Learning Barre ChordsSome people strugle with bar chords because they require time for your hands to build up strength. When you first start you will have sore hands and you'll be buzzing and screwing up notes left and right...SO WHAT...just keep working with them and before you know it you'll have no problems. Basically bar chords allow you to take a standard open chord form and move this shape all over the fretboard to make differents chords. Lets take the E major chord form below for example.
This basic shape can be reproduced useing the index finger to cross all 6 strings. Here is what that looks like:
In this picture my index finger lies across all six strings and my 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers make the basic E major chord form shown above. My index finger is positioned on the first fret of the 6th string which is the position used to name the chord. Here are the notes on a fretboard:
Since my index finger is on the first fret of the 6th string and the Chord form is a Major form (E Major) I am playing a F Major Bar chord. So as you can see you can play a F major in both an open form and a bar chord. Both of these chords are the same, but there is a slight difference in the way they sound...we call this voicing.
Lets look at a few more bar chord forms. Firs look at the A major chord. I you move this form into the 5th position or fret you will have a A Major Bar chord (In blue above)
You can see that we do not hit the note on the 6th string( the X tell us this), so if we make a bar chord with this form we only want to hit strings 1 - 5. Here is what a bar chord looks like using the A Major form
In this case I am using the index finger to cross strings 1 - 5 and I use the tip of my finger to mute the sixth string in case I strike the string when strumming. I am not using the 2nd or 4th finger. I use the 3 finger to cross the 2,3,4 string. Again this is hard to lean but you will need to master making a partial bar with your 3rd finger in order to play this type of bar chord. The name of this chord is based on the lowest note played which will be on the 5th string held down by my index finger. We call this the root on 5th. Lets take a look at the notes on a fretboard again to detemine the name of this chord.
As you can see we are on the second fret and the index finger is pressing on the b note, so this is a B major bar Chord. If we use a minor open chord form like the e minor
Again using the index on all six strings since we hit all six notes when we play the chord form above, we simply place the index across all six strings and when we play the chord form we have a minor bar chord. The same theory applies to all the open chord forms. |
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