Shaping the Hands Guitar Lesson

Chapter 1: (03:50) Introduction

Review
- Warm-up the hands.
- Stretch the wrists.
- Play the major and minor open chords.
- Warm up your strumming muscles by relaxing the wrists and letting the pick flow over the strings.
- Play the E major chord in the new way and play the type 1 barre chords.
- Play the A major chord in the new way and play the type 2 barre chords.
- Practice the "slanting A" technique.
- Practice the type 1 minor barre chords.
- Practice the type 2 minor barre Chords.
- Play all of the type 1 mini-barre chords.
- Play all of the type 2 mini-barre chords.
- Review and practice quantitative and qualitative techniques.
- Review last week's exercises.
- Practice "wrist warming."
- Enjoy!

Ready?

Make sure you review the exercises from the last two weeks, as we're going to build and actually combine all of the material that we've been working on. My ultimate goal here is for you to start combining the skills that we've been developing to make you a better performer. As I've stated previously, take your time with the lessons and make sure that you have a firm grasp of the material so that your next steps forward will be surefooted. Remember, at this point in the series we're really trying to develop smoother transitions between chords, smoother strum patterns, and smoother playing in general, so take your time with the materials and make sure that you're practicing it thoroughly.

So as a quick review, the six chords that we're going to be using should look like this:

Cmaj9/E
E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_0_
A_3_
E_0_

Em11
E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_2_
A_0_
E_0_

C 6/9/E
E_0_
B_1_
G_0_
D_0_
A_0_
E_0_

and the three pieces of the open A:

E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_2_
A_0_
E_0_

E_0_
B_0_
G_2_
D_0_
A_0_
E_0_

E_0_
B_2_
G_0_
D_0_
A_0_
E_0_ Chapter 2: (08:13) Exercises Exercise 1
Play all six of the chords together using the strum that we've been using or "down, down-up, down-up." Remember to relax your wrist and allow the pick to flow over the strings. Next, hammer onto the first note of the chord like we did in the exercises last week. Again, make sure to position your strum hand so that it coincides with the first note that you're going to strike. Don't make your hand work harder or go further than it needs to!

Exercise 2
Repeat Exercise 1, but change the strum quantitatively. This time, you're going to make a quantitative change of your own. Keep in mind that it

1. should sound good.
2. should stay in time.

Remember that a quantitative change in the rhythm can be done by simply adding or subtracting strums.

Exercise 3
Repeat Exercises 1 and 2, but just as we did last week in Exercise 4, play some notes from either the C or A scales to enhance your sound. You're more than welcome to play the notes in the exercise from last week if you so desire, but I encourage you to try some new stuff of your own. I'll go through these steps thoroughly in the video so watch closely for more insight into these exercises.

Exercise 4
Repeat Exercise 3 with the palm muting technique. If you need to go back and review this technique, now would be a good time to do so. Chapter 3: (06:22) Hand Shaping Hand Shaping
Because we are, in essence, playing the individual notes of each chord and treating those notes as a chord (because we are playing three notes or more at the same time, right?) it can be helpful to maintain the hand configuration of the original chord. In other words, we're playing the three notes from the C major chord and we could simply hold down each note with our first finger. Or, we could hold down each individual note with our middle finger. Or ideally, we could hold down each note with the finger that we would normally use to hold down that string when we play the entire C chord. What I'm suggesting to you is to use the finger that naturally falls on that string so you have the option of playing the entire chord, or two fingers of that chord, or just one finger of that chord. Regardless, you are keeping your hand in the most advantageous position to play any of a number of chords. This is an important facet of liquid chords: keep your chording hand in the position most conducive to playing as many chords as possible. If you are becoming attached to using one particular finger to play single note chords (like we've been doing these last two weeks), then now is the best time to get out of that habit. Ideally, you want to form your chord hand so that it is in the shape of the chord that you are playing from, whether you're playing one note of that chord or all three. Here’s why:

C major
E_0_
B_1_
G_0_
D_2_
A_3_
E_0_

E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_2_
A_3_
E_0_

E_0_
B_1_
G_0_
D_2_
A_0_
E_0_

E_0_
B_1_
G_0_
D_0_
A_3_
E_0_

E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_0_
A_3_
E_0_

E_0_
B_0_
G_0_
D_2_
A_0_
E_0_

E_0_
B_1_
G_0_
D_0_
A_0_
E_0_

All of these chords are at your disposal and can be easily played especially when your hand is already in the C position. Do you "C" what I'm saying? Chapter 4: (03:17) Final Exercise Exercise 5
Play all of the chords I just listed. Make sure that you keep your fretting hand in the C chord configuration. Use the "down, down-up-down" strum pattern. Experiment with the techniques that we’ve been discussing, including quantitative changes in your strums, palm muting, and adding notes in between chords as transitions to other chords.

*Note-Inevitably, I would like you to start seeing the fretboard as a liquid, flexible vehicle of musical expression. More and more, you should become aware that although there are rules to follow, they can be broken. Although there are guidelines to adhere to, they can be bent.

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