chordal practice

[devolve_creator]

i have my own way of practicing lead lines but i dont really have a suficiant way of practcing chords, iv just been playing progressions and hoping that im slowly getting better. does anyone have any way of practising chord changes that has worked well for them?

[widdly widdly]

You can get a lot of mileage from a simple progression.

Try playing it in different positions along hte neck. This will force you to use different shapes. Really restrict yourself to a range of 6 frets and you will soon find challenging fingerings are requiered and your changes are smoother.

Another idea is to play two different fingerings for each chord. For example if the progression is Am, G, F, Em. You will play two different shapes for Am then two different shapes for G etc. You restrict yourself to one positon for the first chord and another for the second chord.

You could try experimenting with extended voicings. Take your chord progression and play it using triads only ( root - 3rd - 5th). Then try adding the seventh. Then try adding the 9th, followed by the 13th, then the 11th. Try using suspended chords as well. Once you are adding a lot of extensions, restricting yourself to a certain position will be very challenging and will force you to come up with some creative fingerings.


Aside from chord voicings and fingerings, you might want to investigate different picking and strumming patterns. There are some great books and interent articles that have loads of strumming patterns that are great for developing solid rhythm playing. The funk and latin patterns are well worth exploring because they will really challenge your timing and beneifit your lead playing also.