When you start out playing guitar, it can be really exciting, but once you get to chord changes, the party can quickly die down. You can hold a chord fine, but when you switch between two chords, you start to get buzzing strings, muffled strings, and delays between the chord change. This is because your fingers haven’t been trained to work together to shift between the two chords yet. You are required to have a combination of finger placement and timing on the fretboard, but most likely you’ve been just trying to push down the strings, not thinking about how to actually shift between the chords. The best way to do this is to slow it down enough so that your hands can figure out where all the fingers need to go.
You can do this by simply practicing going between two chords slowly to start, such as going between a G chord and a C chord or between an E minor chord and a D chord. Start with the first chord, strum it, then carefully shift to the second chord without strumming it. Watch your fingers as you shift to see which one is slower than the others. At first you may feel like you are just moving your fingers in a weird, exaggerated way, but this helps your hands understand where your fingers need to be positioned and how far they need to shift. Once you’ve practiced this for a while, try adding some motion to it by strumming down on the strings at a slow tempo.
We’re not looking for speed here, just clean strums and smooth shifting between chords. One mistake I see a lot of people make is that they completely remove their fingers from the fretboard before making their next chord. This is unnecessary motion and will make your chord changes slower. Sometimes when you shift between two chords, you don’t need to move one or more fingers completely off the fretboard. They might just need to slide a little. Observe your fingers to see which ones can stay closer to the fretboard to guide your hand placement.
If you start to get some muddy sounds, stop and see if your fingertips are pressing down behind the fret instead of on top of it. This can be practiced daily in a fairly short period of time to train your hands. Start by practicing holding one chord for three minutes. Don’t strum it. Just hold it. Make sure your fingers are curled and that you are applying even pressure to the strings. Then practice shifting between two chords for about seven minutes. Again, don’t worry about strumming. Just worry about getting clean shifts between the two chords.
Finally, practice strumming while shifting between two chords for about five minutes. This will help your hands get a feel for the timing of the chord change. You can do this at a pretty slow tempo. Don’t try to rush through the chord change. If you keep practicing this way, you’ll find that over time your fingers will start to learn where to go and shifting between chords will eventually be really smooth and you won’t need to think about it anymore.
You may find that some days your fingers seem really cooperative and some days it seems like you are all thumbs. If you have a day where you seem to be struggling, just go back to practicing the slow shifts again and make sure you are paying attention to your fingertips to see where they are going instead of trying to force yourself to play faster. With the guitar, patience is more important than pushing yourself. Eventually your fingers will learn to read the shapes of chords on the fretboard and you won’t even think about your chord changes anymore.