Fire and Rain Chorus
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Jerrydixon
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- Joined: Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:08 am
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Neil, I am having major difficulty playing C# with my pinkie and having the rest of the D chord sound good. I had the same exact problem with Norwegian Wood. Any suggestions?
Jerrydixon wrote:
Jerry- Have we welcomed you to the program yet? If not we need to! And we need to get you to post an introduction on the Please Introduce Yourself thread. We like to know a little about everyone who's a member. It's painless I promise! If I missed it a huge apologize!
That C# is a tough one. I had the same problem with Norwegian Wood. First, make sure you have really good hand position. Keep your hand low and cupped. If you have a baseball grip you'll never get it. Make sure you have good guitar position too.
Finally, I had to play the thing a zillion times, cuss, take a break, come back to it, cuss some more, play it again and finally it started to get easier. Now it's pretty easy unless I get lazy with hand position.
Hopefully this helps a little but let us know if you are still having trouble. Finally, if you just can't get it and you're ready to make fire wood out of your guitar consider submitting a brief video showing the problem. Neil can analyse and make corrections.
Good luck! Cheers! :cheer:
Neil, I am having major difficulty playing C# with my pinkie and having the rest of the D chord sound good. I had the same exact problem with Norwegian Wood. Any suggestions?
Jerry- Have we welcomed you to the program yet? If not we need to! And we need to get you to post an introduction on the Please Introduce Yourself thread. We like to know a little about everyone who's a member. It's painless I promise! If I missed it a huge apologize!
That C# is a tough one. I had the same problem with Norwegian Wood. First, make sure you have really good hand position. Keep your hand low and cupped. If you have a baseball grip you'll never get it. Make sure you have good guitar position too.
Finally, I had to play the thing a zillion times, cuss, take a break, come back to it, cuss some more, play it again and finally it started to get easier. Now it's pretty easy unless I get lazy with hand position.
Hopefully this helps a little but let us know if you are still having trouble. Finally, if you just can't get it and you're ready to make fire wood out of your guitar consider submitting a brief video showing the problem. Neil can analyse and make corrections.
Good luck! Cheers! :cheer:
Jerrydixon wrote:
Anyway, many ways to capture the sound but this works well for me and definitely feels easier than the 3 finger D-chord and reaching up with the pinky.
Good luck.
I'll be interested to hear Neil's answer, but I'll share how I play that chord (and chorus) in case it helps. When I start the chorus on the D-major, I play it as a partial barre on the second fret across the first 3 strings with my index, then fret 2nd string 3rd fret with my middle finger. Then my 3rd finger pretty easily can grab the C# for the second beat. Also, this makes the transition into the "full" (up to the 5th string) barre of the Bm7 for the next two beats just a minor hand shift, so I can do the bass-line march down he describes as an option. Works pretty well and I prefer the chorus with that bass line than without.Neil, I am having major difficulty playing C# with my pinkie and having the rest of the D chord sound good. I had the same exact problem with Norwegian Wood. Any suggestions?
Anyway, many ways to capture the sound but this works well for me and definitely feels easier than the 3 finger D-chord and reaching up with the pinky.
Good luck.
This is a difficult stretch and a chord requiring strength and technique to play - can I suggest you drop your shoulder and make sure your thumb is well well down, behind the top 3 strings at the back, this gives your hand plenty of room - like you could put an orange in the palm - as soon as you allow your thumb to poke out behind the bass string your hand is restricted and works from the knuckle rather than the wrist. Also check the guitar is upright on your knee saving your hand rotating too much at the wrist as well. Worth a try. Hope it gives food for thought anyway. Another way to practice this chord is to put a capo on the 5th or 7th fret where the frets are closer together, fret 1-4 are the most far apart requiring the biggest stretches.