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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → Playing barred chords
I just cant do this!!!
Can everyone who plays guitar do barred chords or can you get through life without having to do them? Theres no way my fingers can reach, its driving me insane because its stopping me playing my favourite songs, so is there any way to learn hwo to play these?
Thanks for any help!!
Yes you can!
First, get your wrist way out in front of the neck. It will feel goofy, but it's where it needs to be. Planting the pad of your thumb on the back of the neck helps a lot.
Second, don't try to play the chords just yet. Only place the barre with only your index finger. (This is actually a 13m chord, but whatever). Strike each note until you have them barred cleanly. Move it around, and do it some more. Once you can get the barre down clean, then start adding other fingers. Do this every day.
Once your hands get strong enough you'll wonder what all the hubbaloo was about.
Great advice, im goin to keep trying this, and once im done i'm going to come back to this thread and give you a virtual pint <img src="images/smiley_icons/icon_cool.gif" border=0 alt="Cool">
That's right about your wrist position. You need to try to get your finger straight at all 3 knuckles. This means a low elbow and forward wrist.
Another handy technique whilst you are developing your index finger in the above excersise is to re learn your E, Em, A and Am chord shapes without using your index finger. Play them all using middle, ring and little fingers. If you do this excersise and the index finger excersise separately until it is second nature. Then put the two techniques together and you can play any major or minor barre chord. (more or less)
BTW, I think if people were taught to play E, Em, A and Am in that way to begin with, learning Barre chords would be a whole lot easier when you came to it.
Sounds interesting.........and difficult but i'm willing to give that a try, my iondex finger needs some rest anyway, its in a pretty bad way to be honest <img src="images/smiley_icons/icon_lol.gif" border=0 alt="Laughing">
Barre chords get easier with practise. But a trick I used was to put a capo on say third fret and then play F, F# and G. Doesn't sound right but it's easier to get the shape right and then later loose the capo and play them in the correct position.
Don't try to play songs yet, just practise getting the shape.
The other thing to remember is not to be afraid of Chord rotation. Often songs and tabs may not suit your voice so you move all the chords the same number to het to the key that suits your voice. eg F moved up two notes becomes A. C becomes G etc.
hope this helps
<table border="0" align="center" width="90%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td class="SmallText"><b>patrickthered wrote on Fri, 05 January 2007 19:45</b></td></tr><tr><td class="quote">
Barre chords get easier with practise. But a trick I used was to put a capo on say third fret and then play F, F# and G. Doesn't sound right but it's easier to get the shape right and then later loose the capo and play them in the correct position.
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Good point. I started playing Ukelele at the same time as Guitar. barre chords aren't really the same problem on a Uke as you only have four strings but the frets are very close together. The funny thing is that on a guitar the first barre chords you learn are F and Bm followed by Fm and B. That gives you all your main Barre chord shapes in the hardest place on the neck - ie where the frets are furthest apart. this is good as once you've got it it's easy to play any barre chord, but as a way of making it easier, why not learn further down the neck?
Come to think of it, you don't need a capo for a barre chord. Just Barre the 5th fret instead of the second with an F shape and you're playing an A. The Capo doesn't make any difference with a Barre chord. You can still pretend it's an F if you want and move it back down the fretboard when you can manage the stretch.
Guitar chord forum - chordie → Acoustic → Playing barred chords
