How To Get Faster At Guitar Chords & Improvise Your Own Creative Chord Progressions Part 1

Being able to play guitar chords fast and seamlessly across the neck gives you tons of control in your playing so it becomes easy to express yourself creatively. You not only gain a larger musical vocabulary but improve your ear (making improvising and soloing easier in the process).

 

The article has two parts. In this part, learn how to quickly get faster at playing basic guitar chord types as well as 7 chords. Then learn how to play these chords in rapid succession to create cool progressions.

 

Get Faster At Playing Different Types Of Guitar Chords Quickly By Staying In One Position

 

Learning to play guitar chords fast and smooth is about repetition. Drilling several chord patterns in rapid succession helps you get tons of reps in so you quickly memorize the muscle memory needed to play chords without hesitation. A great way to do this is to learn the 4 basic types of chords.

 

These 4 types of chords are: major, minor, diminished and augmented.

 

Here they are being played in the same position starting on the 7th fret (note: these are not the only way to play these chords on guitar):

4 Different Guitar Chords

Learn these chord shapes quickly all over the fretboard using this approach:

 

  1. Starting in position 7 (fret 7 seven as shown in the tab), play each chord one-after-the-other with no breaks in between.

For example: E diminished, E minor, E major then E augmented.

 

  1. Play in reverse order in the same manner.
  2.  
  3. Move up one fret and repeat this until you run out of room on the fretboard.
  4.  

Repeating this 5-10 times a day doesn’t take long and helps you quickly play guitar chords faster than ever before.

Alternatively, stick to just one position and repeat the first step several times before moving to the next fret.

Add More Musical Variety Into Your Playing By Using 7 Chords

 

Learning to play 7th chords adds one more note to basic chords. This gives your guitar playing much more variety and potential for musical expression.

 

The basic 7 chords are the diminished 7, minor7b5, minor 7, dominant 7 and major 7. Here are some common patterns of these chords displayed on the fretboard:

While learning these chords, use the same steps as with the basic chords.

 

 

Additionally, get faster at playing these guitar chords by implementing the metronome into your practice.

Set the metronome to a slow tempo. Then try to change from one chord to the next once every beat. As you get faster, try to change two chords per beat or simply increase the tempo.

 

 

As you play different chord patterns, pay close attention to the movement of your fingers. Whenever you struggle to play a pattern, it’s often because your mind isn’t thinking about the exact movements you need to make to play the fingering (instead it is going on “auto-pilot” mode”).

 

 

Iron-out difficult chords to play them faster by only switching between two patterns back and forth. Then add in more patterns as you get better.

 

 

Creatively Integrate Chords Into Your Everyday Guitar Playing

 

Guitarists often learn chords by simply playing the chord patterns over and over. A great approach for learning them quickly is to make the patterns musical.

 

 

Do this by learning to play guitar chords in short progressions. This helps you begin developing an ear for what different chords sound like together and gives you the power to use your chord knowledge to play something musical (rather than just isolated chords on their own).

Here are some example chord progressions just to get you started:

 

  • E major – B major – C# minor
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  • A minor – G major – F major
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  • D minor – D# diminished – E major
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  • E major – E augmented – A major
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  • B minor 7 – E dominant 7 – A major 7
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  • F# minor 7 – F dominant 7 – E major 7
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  • E minor 7b5 – C dominant 7 – D minor 7
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  • A dominant 7 – D diminished 7 – D major 7
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Learning about how keys work is one way to enhance your chord progressions and express yourself more clearly through music. If you don’t already know how keys work, find a great guitar teacher who can tell you about it.

 

 

While practicing playing different chord progressions, make them more musical by using different note rhythms and sometimes playing the chords by arpeggiating the notes (rather than playing the entire chord at once).

 

 

Understanding how to make guitar chords sound musical is easier when you also have great phrasing skills. Learn how to become a musically expressive guitarist with great phrasing skills by reading this free guide to emotional guitar playing.