12
Jun
2009
Getting Started With Barre Chords
There are a few transition points when you’re learning guitar, where learning a new technique opens up a huge range of new avenues, in terms of what you can play. I think one of these main transition points is learning barre chords.
What are barre chords (also known as bar chords)? When you start learning guitar chords, you learn chords such as C-major, G-major, in what’s known as open position - ie where some of the strings are ‘open’, without you needing to hold them down.
If you’ve learnt the main open chords, and can play them in chord sequences easily, then it’s probably a good point to start looking at barre chords.
Barre chords are similar in shape to these open chords, except that they can be played at any fret, not just in the open position. Instead of the nut of the guitar fretboard making the open strings sound, you use your first finger at a particular fret as a barre across the strings.
The picture here shows the F-major chord being played, with the barre being formed across the first fret, by the first finger. The other fingers (2,3,4) are forming the shape of the open E-major chord. However, since this pattern is shifted up by one fret, it’s now an F-major chord. Here’s a diagram showing the fingering:
Why are barre chords so useful? Mainly because, once you learn a few different barre chord shapes, you can play these same shapes anywhere on the fretboard, and get a different sounding chord.
For example, if the chord in the above picture was shifted up by 2 frets (ie the barre is now at the 3rd fret), this would become a G-major chord. So it’s well worth the time and effort spent learning the main barre chord shapes, as then you can play a whole range of different chords, using just these few shapes, but shifted around the fretboard.
Here are a couple of tips when starting out learning barre chord shapes:
- Apply plenty of pressure with your first finger, across the strings: your first finger has to act like the ‘nut’ of the fretboard, this needs firm pressure across all strings
- Don’t make your other fingers too flat: when trying to form the first finger barre, the tendency is for the other fingers to flatten behind it. Try to stretch a little, and make the other fingers come at the fretboard more at right angles.
- Don’t overdo it at first! It takes time to learn these barre chord shapes, so take plenty of breaks in between practising.
Some courses with a good treatment of learning barre chords are Learn & Master Guitar, and Jamorama.
