Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Thank you Raro! Sounds so great! Nice and warm! That was my first chord ever learned first time! Keep your elbow at same position when you are strumming. What guitar is that? I love it! This community is so amazing! Please keep going!

Tomo

Hi Tomo-sensei, thank you so much for the kind words!
I'm so happy you like the sound of my guitar. It's a "HD-Custom" from a Japanese brand called "Headway."
I will definitely focus on keeping my elbow at the same position when strumming. Thank you for the great advice!

You're very welcome! Good job! Your guitar tone is so crisp! I see Headway is so great!

Tomo

Hi Hugo, nice to meet you! Thank you for your comment. Honestly, I find it quite challenging to eliminate finger noise when moving across the strings on an acoustic guitar, but I'll keep working on reducing it in the future. Let’s keep practicing together!

Hi Taro,

I am learning on electric and I guess acoustic is way harder due to the strings, fretboard size, action height, immediate feedback, dynamics control, etc. I have a few steps to try eliminating it, see if it works on acoustic:

1. slowly work on pressing the individual chord VERY lightly and comfortably (instead of holding it for too long and make fingers/hand painful) and do one chord sweep. Do the each string note check. It doesn't matter if some notes are missing or buzzing. It's a "work-in-progess" to get a light fretting hand touch, clean sweep.
2. once having the chords comfortably played with ease (or you don't really have to wait; can practise both at the same time), work on the transition - ONE stroke per chord, back and forth (e.g. Open C to barre F, then barre F to Open C). It's a little bit like press + play at the same time for C chord --> switch for barre F --> swtich for open C. LIke trials, no need to press super hard and be perfect. Let our body/muscle feel it. It likely won't work on the first few days or even a week. But slowly, I think our brain will wire things for us.
3. Consciously create "gaps" (i.e. lifting our fingers away from the strings) after one chord, so that we don't drag creating finger noise. I felt the lifting takes some skills too, and that we have to practise. Yes, our chords won't sound connected at first. But once we get the lifting and point 1 and 2 above down - merge them altogether - we will have clean, nice transition chords.
4. This point is like what Tomo always suggested: no tempo first, because if we have a metronome or beat, we will unconsciously chase after it and forgot our real purpose.
5. I guess there's also some specific skills on when to change chords to make it sound without interruption and without finger noise but that's way out of my research/league now.

My recent example is playing palm muted power chords (they are way easier by comparison), which were something like the below (shortened to each "bar" for easy read):

x | x | x | ... | x | x
x | x | x | ... | x | 5
x | x | x | ... | 2 | 4
9 | 9 | 6 | ... | 2 | x
7 | 6 | 4 | ... | 0 | 2
x | x | x | ... | x | x

I was lazy between the first 3 bars and didn't lift the finger on 7th fret and then to the 3rd power chord. Then I had much finger noise. I consciously tried the method above; then it's solved. But it took me quite some while. I'm working on the last two transitions above now (got all sorts of problems, buzzing, missed notes, mishit notes, not on time, etc). I bet it's only much harder on acoustic.

Yeah, let's keep practising!

Hugo

Hi Hugo, thank you so much for the detailed advice and for sharing your experience!
It's really helpful to hear how you're tackling the same challenges. I’ll keep those points in mind and try to practice slowly and carefully. Let’s keep encouraging each other!　

Sure thing! Another thing I forgot if I mentioned or not:

Once I got somewhat familiar with the transition, it will feel like I hold the previous chord very lightly (only enough for it to make correct sound); then I'll have a very small "jump" from one chord position to another, but the jump isn't anything forceful nor very "intentional" (or else, there will be finger noise; as if we are readying our leg as a spring to bounce back - which is not good).

Hope this analogy makes sense. Yes, let's communicate and update each other more!

Hugo

Wow, your picking hand is steady and the coordination is great! Keep it up, brother!

Hugo

Hi Hugo,

Thank you so much for your kind words! Your "Keep it up" really motivates me. I'll keep practicing!

Good work Taro - sounds nice!

Thanks, Clay! I appreciate your encouragement. It motivates me a lot!

Thank you, Tomo-san!

I’m glad to hear my picking is on the right track. I will practice the 3-4-1 fingering and keep my pick grip soft as you suggested. Floating picking is tough, but I’ll keep at it!

Hi Sammi-san, thank you for your kind words!

I’m really inspired by your message. I’ll do my best to pay attention to all the details Tomo-san teaches. I'm so glad to be part of this community!

Sounds great! Good job! Now you can play a little slower and use more picking dynamics!

Tomo

Thank you, Tomo-sensei.

I really appreciate your feedback. I’ll focus on playing slower and pay more attention to my picking dynamics to make each note more expressive. Your advice is very helpful as I continue to work on the basics.

My pleasure! Glad to be helpful. Slower practice is so important. You can work on your picking nuances, dynamics. Do that part for one to two weeks. Please take your time! Please keep going!

Tomo

Thank you, Tomo-sensei.

I really appreciate your feedback. I’ll focus on playing slower and pay more attention to my picking dynamics to make each note more expressive. Your advice is very helpful as I continue to work on the basics.

That sounds really nice Taro - good work!

Thanks, Clay! I appreciate your kind words.

Hi Tomo-sensei,

Thank you for the valuable advice!

I’ll practice the 2nd inversion fingerings and the lower thumb position right away. I realized I was playing a bit too loud and pressing too hard, so I’ll focus on keeping it "softer" overall and relaxing my left hand.

I’ll keep practicing slowly and mindfully. Thank you for the great lesson!

Thanks for sharing, Taro! Beautiful sounds

Hi Tomo sensei,
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! I’m really happy to hear that you liked my tone and strumming.
To be honest, I'm still not used to strumming with my fingers, so I found it a bit difficult. But I’ll definitely try to add dynamics and move my body more to feel the tempo as you suggested.
I’ll practice more and try to make the next video longer. Thank you for your encouragement!
Taro

You're very welcome Taro! Good job! You can play it a little longer. That's okay! Pick playing is not easy at all but now you have a few choices. Great plan!

Tomo

tone sounds so rich and amazing. Yeah I know what you mean about the open chords, it's easy to overlook them but to play them and fret them cleanly is really difficult.

I recall seeing Steve vai once in. an interview was talking about how an open D chord is very difficult to play becasue its too easy to fret it incorrectly and have the intonation go out, Steve via was saying how its not easy to play a open D chord in tune , he said most play it slightly out.

and then there's also the muting aspect which is not easy either .

I overlooked many of these subtle nuances and was not even aware of how clean or if the intonation is out on open chords. I really like the sounds of the open chords, having those open strings ringing out gives such rich sounds

Thanks for the great comment!

The Steve Vai anecdote was truly fascinating. I found his insight very interesting—especially the idea that even a fundamental chord can be so complex when it comes to intonation.
It made me realize how much more there is to explore. I’ll definitely be more mindful of my own intonation from now on to better capture that rich, open sound.

Keep in touch!

Thank you Taro for sharing this video! Very good! Strumming pattern is good!

Spend a little more time to tune up your guitar. You can use a tuner then use your ears to fine tune.

Those 8th notes strumming … you can do slighly softer picking. Your rhythm is so good!

Tomo

Thank you so much for the feedback, Tomo-sensei! I am honored that you took the time to watch my video and give me such encouraging words about my rhythm.

I’ll definitely spend more time on tuning and training my ears as you suggested. I also realized I need to work on my picking strength, so I’ll practice strumming more softly to achieve a better tone.

I’ll keep working on these points. Thank you for your guidance!