CH-006 • Basic Barre Chords (incl. all four vid lessons)

[shadowscott007]

How are you trying to play the Bb?  Bars with the first and third finger, or trying to use fingers 2, 3, 4 for each note on the strings four three and two?

Shadow

[allanhu]

Hi Shadow.
 Bar with my first finger with just the tip touching the sixth string, and mini bar with my third finger on 2nd 3rd and 4th strings. I cannot get three fingers into one fret as they are a bit chubby.
 Allan.

[shadowscott007]

Good, that is the easier way.  Best way to practice that shape (and the more difficult version for that matter) is to take it up to say the seventh fret (E) get it working, go down to sixth fret get it working and repeat that until you get all the way down to the first fret.

Shadow

[FChris]

Probably someone else asked this already (thinking of the 22 pages of posts) but I did not find an appropriate answer for myself.

My problem is that when I try a barre chord my fingers keep slipping torward the fret of the barre, mostly the second finger. With an E-Shape barre chord this is only  a little nuisance, it just does not sound as clean, but when I try other barres I don't stand a chance to get my fingers down as I should, since they start slipping torward the barre as soon as I try.

I am doing those finger gyms of justin but sometimes I am not sure if they actually have any effect, it kinda feels that at least half of the time I rather train my wrists dexterity instead of my fingers.

Any tips? Or at least something like a time schedule? How long did it take you in the beginning to do barres, until you could use them in songs?

[Bootstrap]

FChris, for many people it takes a long time to be comfortable with barre chords.

In my experience the most crucial aspect has usually been thumb position. Most people benefit from having their thumb perpendicular to the neck and aligning the thumb opposite the middle 2 fingers - this allows comfortable grip and maximum finger span.

Also try practicing down around the 5th to 7th fret where it is a bit easier to build your confidence.

It can take up to a year or so to be able to confidently switch from open chord shapes to variations (maj, min, 7th) on E & A barre chord shapes (most commonly used) and between shapes.

One thing I did was use E & A barres to play songs that I'd learned as simple open chords. This had 2 effects - I quickly improved as it was a way of doing interesting mass practice; and I learned the notes on the 6th and 5th string (root notes) which till that time I'd struggled a bit with.

Good luck.

Boots

[Deacon022]

Hello,

I have been trying the barre F for two weeks and I still can't get the B string consistently.  Does this take a long time or should I have had this by two weeks already?  Not surprisingly I can play the F perfect on an electric, but as I have been told, an electric guitar is like driving a car with power steering.

I can play the F pretty consistently on an acoustic if my first finger is about an inch over the neck.  I know Justin said that is not a good thing.

Anyway, my question is should I have gotten this already and move on to the small f or stick with it?  Just starting to get a little disappointed, I was flying along, but now I am stuck.

Thanks all.

[misterg]

...should I have gotten this already and move on to the small f or stick with it?  Just starting to get a little disappointed, I was flying along, but now I am stuck.

 

Hi - *everybody* goes through this - stick with it, it's a 'rite of passage' for guitar players.

Two weeks is no time, really. There's nothing to stop you carrying on with other things while you're working on it, though.

Andy

[FChris]

Just as some kind of encouragement for others maybe or as some feedback.

I am practising on the big F since early or mid November (I can't remember really though).
At some point I was able the make it sound good and move fast to it, but at some point I just was not able to do anything else with it (move back to other chords and such). I figured that it was because I was twisting my whole hand to make the B-String sound.

So I started all over again, with tons of frustration on my back. I was training my fingers to be able to stretch more and get more strength and just last week I was able to make it sound good again. Now I have to do minute changes again. But still it had a great sense of achievement when I was able to make it sound again. It feels quite rewarding.

In the end it seems that it does not matter how long you practice as long as it is less than 6 month I guess. What I figured for myself is, that I plan to keep on playing guitar for a lot of years, so what do a few month matter ;-)

Btw, thanks for the encouragement for anybody else who knew how to do it and answering here :-)

[Lucky Tim]

I am having some hope on the big F barre chord here.
Daily practice is strengthening hand to repetitively make the shape. (very important for me)
Manually stretching fingers, changing angle, and remembering that even stage 2 changes were way below 60 a minute when I started also helps. At 2 weeks in I get about 30 changes a minute; to me this is important because when I started I thought this would take me 2 years.
Another help for me is this goal; I want to play Mr Jones and am starting to get the sound, this is my reward for hard work.
Goals and songs I love make learning easier for me.
Drudgery and songs I don't like kills my spirit and desire.
Progress and making cool sounds is like gas on my fire.