Please please can anyone help me???
I have been playing guitar for 3 years now, can play most open chords but cannot get to grips with barre chords and it's really holding me back. I am at the point where I am close to selling my gorgeous guitars to someone that deserves them and giving up. I am a 50 year old lady and am starting to think that maybe I am just too old to be able to learn properly and be any good.
Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please anyone?
Hi there!
It's not unusual for beginners (including people who've been playing for over a year or two) to have problems with barre chords. So it's certainly not worth worrying yourself to the point where you're thinking of giving up and selling your instruments!
You may find this tutorial (one of many we have here at Guitar Noise) to be of help:
http:// https://www.guitarnoise.com/guide/barre-chords-part-1/
Hopefully this will get you started. Please feel free to post additional questions as often as you like.
A belated welcome, by the way, to Guitar Noise. I look forward to seeing you around on the Forums.
Peace
Many thanks for the link to the tutorial, it was most helpful.
One thing I have found, I started learning to play sitting down purely because that is how my original teacher did things. However, I have just recently started playing standing up and it is so much easier to play F which has always been an unreliable chord for me. When I stand up, I find that the chord rings out beautifully and is just so much easier. I am guessing it is because the neck of my guitar is at a more vertical angle and so it is easier to make the correct chord shape. Hopefully it is going to help me in a similar way with the barre chords.
Just wanted to mention it incase it helps anyone else :D
Hey!
This might sound like a bit of a weird one, but I'd really recommend starting by trying to just get your first finger down firmly across the fretboard.
If you can hold down the first finger and get a clear note on all strings, and do it without feeling *too* uncomfortable, placing a chord above it becomes a nice natural next step.
Just a thought...
Jon
To any beginner players reading this, I actually recommend learning and working on your barre chords sooner than later. It's really uncomfortable and feels very unnatural at first. But the sooner you get comfortable with them, the better off you'll be I think. Idk how common this is, but when I was first learning open chords, I learned how to play an F Barre chord before I actually learned how to play a standard open F. The reason being is that I was self taught and at the time thought that barreing an open F was the only way to play it lol. But the point is this... The sooner you can get down and master your barre chords, the better. Because once you do that and learn some different shapes and how they connect, it really opens up a whole new world of fretboard knowledge to ya. Sorry for the long rant. Thanks for reading!
Alex
