No matter what your skill level is as a guitarist, you’ll invariably come across chords that are difficult to form and play on the fretboard.

It can be frustrating switching between chords and having to wait for your fingers to fall into place before you can continue a tune.

In order to construct, switch and ultimately play chords faster than you can now, you’ll need to learn a few new approaches.

There are a number of important factors that go into deciding how long it will take you to form a new chord, or make a chord transition.

The difficulty of the chord in question has an obvious role in how long it takes to form a chord, but there are many other considerations that go into learning and using new chords.

Habits can be developed over time that can limit you from getting new chords under your fingers in the least amount of time.

Thankfully, there are number of good habits and exercises that you’ll develop right here in this lesson, so that you’ll never have to feel stuck on a chord again.

Don’t forget to pick up your free 64-page pdf eBook, The Jazz Guitar Primer, here. You’ll cover chords, comping, and improvisation.

The three main topics you’ll cover in this lesson are listed in the menu below. Included with each topic are exercises designed to make the most of your time when practicing chords:

1) Muscle Memory

This is one you’ve probably heard dozens of times by now, but it’s often shoved to the side and taken for granted as something that just happens when learning the guitar. It’s true that the our brains will go ahead and develop muscle memory over time, but are you taking any steps to make the process more efficient?

Important: Always warm-up with single line exercises before practicing difficult chords and stretches. You’ll avoid injury by giving yourself a solid 10 minute warm-up before playing chords with large stretches. I personally like to warm-up by playing scales and scale patterns very slowly.

With many of my new guitar students, trying to apply new chords or their first chords often goes something like this:

Spend a few moments finding the correct fingering on the fretboard.

Spend another few moments ensuring the correct hand position.

Play the chord for a few minutes continuously, which really equates to holding on to the guitar for dear life!

If this sounds like your approach to a new chord, then great, you’re almost there. At first glance, reading through the above approach seems like it’s a good approach on its own, but here’s the deal…

Developing muscle memory is achieved optimally through repetition. When forming chords, the habit that should be avoided and the habit that should be developed both relate to repetition.

AVOID – Forming the new chord and playing it for long periods of time (even longer than 15 seconds).

Why is that?

If you have 5 minutes to practice a new chord, you can form it once, strum it for 2 minutes, then reform it and strum it for another 2-3 minutes. This approach gives your hand 2 opportunities to develop the muscle memory of the chord shape in 5 minutes, which is not so great.

DEVELOP – Forming the new chord with the correct fingering, strumming once then relaxing your hand. Check out the video and tab below to see how this exercise works.

The reason you develop the habit of forming and reforming new chords is because in 5 minutes you could form and reform a chord a good 30 times (assuming 10 seconds per chord formation). In only 5 minutes you’ll have given your hand and brain 15 times more opportunities to develop the proper chord technique. This approach applies whether you’re learning a new voicing for a polychord or an open position G chord.

Remember to fully reset your hand between chord formations (see video). Just raising your hand above the fretboard and re-placing it won’t get the results you’re looking for. If you completely straighten your hand and fingers in between chord formations, you’ll know that you’ve reset your hand enough to develop faster muscle memory.

This exercise should be applied to every new chord you learn. But what if you’re having trouble forming chords using all fingers at once like in the exercise above? Keep reading to find out what to do when the problem is forming the chord itself.

After you’ve finished here, you can read up on the essential Jazz guitar comping patterns

2) Play Chords Faster with Finger Sequencing

This is a huge one, and an approach that I rarely see covered thoroughly online. Finger sequencing is a fancy way of taking control of muscle memory on the most fundamental level. You’ll use this approach to learning chords from the very first chord you learn (and the countless others you have yet to learn).

Muscle memory occurs when a specific motor skills task is repeated over a period of time and eventually results in the task being performed without a conscious effort.

But what if you have been diligently repeating a new chord and are still feeling like it’s taking too long to get a result? The answer is surprisingly simple…

When you learn a new chord, you form the chord one note at a time or one finger a time (with the exception of chords that require multiple notes with a single finger). After the first finger is placed, you find the position for the next finger, and so on.

Using G major as an example, take a look at how you could run into trouble with muscle memory (or perhaps already have). The steps below show a very common approach to forming the open G major chord on the guitar.

4 th finger (pinky finger) is placed on the 3 rd fret of the high E-string.

finger (pinky finger) is placed on the 3 fret of the high E-string. 2 rd finger (middle finger) is placed on 2 nd fret of the A-string.

finger (middle finger) is placed on 2 fret of the A-string. 3rd finger (ring finger) is placed on the 3rd fret of the low E-string.

Note: The fingerings for this exercise can be viewed in the video or from the numbers written between the notation and tab.

If you follow the 3 steps above every time you form a G major chord, your indiscriminating hand and brain will learn to make a G major chord in that same order. Students often build chords from a ‘dominant finger’ first, which is the 4th finger in the example above. The ‘dominant finger’ is decided by the way the student approaches constructing the chord, and is the finger he/she positions first. After the ‘dominant finger’ is placed, the other fingers fall in line one by one.

The problem with developing the habit of placing a dominant finger first is that you increase the number of steps it takes to form and play the chord. Instead of placing all fingers on the fret board at once, you place one finger followed by another and so on…

Albert Einstein once said:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Oddly enough, what Einstein said applies to learning chords as well.

