. This is not a dreadnought. So dreadnought would be a little wider. Now again, talking about trade offs, dreadnoughts are gonna have the best sound because they get the biggest bodies. That means they have the most space inside, which means they have the most room for the sound to bounce and, you know, resonate. Now this is just a little bit smaller than a dreadnought. I also like on these tailors and there's some other models I don't know if you can see. It has like a little angle here, which is nice because sometimes when you're doing this, my crafter doesn't have that. And you know, the edge of the guitar will dig into your biceps. So that's also, you know, a consideration. But I always tell people the most important consideration is, is sizing and comfort. Okay? Just we were talking earlier about 3/4 size guitars. All right. If you're someone that's maybe 5ft tall, 5 1, 5 2. You might want to consider a 3 quarter size guitar or you know, some sort of parlor size guitar where the body is much smaller. Because if you are small, friend, I'm just under 5 5. Okay? So I'm not, I'm not too tall, but I guess I'm not too short either. So I'm about five five. All right. My aunt who I went and saw yesterday, my great aunt who's 98, she's probably about five feet tall. So compared to her I'm a giant. But you know, for someone like her, if I was going to teach my aunt to play guitar, I wouldn't give her this guitar. Probably be too big for her. I would probably recommend, you know, the Taylor GS Mini or another three quarter size guitar. Yeah, I wish I could afford the 314. Yeah, this is the, this is a 324 CE.

And I bought this a couple years ago. I hadn't bought a guitar in probably over 10 years because I know guitar acquisitions. I hate wasting. I don't want to say waste because it's not a good guitar. Is not a waste of money. But I hate spending money on myself. There's two things I will spend money on on myself with and it's. It's sports cars. I do like sports cars and I guess guitars, those are the things that I. And going on vacation. I do like to travel now, so I do like going on vacation. But I hadn't bought a guitar. The crafter was the last guitar I bought. I hadn't bought one in 10 years. And I'm starting to do my live events. I have a live event coming up in August. It's going to be my last big live event. So if you're interested in playing guitar with me live here in the Boston area, go to lauren bateman.com forward/events to learn more. We have a few tickets left if you want to get in. It is going to be the last live event that I'm going to be doing of this kind where it's a larger group. So if you're interested, come on out, have fun, play some music with us. But I needed a guitar. My crafter, all the inputs are broken and it would be a pain in the butt to fix it. So I was like, well, maybe I should just get a new guitar. And I always wanted a tailor. I always wanted a tailor. I could just never afford them. So. So it was my birthday. I think I got it for my 40th birthday. My wife was like, you should listen like you've been working so hard. You should spend some money on a guitar and get yourself something nice. So when, when your spouse tells you to spend money on guitar, you don't wait, you don't hesitate. They can always change their mind. So when your spouse says, or your significant other says, honey, you should buy a guitar, go right online and buy that guitar. Okay.

So that would be my advice, you know. Well, last boy. My. Your aunt. Oh, ancestors from Austria. Some we have. Austria is in the house there. Good things come in small packages. That is right. I have a parlor up in New Hampshire that PRS sent me. Nice sounding guitar. They're just smaller but they, they pack a little bit more of punch and maybe that's what you want. This has like a warmer sound to it. So it really just depends. It's all personal preference. But you have to get something that's comfortable that you're going to love to play. Because if you don't love it, you're not going to want to play it and you're not going to practice and then you're not going to make progress and then you're not playing the guitar, which is not the point. And I understand sometimes you're working within a budget if you're working within a budget, go on Facebook Marketplace or go on something like Craigslist. I don't know what they have in the uk. You know, go to, go on a, you know, used market site and see if you can find a nice guitar for use. I've. I've seen some people get some really nice guitars for about 50 off. Okay, so that's my recommendation. I'm five four, female. I bought the Zager Om size. It's perfect. Red knot was way too big. Yeah, I agree. The dreadnought, even for me is, is a little bit too big and I'm only slightly taller than you, but I do, I feel with the dreadnoughts like I'm like I'm crawling over the guitar. This is a little bit more comfortable and it's a great balance. What kind of amps do you like for playing live? I actually have that here. Let me grab it for you. Just so you can see, I'm not endorsed by any of these people. So when I talk about this stuff, this is, this is just stuff I actually use. I have no endorsements with Fishmen. This is the amp that I would use to perform live, especially if I was playing in a tavern. The reason I like this is because there's two channels. So I could plug a guitar and a microphone into this. These are really great amps for acoustic guitars. You know, I really love like the Fender Champions, which are great for electric. If you just need a small practice amp. I don't know. This is the Loud Box Mini. I don't know how many. I don't know how big this one is. I don't know if this is 40 watts or what this is, but it, it has a lot of output. Okay. On this one. So it is, is a cool. And you can put chorus on it. It has a master volume, but you can plug in your guitar or instrument. You can plug in a mic and it's. It's a beautiful like for acoustic. This has always been my go to. I think they just sound really great. I forget what I paid for this. Maybe between 300, $400. This is a newer one. My bass player had one when we were performing in taverns. We played through his Fishmen. It was always awesome. And it's just. It's a great sounding amp. You have the ability to put reverb and chorus on your guitar, which makes it sound a little fuller, a little sparkly. And it has the option to add some reverb to your voice, which is also a nice. A Nice feature. And these newer models do have Bluetooth and you know, you can plug. You can. I don't have the cable here, but in the back there's a little input. So if you want to play your music through the amp and then strum over it, you can do that as well. So great overall amp. I do think they have a smaller version of this, but hands down, acoustic guitar amps. Fishman, I. All that's. That's my go to.

