[HeadBanger06]

Im having kind of trouble on my bar-chords on the acoustic guitar. It seems like i can never keep all the strings down, so it produces a muffled sound. I work on them every day, but i can't seem to nail them. does anyone have any tips on how to play good bar-chords? I need them please!

Thanks

[torontodave]

*Barre Chords
I know its kind of cliche but the key is to just practice. Try learning songs that use alot of them so that practicing them wont be such a chore. I reccomend trying some Jack Johnson, almost every one of his songs uses lots of barre chords.

[blueswannabe]

Here's some songs that helped me nail barre chords:

Oasis - Married With Children
Pixies - Where is my mind?
RHCP - Under the bridge
Turin Brakes - Underdog

Yeah, basically just keep practising!

Torontodave: Is that Beth Orton in your sig?

This post has been edited by blueswannabe: 18 May 2005 - 09:38 PM

[The Taxman]

Married With Children helped me learn too!

A lot of Syd Barrett songs require barre chords too, but you can use them in pretty much every song.... personally, I hardly ever use them unless I'm playing electric.

[dadfad]

Using the thumb on the 6-string can make barre-chords easier (It may seem clumbsy at first but quickly becomes very easy). Generally a full six string chord isn't always required, just either a bassier chord or a treblier chord. Concentrate your efforts on the side of the neck that is most important for the sound you want. On a barred F, that open 5-string (A) is a note contained in an F-chord and so may be left open (or fingered, 133211, as desired). Occassionally I'll use a full-barred-with-the-side-of-the-index-finger barre-chord, but I've found that generally you really only want one of two choices in a barre-chord...a bassy-sounding chord (where I'll use my thumb on the 6 and finger the 5,4,3) or a treblier-sounding chord (where I'll finger the 1,2,3,4). For those rare times I actually want a full-barre, I'll use the more conventional index-across-the-whole-neck type. (Actually, you can use the thumb for the full-barre too most times, depending on where you're going next or what you're coming out of.). Best advice, learn to play them all three ways, but for me and the stuff I usually play, the use of the thumb is the dominant method. Laying your middle finger over your barring-index finger for extra pushing strength can help to when that middle finger isn't needed elsewhere, like if you're just using simpler "power-chords," etc. In any case it will get much better and more solid with practice.

[The_buffalo]

You might have a bit more success if you forget about trying to barre at the nut, but move up about 5 or 6 frets, and practice up there first. You could also try going to a lighter guage of string. Try squeezing a tennis ball to build up your hand strength - you should be doing this anyway - don't forget to alternate hands.

[Graeme! Yes, Graeme!]

Apart from the obvious "practice practice practice" - any finger strength techniques can help. The tennis ball squeezing one is good, and you can also get special tools designed to increase finger strength through squeezing strings.

Bar chords are one of the most difficult things to get right when learing to play guitar. Just about everyone has difficulty with them at first. It took me a few weeks to be able to play basic major and minor chords in a way even approaching properly. But, once you have them nailed it opens up whole new avenues of flexibility in your playing, so it's worth keeping at it. Don't get disheartened if you don't get instant results.

[Craig61]

I thought that I would never get barre chords. I just kept practicing Tom Petty's Learning to Fly which is a simple song with the Chords F C Am G it keeps repeating thorough the whole song. I keep practicing it and one day the F chord just game out good and once I could do the F chord the others came along real easy.

[J.Hoang301]

all you can really do is practice and those almost perfect barre chords wil come sooner or later

[spacecrumbs]

These guys already got it, but I'll just add that tuning down a step can really help when learning more difficult barre-chord shapes, it makes things easier to hold down but you're still training your fingers to do the work so when you get the hang of things you can start tuning back up instead of just jumping in at the deep end.

[kakle54902]

Try practicing with just your fore finger first and see if you can just get all the strings to sound nice and then add your other fingers gradually.

[nightnday]

just keep practicing. Your grip needs to stengthen inorder to hold em proper like.

even some expereinced players find it hard to hold em after playing a 3 hour set. but all it takes is practice.

