Practicing Chord Changes

A challenge we all face when learning an instrument is making it sound good when we change chords. Personally, I enjoy songs that have one or two chords in them, and you don't have to change very often at all (reference a Johnny Cash song).

Here's the bad news, even the most popular songs (often the easiest songs to play) have more than one chord in them, so you need to practice chord changes. So here is an exercise you can work on with the four chords we all know by now: C, G, A minor and F.

Start with C and strum, then change to G. Then go back to C. Then to G. Back and forth, forth and back.

Next go from G to F and back again. Back and forth, back and forth.

As you do this, your fingers are going to start remembering what the chord feels like, and you won't have to think about it nearly as often.

Personally, my goal when changing chords, is to change my finger positions between strums. In other words, the strings from my playing a C will still be ringing as I change to the G. The transition sounds much smoother that way.

Remember, start slow, practice lots, and soon you'll forget how hard you worked when you're rocking the uke in front of billions of adoring fans, or whoever your intended audience is.