Electric would be the Fender. The Fender champions. I like them. They've got, you know, pretty good built in presets, especially for beginners. They, they work out like, you know, so they're really great. I have that amp. It's great. Yep. See another person who hasn't. I know a lot of, A lot of my students have it because obviously they asked me and that's what I use and, and they use them. But honestly, they, hands down, they are. They are phenomenal sounding guitars. They produce very great sound and you will get a lot out of this. Like I said, I could perform in a bar with that. It has a lot of punch. Especially if you have a good guitar with a good preamp. Okay, so a little bit before we end the speed, we'll get into preamps. So there's electronics in this Taylor, and there's electronics in some of my other guitars. If you have an acoustic guitar with a. With an input, all right, that means you can plug it into an amp. Thank you, Thor. Oh, I have Thor on. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for your instruction and inspiration. You are so welcome. That is so cool. I love that. And I love your little, your little person there. So preamp is just basically how powerful the output is to an A PA system. So these guitars, you know, when you're spending 2,000, $3,000 on a guitar, you. You're paying for the electronics at that point. Up to some point you're paying for the wood and you know, like the tuning pegs and some of the mother of pearl and some of the inlay stuff. But then it gets to a point where you're actually paying for the electronics inside the guitar. And that's usually when you start moving into your four figures for guitars. So I have an Ibanez over there doesn't have the greatest preamp. So on that guitar I spent like 300. That was a 300 Ibanez. If I plugged that into a PA, we had to jack the volume up on the guitar and the PA to make it loud enough. This Taylor, I Can just barely have the volume on and it cranks. Okay, so. So your electronics will. Will improve with pricing as well. Yeah. And a good luthier can make crap sound. Wicked said. That's a great gypsy notice. You know, if you get a guitar, even if you have a crap guitar, you can take it to a luthier. They can probably shave down the bridge, make things a little bit easier for you to play, because that's what you get when you have a more expensive guitar. You just have something that is set up and balanced a little bit better. Like my first guitar I see hanging over there, my Ibanez. Like, the strings are this far away from the fretboard. It's very hard to play. Okay. We call that the action on the guitar. You can lower the action, make it easier to play. Joseph, thank you so much. Hi, Lauren. Thanks for all your lessons. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. And thank you for being here. If I win the lottery, I'm getting a Gibson acoustic. Gibson's are beautiful guitars. The only thing I really don't like is Ovation because I can't do the curved back. The curved back, like, throws me way off. They're beautiful sounding guitars. And I love Melissa Etheridge. She plays Ovation. I just can't do the curve back. For me, it doesn't work. Oh, Kristen, thank you so much. I'm learning a lot today. A really nice Saturday morning lesson. Well, thank you for being here. I really do appreciate everyone. You know, it's 10:00am here in Boston. We're going for about an hour. I usually come on. I'm like, I'm going to do a half hour and then you got. You know, I just love being here. I love being live with everyone. Sorry about the confusion. I think we had two lives posted at the same time. But thank you for being here. And hopefully you got a lot out of this session because, you know, I really love teaching. I love helping people and giving you guys the motivation and just the confidence that you can do this, because you really can. If you had a teacher who was a jerk. I have one student, he's like, I went in for my lessons and my teacher said I should play harmonica. And I said, well, that's not going to happen here. Okay, so if you want to play guitar, I'm going to tell you, you can do it. All right, I believe you can do it. I know because I've had people who've come into my studio with absolutely zero musical talent and was able to help them play guitar. And if you put the work in. I know I can help you too. All right. And you know, there's tons of free stuff here on YouTube. There's tons of song tutorials and stuff over on my website, laurenbatement.com in the song section, there's tons of free stuff. So if you can't afford the course, not a problem. Keep learning. Keep watching the videos here on YouTube. And if you're looking for a little bit more structure, you're looking for a little bit of community, go check out the 7 level. Laurenbatement.com course. Go check out the 7 level. Would love to see you in there and give you more of the step by step. Like I said, It's $200 a month to take lessons at my music school here in Boston. And that's a half hour lesson. That's not even an hour. Okay. And I think there's over 70 lessons in the seven level, so that's a lot of lessons. Okay. And it's usually about, you know, nine to 12 months of lessons in that course. So, you know, $200 versus. Versus 297 is. Is, you know, it's, it's a, it's a drop in the bucket. There are a couple. I think there's like a three pay payment plan. Go check that out. Would love to see you in there. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend and I'll see you all in a lesson video real soon. Bye. Bye, everyone.