I've taught hundreds of students, and when it comes to chord changes, nearly all of them run into the same problem: getting them faster. Here's what was actually holding them back, and how to fix it.
First, can you play the chords cleanly? ▶ 0:29
Before you think about speed, make sure you can actually play the chords you're changing between. Take a C chord and a D chord as an example.
What I'm looking for here is about 80%. Ideally every string rings out, but if you miss one, it's not the end of the world. It still sounds like a C chord. You need to be at that point before you start working on speed.
The real problem: practising the wrong thing ▶ 1:00
Most of my students could play their chords cleanly. The problem was they weren't directing their practice the right way.
If you can already play a chord cleanly, you don't need to work on that any more. What you need to work on is getting to it quicker. And the way you do that is to practise faster and allow for more mistakes.
Playing nice and cleanly is the equivalent of training for a sprint by running marathons.
Yes, you're running, but it's not the kind of running you need to practise to win that race.
Practise the change at speed ▶ 1:24
Take the change you're struggling with and play it pretty much as fast as you can. For a lot of people that's going to sound messy: missed strings, wrong notes, the odd clang. That's okay. If you're doing that, it means you're pushing the speed, and you already know you can play the chords cleanly.
Whenever I tell students to go home and practise this, I'm sure they try. But when they come back, I can always spot that they've let the speed of the change drop a little. You need to keep it high.
One way to do that is to let your right hand set the speed. Decide on a tempo, say "one, two", and strum chord one on "one" and chord two on "two", whether your left hand is ready or not. Then go a bit faster.
Your mistakes are telling you something ▶ 2:43
Don't be disheartened by the mistakes. You'll notice that you tend to miss the same string, or hit the same wrong note, every time. That's your inaccuracy showing up as you build speed, and it's useful, because it shows you exactly where the change is going wrong.
If you only ever practise perfectly, you'll never find out what's causing you to struggle at speed. Practise at speed 20, 30, 40 times and you'll start to see the same mistakes happening, and then your brain can start to correct them.
As a rule of thumb, aim for 60 to 80% accuracy when you're practising at this higher speed. If you hit a C chord and miss the last two strings, that's fine for now. You obviously want the full thing eventually, but one thing at a time.
This is really uncomfortable for a lot of players, especially the ones who like to do things properly, because they don't like making mistakes. A good way to think about it: between you and a perfect C to D change there are a thousand mistakes you have to make. You can make them all in the next week or so, or spread them over the next six months and never really feel like you're making progress. Let's get them out of the way.
A practical tip: let go on the last upstroke ▶ 4:07
Here's a small one that's genuinely useful. In a lot of acoustic strumming, on the last upstroke before a chord change, most guitarists actually let go of the chord. That upstroke catches the open strings, keeps the volume level and keeps your strumming hand moving while your fretting hand gets to the next shape.
So another way to practise a change is: a downstroke on chord one, an upstroke on the open strings, then a downstroke on the next chord. It doesn't work for every chord change, but most of the time you can get away with it, and it sounds quite natural. You can practise patterns like this in the Strum Trainer.
Use a metronome to measure it ▶ 4:52
If you've taken all this on board but you're still struggling with the timing, or with really pushing the speed, use a metronome. Start with one chord every two clicks. When that feels okay, go a bit faster, and keep going.
It's a really good way to measure your progress, too. Find the tempo where you start making quite regular mistakes, and practise there. This might sound like the opposite of a lot of advice about doing things properly, but if speed is what you're after, you have to sit in that uncomfortable zone for a while.
Pick the change that's bugging you most, set the metronome a little faster than feels comfortable, and have a go.
