Byron Santos
Recording Artist & Engineer
New Orleans, LA

"Received Jamie’s new "Path" book yesterday, WOW! I must say she has done it again...explained the unexplainable.

I wish that I had this book when I was learning how to read music. It would have saved me a lot of time and headaches. Just the chapters on rhythm are worth the cost of the book!

Oh, and the chord chapters. I could have saved a few years of practicing chords just with those pages. It is definitely a first to have information like that in print!

With Jamie’s books aiding musicians in learning, a “new breed of musicians” is being born; the level of musicianship even from beginners in the next few years will be extraordinary."

Great Book Jamie,
Byron Santo

 

 

Amazing Grace

Are you one of those people who struggle with "easy" chords, such as the Amazing Grace guitar chords? Well, chord changes are easy to do if you know the best way to go about it. The worst way is to pick up all your fingers when you are done with one chord, and try to get them all in place in one bunch for the next chord! The best way is to hold fingers down in place when you can (often, one finger is common to both chords), and also to place fingers down in an order that allows the arm to relax its weight by keeping contact with the strings with one finger, while other fingers swing into place.

This is an especially good way to first learn chords. After learning this way, we can more easily pick them all up and land in the right place from mid-air if we want to (divebombing).

Here are the chords to Amazing Grace, with pointers about the best way to do the chord changes. These concepts are taken from the GuitarPrinciples publication "The Path Level One: Chords & Rhythm".

(Pictures of how to do the changes are found below the song.)

 Here is good form on a G chord. We will keep the 1st finger in place when switching to the E minor.
The first finger moves back slightly to allow room for the 2nd finger to be placed on the 4th string.
Here is good form on a C chord. The hand that is properly developed with the Foundation Exercises from
"The Principles" will have no trouble doing this. Notice these things:

Distal joints are bent.

There is a space between all fingers.

The 4th finger is relaxed and pointed toward the fretboard.

The distal (tip) joints are all bent, the 1st finger is bent the most. The thumb is not visible; it is squarely behind the neck balancing the hand.
Here is very bad form on a C chord! Yes, you can get away with it if you are lucky, but it will handicap your playing and limit your possibilities as a player. The undeveloped hand will go into this position from weakness. Some lucky people can play even with this bad position, many cannot!

Good form on the D chord. (More info on moving properly into the D chord in "The Path Level One: Chords & Rhythm".

 

For insight into the best way of changing chords, take a look at "Chord Confusion"...

More beginner songs and lessons....

Copyright ©1999 Jamie Andreas. All Rights Reserved.
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