[wannalearn01]

You might have a bit more success if you forget about trying to barre at the nut, but move up about 5 or 6 frets, and practice up there first. You could also try going to a lighter guage of string. Try squeezing a tennis ball to build up your hand strength - you should be doing this anyway - don't forget to alternate hands.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Onto this idea...I used a capo to hold them down at about the 3-4 fret, and then as my hands got stronger I moved the capo back up, until I could do them fully.

Also make sure you have as straight of wrist as possible(both for better leverage and comfortability)...barres are not all about hand strength, if you do them right, they are about for arm strength. Also try messing with yout thumb to get better leverage...i found moving the thumb back behind your barre(pointer), give you better leverage.

But the barres dafad are talking about are awesome once you are able to utilize them...the first one I learned that type of barre on was the F major, with muted top and bottom strings...it is very close to position to a C major chord...just barely moving two fingers.

A good lick:

Am-F-Am-F-Am-F-G

Where the F and G are muted on top string and bottom...and the F to G is just a slide.

Troy

[Will_Wood]

How many times do I have to say: please DO NOT use the "monkey grip" barre techinique unless you want a quick road to wrist pain from arthritis.

Actually (fun fact), if Jimi Hendrix was still alive today, I read that he would most likely have arthritis. Sounds fun, now?

Learn good technique and it can only help you.

[Mikky04]

"monkey grip"?????

[dadfad]

(Dadfad rushes to Walgren's drug store to buy aspirin to keep in his gig-bag for when that arthritis starts to set in... )


Good technique is whatever works. The thumb is an integral part of holding some chords in some styles of playing. I can hold a G-chord bass with my thumb 3X---- and play EXTREMELY rapid treble lines on the first three strings (spanning from the nut to the 7th-fret) with my other fingers. A classically-trained guitarist using "proper technique" couldn't even begin to touch it, not even old Andrés himself. You do what you have to to do to get the music you want to play. While it is of course good to be able to make and hold a "proper" barre-chord, one should not be limited in what he plays by technique. Good technique should help, not hinder, your music.


(And Jimi if he were alive today probably would have arthritis. After all, he would be in his middle sixties! )

[diebrucke]

Ok - I'm not being Mr Guitar guru here - just wanna say hello and be a part of this here guitar jamboree.........Tune way down and use a capo till you get it right. And don't think you need strong hands just to play barre chords, or anything else for that matter. Keep in mind that once you get barre chords down pat you probably won't use them as much as you think.

[torontodave]

Torontodave:  Is that Beth Orton in your sig?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Naw its Kaki King...

[dadfad]

Ok - I'm not being Mr Guitar guru here - just wanna say hello and be a part of this here guitar jamboree.........Tune way down and use a capo till you get it right. And don't think you need strong hands just to play barre chords, or anything else for that matter. Keep in mind that once you get barre chords down pat you probably won't use them as much as you think.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First, welcome to GTU. And you're right about that. The better you get, the less you are going to want to use barre-chordes in the tunes you do. You'll start opting toward more complex chord-forms that are more expressive than simple E or A (maj or min) shaped barres.

[diebrucke]

First, welcome to GTU. And you're right about that. The better you get, the less you are going to want to use barre-chordes in the tunes you do. You'll start opting toward more complex chord-forms that are more expressive than simple E or A (maj or min) shaped barres.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote]

Thanks - nice to get in out of the cold and be amongst guitar players. Btw my suggestion to use a capo can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, using a capo can negate the need for barre chords if all you want to do is change key. Secondly, and closer to what I intended - placing a capo on, say, the second fret makes fingering easier (at least on most guitars I've played it does) and even easier if you've tuned down a step or two. The point being - the easier the action, the easier playing barre chords is going to be. My guitar, a Maton, allows me to tune down two frets without too much rattle. The capo is almost permanently on the second fret, so i'm still in standard tuning.I started doing this after a spell in hospital and was weak as a kitten, and have stuck with it since.
I can't get over how heavy the action is on a lot of guy's guitars - it's no wonder they struggle to play barre chords.