In order to place all fingers on the fretboard at once to form the chord in the least amount of time possible, each finger needs to become a “dominant finger”. You can train each finger to become a dominant finger in the exact same way you started working on the chord in the first place.

Here are the steps that will allow you to take control of muscle memory and have it work in your favor:

1 – Carefully observe the way you construct a chord. In this example we will again use G major in open position.

2 – What finger did you naturally place on the fretboard first? Whichever finger you placed first on the fretboard is the dominant finger for this chord shape. In this example, let’s say you always place the 4 th finger (pinky finger) first, making the pinky finger the dominant finger in this G major chord shape.

on the fretboard is the dominant finger for this chord shape. In this example, let’s say you always place the 4 finger (pinky finger) first, making the pinky finger the dominant finger in this G major chord shape. 3 – Relax your hand and reform the chord, but this time DON’T place your dominant finger first. It may take some serious concentration, but whatever you do, don’t let your initial dominant finger even approach the fretboard. This time, place your second finger (middle finger) on the fretboard first.

4 – Continue forming and reforming the G chord by always placing the newly selected second finger first. Repeat this step until you can comfortably form the G chord from the second finger first.

placing the newly selected second finger first. Repeat this step until you can comfortably form the G chord from the second finger first. 5 – Once you’ve developed the muscle memory to play the G chord from the second finger, move on to the last remaining finger in the chord shape (in this case the third finger/ring finger and repeat steps 3-4).

6 – If after training each finger to be a dominant finger you still need the chord to form faster, focus on placing different combinations of 2 fingers at once. Usually this step isn’t needed after thoroughly working through steps 1-5.

After playing through the exercises above, you’ll correct any hindering muscle memory issues and develop the ability to form the chord you’re working on as quickly as possible.

The finger sequencing exercise can be applied to more complex chords as well. With a more complex chord, you’ll want to spend an equal amount of time forming the chord from each finger involved. Giving each finger an equal amount of focus in a chord formation will allow your fingers to fall into position effortlessly.

Here is an example of practicing a more complex chord, the Gmaj7, using the finger sequencing approach. Each repeated section should be practiced until it feels natural to build the chord from the given starting note.

The video plays each example twice before moving to the next.

The amazing thing about working on finger sequencing with individual chords is that it also fixes chord transition issues. 95% of the chord transition issues I see as an instructor come down to the student practicing the new chord or progression while using the same sequence of finger placement every time.

If you develop the ability to form a single chord using all the required fingers at once with finger sequencing, then you’ve also made a huge leap toward being able to transition to that given chord as well.

3) Chord Transitions

After reading up on and implementing practice ideas regarding muscle memory and finger sequencing, it’s time to take a look at full on chord progressions.

Using a VI ii V I progression in G major, you’ll look at chord transition approaches designed to allow you to play chord progressions faster.

If the above example looks difficult to play through smoothly, closely follow the next few exercises below.

Can you already play the above example? Continue through the next few exercises anyway, as they are universally applicable to chord progressions of any difficulty. You can check out this page on seventh chords to learn hundreds of different voicings.

Strum Once and Switch

As you focus on making chord transitions, cut down the number of strums per chord to one in the progression. In playing each chord only once then switching, you’re immediately optimizing your chord transition practice time.

Below is an example of this method using the previous VI II V I chord progression.

What about rhythm? Rhythm one of the most important parts of music. However, if you force yourself to apply rhythm while still learning to transition, you’re only hurting your sense of rhythm and slowing the time it will take to make the transition. You can still practice the rhythm, but do it on a stationary chord until the transitions become smoother.

Isolating Chords

If you find a transition difficult between two chords in particular, isolate them from the rest of the song and create a new exercise.

For this exercise, imagine the trouble was between the V chord and the I chord or D7 and Gmaj7. What you would do to improve your transitioning between these two chords is isolate them and repeat them back to back until you can play them smoothly.

Any two chords in the original VI II V I chord progression (or any progression) can be isolated and practiced in the same way as the exercise above.

You’ll end up playing the chords through a song much faster if you isolate and focus on the trouble spots.

Transitions with Finger Sequencing

Now, for a further exercise in practicing chord transitions you can apply finger sequencing to the mix.

First, form the first chord in the set of two chords you’re having difficulty transitioning between (let’s say there was an issue transitioning between Am7 and D7, for example).

The first step is to use finger sequencing to identify the dominant finger in the transition. When playing the D7 chord, did you place your first finger first? Or did you place your 3rd or 4th finger first? Once you’ve identified your dominant finger, practice the chord transition by placing a different finger first.

The video runs through each example twice before moving on to the next one.

Some of the above exercises will feel a lot less comfortable than others, but don’t worry, mastering all 4 will ensure you can make the transition as quickly as possible. Use the above finger sequencing exercise on any combination of chords that you need help in transitioning faster with.

Now that you’re armed with a number of excellent chord forming and transitioning exercises, you’re ready to take control of your muscle memory and make your practice time more efficient.

Hope you enjoyed the lesson!

As always, I love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment below.

If you know anyone else that you think these approaches to chord building can help, share away!