Guitarists, help a newbie out?

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Childofthegrave

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I just started learning how to play the guitar about a week ago and I'm looking for some advice; you see, my fingers are very short, so it's a bit hard for me to reach, what are some good finger exercises that will help improve my dexterity? Also, if I'm not strumming, just fingering, I can switch between chords pretty well, but whenever I try to switch chords while I'm strumming, I just can't seem to do it, are there any exercises that will help me there, or is that something that only hard work and practice can help?
 
i don't have super long fingers either and found that just doing basic scales helps a lot. i think the first one we were taught in guitar class was the A scale which is pretty easy and helps with dexterity.
 
not much i can add to the above answers^^^ but yeah, in a nutshell, practise makes perfect :)
 
Yeah, make sure that you keep your fretting hand in the correct position, behind the neck. Otherwise, it feels that your fingers are short and you can't stretch them. As for exercises, play each string like this: 1-2-3-4(I hope you understand tabs). Start off by doing it on the 6th(thickest) string(do it in downstrokes first and then switch to alternate picking) and then work your way down. Keep doing this until you gain speed. Then, work on your clarity. After that, of course, you can do it in many other ways, using upstrokes, going backward, or whatever. Yes, only practice can improve your speed of changing chords. If you find the current chords difficult to switch, look up some other chord progression such as A minor or something.
 
While it may seem that short fingers could be the cause of your problem, 90% of the time it isn't! The reason why you lack dexterity is because you're fingers aren't trained enough yet. Slowly practice simple patterns like 1234 1324 124 134 on you guitar with a slow speed (use a metronome!). The best practicing tempo would be a tempo in which you play cleanly without even one mistake. Be sure to go through all 6 strings when playing the patterns. focus on keeping your finger near the strings all the time, fretting the strings in the are right behind the frets, playing on your fingertips and lifting each finger as the next one comes down. Generally practice will increase dexterity so don't go straining your wrist or fingers. The second part of your question is because you lack shifting accuracy, something that's very common on newbie guitarist, just play each chord very slowly through practice and you'll get it right.
 
I play guitar too, what i do is I go 1234 on all the strings as fast as I can then go 4321 as fast as I can on all the strings. With the chord switches, you should just practice going back and forth between the two chords for about 5-10 minutes.
 
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