D Chord GRRR....

You've only been playing for two months - don't worry, it will come.

One thing that helps a lot of people get better at the D chord is remembering that your wrist pivots. Imagine putting your wrist watch on so that the watch face is on the palm side of your fretting hand. For most chords, your watch face will be pointing at the ceiling. For the D chord, try pivoting your wrist so that the watch face would be pointing at the body of your guitar. Positioning your wrist in this fashion will allow you to place your first two fingers almost directly over each other on the first (high E) and third (G) strings. This, in turn, should allow you to place your ring finger cleanly on the B string and all fingers should be fine as to letting the strings ring clearly.

Hope this helps. And welcome to Guitar Noise. Hope to see more of you around on the Forum pages.

Peace

I know it's only been 2 months I've improved an absolutely big amount what sucks is I learned the c chord so much quicker I hear people say that's much trickier oh well. It's such a great feeling when you start with a chord are absolutely terrible and then master it i wish I would have started at 15 instead of 18 though.

As noted above from folks that are actual teachers, hang in there. When I was 17 I wished I had started at 15 too. :lol: I'm 54 now and playing comes fairly easy to me, but it took time and effort. Stick with it and you will continue to have light bulb moments. That's the way guitar is. It pays dividends on it's own schedule and terms. All you can do is just keep playing. :wink:

TR's absolutely right about that. Most people I meet, whether through teaching or not, and regardless of their age, always wish they started earlier. Fifty-two year olds wish they started at eighteen. Eighteen wishes he started at fifteen and on and on.

It truly doesn't matter when you start as long as you start. What's truly important is that all the time one spends regretting they should have started earlier is time one could be playing right now. Just play and enjoy yourself as you make and share music. And don't turn into someone who used to play.

Peace

David, you are a Jedi Master of guitar instruction. With your permission, I'd like to quote that second paragraph on one of my handouts for the Acoustic Jam Sessions course that I'll be "facilitating/organizing" with the local Adult Education office this fall.

And I'll be taking that last sentence to heart, too. Thank you.
Play on. 8)

i wish I would have started at 15 instead of 18 though.

I love this. So many 15 year olds say, "I wish I had started earlier, say 8 or 9." You will definitely get there with the D chord. In fact, you are going to come up against bigger brick walls than the D chord. Try and enjoy the process.

is it completely normal to be struggling with open chord after 2 months besides f i mean im practicing hard its just not coming yet.

It takes time. Maybe try some exercises going back and forth from D to A to E. (I use the chorus for Stephen Stills' "Change Partners." That's a slow rock tempo, different from the rest of the song.) Keep your first finger on the third string, and just move the other two fingers. This won't help you so much with "landing" all three fingers into the D shape, but it might help with the second and third fingers.
I've never gotten into doing the "mini barre" A major, fretting all three strings with one finger, but maybe I should learn that. I just find progressions with A, D, and E to be kind of easy because of being able to keep my first finger "planted" on the G string.

Just for chuckles, play the D5 shape that Link Wray used in "Rumble," and use those chord changes as an exercise, too. For that chord, the first string isn't played. The progression is D-D-E, D-D-E, D-D-A, D-D-E starting out, then there's an arpeggiated B7 thrown in. (It's easier than it looks; well, after you've done it for awhile.) The descending Em pentatonic run that's in there is the first (and so far only) scale I've played. That's good finger exercise, too. 8)
There's tab for "Rumble" all over the 'Net, and you can mess with some effects when you get into it. Just don't poke holes in your speaker with a pencil the way Link did. :wink:

Hope this helps.

So I've been playing guitar for 2 months now and I've seen that I have improved whitch made me extremely happy but on to the promblem. I can't seem to land the d chord clean I can only do it about 50-60 percent of the time.

Then you're a lot better than you were two months ago, when you couldn't do it at all, aren't you?

Start by doing the switch no faster than you can make it clean 100% of the time. It doesn't matter if it takes you 30 seconds to get your fingers in place. You want your muscles to learn what RIGHT is. Once the muscles have learned where to go, then they'll naturally start doing the change faster.

My guitar teacher taught me 50 years ago: "Practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. Concentrate on getting it right no matter how long it takes at first."

ive improved even more considerably since this message im now hitting the d chord at 75 percent of the time ive even managed to make the f barre chord ring out. Believe it or not i find the smaller versions of F harder then the barre chord. I also got a new guitar and the action is lower and i am 10 times better on that then my current high action guitar im gunna stick with the high action guitar for now though since it is strengthening my fingers.

I also got a new guitar and the action is lower and i am 10 times better on that then my current high action guitar im gunna stick with the high action guitar for now though since it is strengthening my fingers.

Don't do that. You'll be setting yourself up for lots and lots of unnecessary pain and failure. Start using the new guitar now and learn the basics on that. When you eventually return to the one with the higher action, you'll be amazed at how much easier it feels than it does now.

When you're beginning, you do NOT want to handicap yourself. It's hard enough anyway.

One thing that helps a lot of people get better at the D chord is remembering that your wrist pivots. Imagine putting your wrist watch on so that the watch face is on the palm side of your fretting hand. For most chords, your watch face will be pointing at the ceiling. For the D chord, try pivoting your wrist so that the watch face would be pointing at the body of your guitar. Positioning your wrist in this fashion will allow you to place your first two fingers almost directly over each other on the first (high E) and third (G) strings. This, in turn, should allow you to place your ring finger cleanly on the B string and all fingers should be fine as to letting the strings ring clearly.

Hope this helps. And welcome to Guitar Noise. Hope to see more of you around on the Forum pages.

Peace

I know this is a zombie thread, but this bit of advice really helped me. I've been struggling with the D-C-G transitions, and with the help of this advice, my transitions drastically improved in just a couple of hours practice. Thanks!

Hello and welcome to Guitar Noise.

There are zillions of "zombie threads" here in the Forum pages and responses like yours are why we keep everything up and running. No point in reinventing the wheel, as they say.

If you run into further issues (and in all likelihood, you will), just start a new thread and someone will answer. Who knows? The question you have may be the same one someone else will have in a few years!

Peace