A-Shape Barre

Am I worrying about this unnecessarily? Should I just focus on playing the four-string version and wait for my finger to come around in time?

Yes, focus on the 4 strings and the rest will come in time.

I do realized some people hate the sound of inverted chords, but when I'm playing a song with lots of chord changes, I usually hit all 6 strings if I'm play an A-Major open chord. Hitting the 6th E string open just adds a 5th to A-major, but it sounds like a forth because of the order: E-A. But with a bassist it's hard to tell the difference, because he usually sets the sound for your chord voicing.

Oh and call me amatuer, but I still don't barre the A-Major chord. I've always figured the barre useless if I can move my fingers fast enough anyway.

My third finger's first knuckle does not bend a whole lot, and I have a good deal of difficulty keeping it from muting the high E string.

Hiya,

Your best bet would be to use the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers to fret the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings respectively - it's far easier to get the strings ringing clearly and it makes it a lot easier to throw in the odd sus4 chord, too.

Best,

A :-)

I like to cross my middle finger over top of my index finger, Kind of like you cross them for good luck. I find that this gives me that extra pressure necessary to get a good tone out of the 1st (high E) and 5th (A) strings.

I realised very early that I was always going to struggle with the "correct" A-shape barre chord.....I've always played it with a full barre across whatever fret you need, and a mini-barre across strings 2 3 & 4 two frets higher....just miss the top E string, which I find I tend to mute with the mini-barre anyway.....

Vic

I think it all depends on the chord you coming off of. I usually barre the Amaj, especially if I'm coming off the Dmaj... the quickest way to get there and the best way to have it ring true...the more tools in your arsenal the better

Thanks for all the responses guys. It's great to hear the variety of ideas and techniques.

I'm a hardcore 2-3-4 guy, I'd say if you were just starting it and you didn't already have all sorts of muscle memory about it, then there's no loss in using 2-3-4 instead of the mini bar.

If you're just folk strumming away, you can afford to get a little sloppy, but I've found that as I raise the level of my playing and do some voice leading in my jazz studies, that slop is absolutely unacceptable.

A former guitar instructor of mine once put it in perspective:

"If I was teaching you piano, and I said to play a given chord, do you think it would be okay if you just didn't play a couple of the notes?"

Of course I said no...

That's sort of the way I feel about it. I know if I've got all kinds of distortion going no one will no the difference anyway, but I know, and that's what bothers me. The competition is against myself and I can't accept not being able to play that single note. I can do 2-3-4, but I also don't want to settle on that permanently. The more tools the merrier.

It's funny how I have this psychological construct swirling around a single note.