How to move to Barre Chords - help!!!

Yep, we all suffer with these things.

What I found worked best with the E shape was to get the 2nd finger down first; then the 3rd and 4th were more or less already in place and the index finger slammed down last. These days it's almost like all four fingers going down at the same time, but when I demonstrate the principles to students I slow it down so they can see it working this way.

For the A shape, I get the 4th finger down first and everything else follows along nicely.

Everybody has their own preferred method, but it does get easier with practice; just practice it slowly first off.

Best,

A :-)

What I was taught was that repetition is the key to switching chords, you use
"muscle memory". In other words, you don't think about making the chord shape as you make the chord, that would slow you down. You would think of the chord in the song, then think of how to make the chord, make the chord and then play! Too many steps to do well and quickly. Especially with barre chords.

With repetition, you subconsciously have trained your hand and thought to automatically form or preform the shape of the chord before your hand touches the fret board. The only thing that I think will get you to this point is a lot of practice, practice, practice.

Learn all the shapes for the basic chords like it's second nature so you don't have to think about making them, you just do it. (in the first position, A,G, E...) when you get this down, start using fingers 2,3 and 4 to make your E, A Am, and so on, try to do this all the time. what you are doing is getting the basics down before you add the first finger as a barre.

When you get to this position, slowly make barres, alternating between all open strings and the barre, (ex. barre F, then all open strings, then back to barre F). The more you do this, the easier it will get.

Boring, yes, essential,yes, but its the only way I know to improve, you WILL get to the point where you won't have to think about making chords but actually think about applying chords in a song. Playing then gets a lot easier and more fun.

if you can't grab a barre chord, which i can't either, i think it's best to land the index finger last. also keep in mind when playing a song you may not have to sound all the strings.

i also think a good way to learn barre chords is to find a slow, easy song that has only one barre chord in it. then go from there. or take a song you already know and change one of the chords to a barre.

anyway, if you've been playing for 14 months and can't land a barre chord yet but you're at the stage of thinking abou how to go about it, i'd say that you're right on track. probably needs another five or six years of practice! but i can't say that from experience since I can't land barre chords consistently and i've been at it almost five years!

Hi,

I'm in a similar position. Also started late (began in my late 50s) also spent much of my life in various types of engineering, so I can relate to your desire for control and precision. Started learning a couple of years ago and have played fairly inconsistently since.

I've found that my approach to learning guitar has had to change a bit. My usual approach of analysing a situation and then simply applying effort and willpower is still useful, but the time scale is very different to what I'm used to. It can simply take much longer than I'd like to get the muscle memory working in the way that racetruck1 mentions.

As he says, I can now land the fingers simultaneously in quite a wide range of chords, without thinking about it. But the skill arrived slowly over time.

Barres are still coming along. I can land a few, but not many. But barres are notorious for taking a long time to get right. One thing that helped me with barres was reading a lesson about them which pointed out that most musical situations don't always call for a full barre with all notes sounded, and that this can be a hard thing to achieve anyway. It was suggested that in many case a partial barre was all that was needed to sound all the esential notes in the chord - i.e you don't always need to fret or strum very single string. And there are quite a few variations on the partial barre theme. Don't necessarily expect to be able to just push straight through to the most difficult shapes.

My way of getting around the difficulty of making it all happen when I want it to happen is to be working on quite a range of things at once. I don't concentrate on one aspect and look for mastery within a certain space of time. I concentrate on progress not mastery. Then one day it's just there. :)

For instance, with chords in general:

1. I started out trying to land simple chords very slowly. My fingers were stiff and quite painful and I sometimes had to actually place some using my other hand. :shock:

2. After finding that I could form and play a few I started working on changing from one to the other. Again, very slow business.

3. Moved on to just thinking "D" and my fingers would go there without having to think about the shape at all.

4. Started thinking more in intervals (if that's the right term here). So I'd be just fiddling around with a sequence of chords and would want the music to go 'up' or 'down' or whatever to give a certain feel - and my hands would just go there, without any conscious effort to think "um, maybe the D would be good after the G, or whatever. And my right hand seems to have developed a repertoire of rhythms and patterns to create different moods and feels as well.

Now this is starting to get really exciting! I can stare out the window and start daydreaming about something and my hands still keep making choices, and at some level the brain is deciding on the flow of the music and the 'feel' it's creating. Still simple enough chords at this stage, but such an absolute joy to experience. :D But I don't think that I could have picked that goal, dismantled it as an engineer, and then muscled my way up to it. It just crept up, in a series of small steps, while I was working on a range of things.

Voodoo stuff music.... :wink:

Good luck nailing them anyway.

Cheers,

Chris

I started with 4 basic chords....G, Em C and D.....the guy who showed me those said "There's a million songs you can play with those 4 chords......

Stand by me
His Latest Flame.....those two use all four.....

Times that by 5 using G C and D......

