TAC Family Forums

Share your wins, get unstuck, or see how others use the TAC Method to create a fulfilling guitar life!

  • Benefits from my Friday Routine

    Posted by N-lightMike on September 24, 2021 at 1:11 pm

    One week, Tony asked us to share how we use and benefit from the lessons through out the week. I have gotten an awful lot of benefit from the Friday Transition Lessons.

    It turns out, that even though I may have used a certain chord in a song, I don’t know it as well as I thought. Many times, I will be transitioning to that chord from one particular chord throughout the song. But if you ask me to start on a different chord and transition to it, it’s like I have to learn that chord all over again. For instance, the Bm chord. In all the songs I played using a Bm, I always started from the D major chord and then went to the Bm. But if you asked me to go to a Bm from an A7, all of a sudden I couldn’t do it, at least not cleanly and quickly enough to play in a song.

    Since I joined TAC over 2 years ago, I have paid particular attention to this lesson and worked on the various transitions. This has made my chords much better in general. That would have seemed like all I could have asked, but that wasn’t all I got from the Friday lessons.

    The Friday Transition Lessons taught that it wasn’t just the shape of any particular chord that was important, but also what chord you are coming from. So when learning a new song, I would isolate chord pairs and practice them slowly until I was fluid with that particular transition.

    But now, I have started using the Friday Transition Lessons to gain another wonderful benefit. I pay attention to the particular way I make the chords making up a chord pair. Then I try to figure out if I can make those chords in a different way that would make the transition easier.

    So, today’s lesson got me to make the Am chord with my middle, ring and pinky fingers. That makes going to the Bm and back again a cinch.

    When making the A7 chord, I use either the index and middle or the middle and ring. When transitioning to the Bm, I found that if I use the index and middle fingers, then I can simply slide the middle finger from the 2nd fret to the 3rd fret and the other fingers seem to find their places automatically.

    This caused me to revisit the infamous D to Bm transition. I found that if I use the same finger to lead, all I had to do was move the middle finger diagonally from the 1st string, 2nd fret to the 2nd string, 3rd fret. This was a very quick and sure transition and again the rest of the fingers found their way seemingly automatically. I have been practicing and using and struggling with the D to Bm transition for many, many years. This seems to be the secret for me when making this particular transition.

    I hope this helps someone else.

    MG 😀

    N-lightMike replied 3 years, 3 months ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Guitargeezer-Jack

    Member
    September 25, 2021 at 10:29 am

    You are clearly having “light bulb moments” @MikeGaurnier ! What amazes me is how many alternative chord shapes there are, for example, Bm, and sound good as a substitute. Ultimate Guitar tabs show them when the mouse arrow is placed on an individual chord diagram. Play on! Jack

    • N-lightMike

      Member
      September 25, 2021 at 1:23 pm

      Totally agree @Guitargeezer . I’ve seen those alternate chord shapes on Ultimate Guitar Tabs. I’ve hovered over them just to see the number. I’ve even scrolled through one or two out of curiosity, but I’ve never really spent time examining even one chord “family”.

      Thanks for coming by and checking out my post.

      MG 😀

  • Bill_Brown

    Member
    September 27, 2021 at 8:10 am

    Thank you @MikeGaurnier for giving me some different prospectives to consider when doing the Friday Chord Transitions Challenge. I’ve always considered these challenges to be about speed, thus just looking at different fingerings (other than the conventional) to make the transitions easy and quicker. I’ve also always enjoyed trying to figure out how to do them using all barre chords – which has been my desired end game for these challenges. I never really considered practicing them with a song in mind, or with other chords that I may find difficult to transition from or to. So thank you for opening my eyes to the other possibilities of purpose for the Friday Chord Transitions👍

    • N-lightMike

      Member
      September 27, 2021 at 9:10 am

      You are so welcome @Bill_Brown . And I thank you in return for replying and letting me know that my time in making this post has benefitted you. That’s what makes our participation in the community all worth while, that others are benefitted.

      MG 😀

  • Kristin1

    Member
    October 23, 2021 at 12:22 am

    I absolutly agree with you, @Mike Gaurnier,

    it´s important to choose the best finger combinations. And to consider the right order to place the fingers until all fingers find their way to the strings at exacly the same time. I usually place “lead finger/s” first and then the other fingers in the order their strings get strummed.

    • N-lightMike

      Member
      October 23, 2021 at 9:09 am

      Thank you @Kristin1 . Our guitar journey continues. We are way past the place when we learned an open chord in one particular position and fingering. I never dreamed, at that time, there were so many ways to make the same chord.

      MG 😀

Log in to reply.