How To Play Cool Guitar Chords That Create Intense Emotion
Tired of playing the same tired guitar chords over and over?
Want to play some cool guitar chords that really make people turn their heads?
Great!
There are a few simple things you can do to transform normal chords into amazing, emotionally expressive and unique chords that create intense emotion in anyone listening to you.
What are these things?
Find out right now by watching this video about playing creative guitar chords:
Click on the video to begin watching it.
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Now you know how to play chords more creatively while flowing smoothly from note to note. Get more tips to improve your overall guitar playing by reading below:
How To Eliminate Tension In Your Fretting Hand While Playing Legato On Guitar
Guitar players often use too much force when fretting notes and playing with legato technique.
This is a very inefficient use of energy that causes excess tension in the fretting hand. This leads to sloppy playing and frustration.
When you eliminate unnecessary tension in your legato playing, using legato becomes effortless.
Follow these steps to make legato technique much easier by eliminating excess tension in your fretting hand:
Step 1: Choose A Legato Lick And Play It Like Normal
Choose a familiar legato guitar lick and begin playing it in the usual way you would play it. As you play, pay attention to how much force you are using and how much tension you feel in your fretting hand. More on this below.
Step 2: Use Less And Less Force
Start playing the notes with less and less tension until the level of force is so low, the notes become inaudible. Make this process as gradual as possible to observe exactly how much tension is being used in your fretting hand. Try to do this at the same speed as in step number one, only reduce the amount of force used.
Step 3: Begin Adding Force
Gradually begin adding more and more effort back into your playing until you find the threshold where the notes are just loud enough… and do not use any more tension than that. Compare this to how much tension you were using in step one, and observe the difference.
Practice at this new level of tension to get used to how it feels. Train yourself to feel the right amount of tension to use for legato so that it becomes a part of your muscle memory. To supply volume to notes you play while using legato, use more power in the picking hand to attack the string.
Train this entire process with all of your fingers in different positions and patterns. This trains your fretting hand to use just enough tension in any possible situation. When you train yourself to eliminate tension in any legato playing situation, this technique becomes totally effortless.
How To Make Your Legato Guitar Technique Sound Amazing
Your legato guitar technique sounds amateur when it is full of the common mistakes most guitarists make.
When you correct these mistakes, you take your legato playing to a new level that most guitarists don’t reach.
Here are the three common legato guitar technique mistakes you must correct to make your playing sound amazing:
Mistake #1: Playing Legato By Wrapping The Thumb Over The Top Of The Neck
Playing guitar with your thumb wrapped around the top of the neck makes legato technique more challenging. It becomes difficult to stretch your fretting hand fingers to play notes the are several frets apart, makes pull-offs weaker and can lead to physical injury.
Solution: Keep your thumb behind the neck of the guitar (pointed up towards the ceiling) while playing with legato technique. This makes legato playing feel more effortless because big stretches are more accessible and pull-offs are easier to perform.
Mistake #2: Fretting Notes On The Fingerprint
When you play legato by fretting notes on the finger print (instead of the tip), it makes the notes weaker. This applies especially for the pinkie finger. Playing in this manner has a massive weakening effect on the power of your pull-offs and trills.
Solution: Pay attention to how notes are fretting when you practice. Train correct habits into your legato technique and get better results from your efforts.
Mistake #3: Using Too Much Force To Fret Notes
A lot of guitarists use extra (unneeded) force while playing with legato technique. This leads to sloppy technique and makes playing legato much more difficult than it needs to be.
Solution: Focus on using more speed rather than more force to play with legato. Playing with extra force only leads to mistakes and possibly physical injury. Your fingers need to move quickly to produce a loud note (whether you are playing fast or slowly).
The string simply sustains longer if the note values are long, but fingers must always move equally fast regardless of what note values are played.
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