Then I realised, trying to play along with the 45, that SBM was actually A/F#m/D and E.....I could only play the F#m by playing the A chord with a mini barre across strings 2 3 and 4, and changing to F#m by playing the Em shape two frets up...

Most of the time, I'll use my thumb for the bottom two strings....unless I'm playing powerchords on the bottom three strings.....

Remember, you don't have to play EVERY string.....and whichever way you do it, if it sounds good then it is good.....

:D :D :D

Vic

Hi Lexus, just try to relax. Guitar playing should be enjoyable. This might help you to see that it's just a matter of repetition. Just like in a golf swing, muscle memory will take over in a while. None of us are the same so the time it takes will be an individual thing. Make a barre F chord. Now just slide everything up 1 fret and you have an F# barre chord. Then a G etc. Just go up and down the neck until it gets somewhat easier for you. Then try doing the same thing, but this time lift your fingers off the strings before you go to the next chord. No hurry. The fact that your only going 1 fret at a time will ease the tension. Then go from an F to a Bbm(same fret, Am shape). Then an F to a Bm(1 fret up, Am shape). When it becomes easier you can move anywhere you want. I'm not a teacher so this might not be good advice, but it worked well for me. Good luck and don't burn yourself out on barre chords. Keep it fun!
Denny

Hey Lex,

One of the neat things on this site is that when you ask a question you get about a hundred different views, all good!

By the way, I'm a retired engineer, very analytical, I'm the kind of guy that needs to know how and why everything works the way it does.

BUT, that's not exactly the way music works, a good part of it, yes, but not the reason we play. Take everything that was said above and apply it, but don't think that you HAVE to do everything perfectly, I might be better than others when it comes to barre chords but Chris C can do something better than me and, imho, something more important than me! That D***
interval thing! I spent a lot of years working on how to do technical things and lost sight of why I started playing in the first place. I'm working on that now but I shoulda paid more attention to it a long time ago. Yes, I can play a TON of chords, but don't ask me to play something just by hearing it. I'm getting better at it now, but I have to keep reminding myself to listen more and not worrying about being perfect.

The golden rule is...

ITS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN! :D

Give it time, one day you'll wake up and find out that those barre chords will be easy, maybe not tomorrow, but faster than you think.

Has anyone mentioned that barre chords are harder to master on an acoustic than on an electric? I'm finally able to play some barre chords on the electric, but they still stink when I try them on my acoustic. :?

Give yourself some more time and keep practicing, Lexus. Eventually you'll get it down.

Margaret

No, nobody's mentioned it but we ought to because there is a big difference between barre chords n an accoustic and on an electric in how much you need to push.

A :-)

True. If you're on acoustic make sure you're using extra light strings.

Yep, barre chords are far more difficult on acoustic. But it is good to practice on acoustic, when you go to electric the strings will feel like rubber bands.

You have already analyzed your own problem. YOU ARE THINKING TOO MUCH. It is like the others said, RELAX and have fun.

I have always had a simple method to learn chords whether they be open or barre. I will carefully and slowly place my fingers in position. While doing this I try to pay attention to how my hand feels. Then I will pick all fingers up and try to place them down on the chord again, again paying attention to the feel. I will do this over and over again until I have this feeling memorized. It may take days or even weeks to really get some chords down.

I do the same with chord changes. In your case I would fret the F barre chord, then slowly (as slow as you need to go) go to the G chord, paying attention to how my hand feels. Just do this over and over again (but don't think or stress about this). Pay attention to stress in your hand. When you feel stress, relax. You don't play guitar with a death-grip, just the opposite, it is a very easy and relaxed feeling.

But the main thing you need to do is relax. If you worried about walking like this, you would probably have difficulty taking a step. The Chord Police are not gonna break the door down and arrest you if you don't sound every string perfect in a chord.

Just to let you know, I have been playing over 30 years and don't always fret a chord perfect. When I goof up I just keep going and brush it off. Nobody is perfect.

Yep, barre chords are far more difficult on acoustic. But it is good to practice on acoustic, when you go to electric the strings will feel like rubber bands.

And IMHO barre chords are even harder on classical than acoustic. I only played acoustics for testing but I can play barre chords on acoustics when I didn't on my classical. I don't know if the wider neck or the nylon strings are the problem.

Anyway, when I pick up my electric I played barre chord from the first day, the electric strings seem really rubber bands!

Ah, yes, nylon strings are very unforgiving if there's the slightest gap in your technique. Steel strings will vibrate a bit if they're not fingered 100% properly; nylon strings won't

Best,

A :-)

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and input. :P

Sounding the barre on my acoustic has (surprisingly) not been an issue at all. Once I get on it, its good to go - even my teacher is happy with that part.

I'll continue on with the 3 P's and await the day it all comes together I guess. :roll:

Just anxious to make up for lost years and songs to learn.

If anyone else has anything to add, pls do - I'll continue to check back. 8)

Thanks again.