Originally Posted by: VulcanCCIT

I am on Lisa's beginner course, going from A Minor to E I can do, but I have to stop, and look and place my fingers to go back to AMinor and obviously cant keep up with the beat, what is the best way to get this done? should I just play simple AMinor until my fingers drop to get that muscle memory? Is this delay normal? only been at it for a week. I come from a Clarinet back ground but have been teaching myself Piano since Christmas and I am about at the learning Chords section on Piano. I am hoping the Piano and Guitar will compliment each other. I am good at reading sheet music, key signatures, treble and bass clefs, and yes, My fingers already hurt lol.

A few things.

The piano comparison is a 'yes and no' proposition when comparing to guitar. Chords are chords but what fingering pattern you used are very different. I wouldn't say any easier though but on a piano, your fingers never change order from left to right. Essentially the leftmost finger striking the chord on the piano will always be the lowest note in that chord. On guitar, it's not the same thing. Piano is very linear. That is to say that every note from hight to low is in order on a line from left to right. While on guitar, every string follows that pattern of lowest at the nut to the highest clostest to the bridge, you now have six strings on a standard guitar to contend with to make chords. Which means it's more a lesson of physics versus your hands physiology to fret a not on a chords.

Confused?

Both the most confusing and coolest thing about guitar is that there are a million variations on how to fret chords and the amzing number of chords types you can play. But it does depend on your hand to cooperate.

It's always that.....

My suggestion is to just go as slowly as you can, without playing along with something and drill going from one chord to another: E to Am, then Am to E and so on. Go slow. Don't worry about speed. As a matter of fact, you will always use this 'start slow' way of learning something even if you're experienced and been playing for decades. Patience is the best friend of a guitar player. Well, after a while you want every guitar on the planet so, so the true best friend is money (hehe) but a close second is patience. Just go back and forth and get used to the movement.

There isn't per se 'muscle memory' in as much as your brain is making a pathway for that skill. If you're trying to go faster than your brain can process, your brain just shrugs and goes 'oh well, whatever...'. Also recall that right now, you might also be trying to strum a melody/pattern in a lesson. In addition to just getting your fingers to hit the right string, you're probably trying to strum a pattern and the same place in your brain has no sense of what is the priority motor skill to focus on. So, start by doing the slow E>Am>Am>E pattern but just one strum per chord change. Once you start feeling like the chord changes are getting a little more natural, then strum a bit. Don't force your head in to competing motor skills.

I mean seriously, I was noodling around with Pat Benatar-Heartbreaker (with some aid of the GT lesson...I mean hey....that solo is awesome!) and for whatever reason, the opening song riff was not clicking. I've been playing a long time but there's always that one thing. The riff is a barred F to a barred G#. Walk in the park. Except my brain totally knew the G# is the 4th fret but my hand kept on going to the standard barred G/3rd fret. Been a long time player so I can tackled hard stuff but this little, dumb interval of F to G# wasn't making it to my hand.

Answer? Go slow.

My thoughts.