Barre Chords?

Here is a good explanation ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_chord

They are a bit difficult in the beginning because your fingers need to develope considerable strength and flexibility.
Once you have played for some time, it gets easier to nail them ...

A barre chord is a moveable chord.A simple barre chord would look like this
|-1---------------------|
|-1--------------------|
|-2--------------------|
|-3--------------------|
|-3--------------------|
|-1--------------------|
this would be a F major barre.
If keep this shape and move to the 3 fret would be G and at the 5th fret A.In a nut shell it is a moveable chord shape.

so you guys are saying, they are mainly moveable chords. i.e. holding a certain chord and move with the same finger placement to another fret to produce a different chord?

If that is the case, then I assume what makes them difficult is the moving part right?.

Still I dont see whats the hype is all about, I mean I know its not easy, but what made them so special. To me, I think its as difficult as changing from one chord to another. I think!

so you guys are saying, they are mainly moveable chords. i.e. holding a certain chord and move with the same finger placement to another fret to produce a different chord?

If that is the case, then I assume what makes them difficult is the moving part right?.

Still I dont see whats the hype is all about, I mean I know its not easy, but what made them so special. To me, I think its as difficult as changing from one chord to another. I think!
It`s just practice moving up down the fret board.If you lift the 2 up in the example I gave it becomes minor.If you have a chord book look for the same patterns notice the example I gave F major.Lift the index finger and slide everything up one fret and you have E major.

"so you guys are saying, they are mainly moveable chords. i.e. holding a certain chord and move with the same finger placement to another fret to produce a different chord?"

Exactly!

"If that is the case, then I assume what makes them difficult is the moving part right?."

May be some, but mostly the challenge is to keep one or two fingers (depending on which barre) barred...

"Still I dont see whats the hype is all about, I mean I know its not easy, but what made them so special. To me, I think its as difficult as changing from one chord to another. I think!"

For me they were challenging becuase in the beginning my fingers werent strong enough for them.
And I agree with you, they are not inherntly hard, you invest some time and they become easy ...

What makes them special is that you can make one barre shape and play a whole load of different chords, simply by moving that shape up and down the fretboard.
Think of your index finger as the nut or a capo, whichever is easiest, the result is the same. Make an open E shaped chord, with your middle, ring and little finger, rather than the more usual index, middle, ring. That's, obviously an E. Now, move that shape up the fretboard, one fret and put your index finger down, across the first fret. If you could make a clean chord, it would be an F - read off the notes (from the low E) - F, C, F, A, C, F and you'll see it's correct. Now, move up one more fret and see the result - F#, C#, F#, A#, C#, F# - an F# chord. A further fret and you have a G chord - G, D, G, B, D, G. Follow it further and you see that the chord is based upon the note, found on the one played, on the low E string
Remove your finger, from the D string and you are playing 7th chords. Starting from the original shape, take away your finger from the G string and you are playing minor chords, so, starting at the open chord, you'd have Em, Fm, F#m, Gm, etc.

Whilst this is powerful, it's not very efficient, so you'll want to learn to change between the most common shapes - A and E - and their derivatives - minor and 7th. Changing from an A chord to a D (the IV in the key of A), would require a change of an E shaped chord, from the 5th fret to the 10th. It's far more efficient to change shape, for the D - which is an A shaped chord, at the 5th fret (the A shape has it's root on the A string). I only need to change shape, not position. But, there's more (as they say on the shopping channels) - to get the V chord in A (E), I'd normally have to make another change of shape - with barre chords, I just move the whole thing up two frets!
Open A D E
|-0--3--0
|-2--2--0
|-2--3--1
|-2--0--2
|-0--X--2
|-0--X--0

Barre A D E
|-5--5--7
|-5--7--9
|-6--7--9
|-7--7--9
|-7--5--7
|-5--5--7


I think what he is missing is the difficulty of switching from open chords to a full barre that covers the strings properly, that's the tricky bit for most people.

aha,

now i got it, barre chords is basically, covering all the strings and not leaving any string open. Ok now i know why it could be tricky, in that case, i havent started using them, accept in one of the song i learned, i used one, which is my index finger covering the upper five strings in the 2nd fret.

Thanks guys.

Now what so special about barre chords?. do they sound better as oppose to the open string chords?

can anyone direct me pictures of finger placment of known barre chords. So I can start practicing. Thanks

aha,

now i got it, barre chords is basically, covering all the strings and not leaving any string open. Ok now i know why it could be tricky, in that case, i havent started using them, accept in one of the song i learned, i used one, which is my index finger covering the upper five strings in the 2nd fret.

Thanks guys.

Now what so special about barre chords?. do they sound better as oppose to the open string chords?

You can use edit so you don't keep replying to yourself ;)
Also the special thing about barre chords is mentioned above, you can play lots of chords using the same finger placement but at different frets. The A shape and E shape are the most common and google is your friend for pics etc, I found this one after 5 secs ;)
http://www.acousticguitar.com/article/lessons/LESSONS%2C6943%2CLESSONSANDSONGS-1.asp

and more here
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=barre+chords&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

Now what so special about barre chords?. do they sound better as oppose to the open string chords?

Barre chords are special bacause they are movable up and down the neck, so the fingering pattern stays the same and you move your whole hand up or down any number of frets.
So basically, if you know a barre chord, you can slide your whole hand (with the same relative fingering) to any other root note (the root note must be on the same string as the original root note) and play that chord shape in any of the 12 keys to acheive the same function. (not a perfect dexcription but good enough for this thread, IMHO)

They don't necessarily cover ALL of the strings, however there are no OPEN strings played.

Do they sound better ??? Do they sound worse ??? Yes and no. That's entirely up to you.. personal preference.
I find they allow me to mute with my left hand while keeping a steady rhythm with my right. Good for variation and percussion when playing acoustic solo.

Peace

J

Something that hasn't been covered yet is that some chords are impossible to play (well, using all the strings anyway!) as open chords and have to be played as barres - Bm and Eb (any # or b, for that matter) spring to mind. Some 12-bar blues when you're using 6ths and 7ths have to be played higher up the neck as well - try playing C/C6/C7/C6 then F/F6/F7/F6, repeat the C sequence, then G/G6/G7/G6, F/F6/F7/F6 then back to the C sequence.

Think of the first finger - the barre finger - as a movable capo, which you can play A and E shape chords over - or even C and D shapes as well, with practise!

:D :D :D

Vic

You guys are great, thanks for the help. Now I off to practice some barre chords :)

For me they were challenging becuase in the beginning my fingers werent strong enough for them.
And I agree with you, they are not inherntly hard, you invest some time and they become easy ...

i've found them very difficult to:

a) play them inthemselves: it *is* difficult to position your index finger so that it holds down say the top and bottom E strings but no others so that every string played for that particular chord rings out and sounds good

b) then transition to and from barre chords to other chords... especially open chords.

they are difficult!