Tips on How to Play Bar Chords

Hey everybody! Welcome to another of my video guitar lessons. This time we are going to be talking about bar chords. The reason I call bar chords is that you bar multiple frets with your finger, using basically your index finger. So the great thing about bar chords is that, it allows you to move all the way up the fretboard. You can move a shape, like once you have the Major shape for example, all of a sudden you can play Major chords all over the place because you can move them up with same shape basically. So what we'll do is we'll start with kind of a basic approach to this, which is, try to bar across all strings with one finger and make each string sound cleanly. So we would start with the first fret. We are going to bar, we are going to take our index finger and we are going to press it against the strings and make sure each string plays. So when we go... so by playing each string individually you can tell if anything is being muted or buzzing. Like I mentioned in the open chord video that I have, sometimes you play too close to the fret, you might get some buzzing or you are not pushing hard enough on the strings. At first it's going to be hard to do this; you need some strength in your fingers. Also your finger is quite soft, so after a while we'll get a bit firm skin and stuff like that, basically building a callus on your finger tips. You'll have an easier time. So stick with it, be patient and just try to get that basic first part done, and all you do is using your index finger and push on the strings. Now to play actual Major shape, you've got to add some of your other fingers to the fretboard. So basically what you do is you have got your ring finger, your third finger on the third fret of the fifth string and then you have got your pinky on the third fret of the fourth string. Then you have got your middle finger on the second fret of the third string. Then you have got the last two strings are barred by your index finger. So you can hear that, that's an F chord. The reason it's called F is because it's based on the way you can determine which chord is based on the lowest note on the sixth string that you are playing. So basically the index finger that's barring indicates which chord you are playing. So basically because it's fretting on the first fret, at sixth string, that note is actually F so it's an F chord. Now in another lesson I'll get into what note the chord is made up and how that works, how do you build the chords and stuff like that. Now the great thing about the F Major chord or the shape is that you can move it up to the other fret. So if I move up two frets, so that the root note there is G, based on my index finger. I am now playing a G chord. Similarly in the fifth fret, A chord. So on my website you can take a look and check out the shape that is required to make that Major shape, just so you can follow that. Now the great thing about the major chord shape and bar chords is by changing different fingers you can create all sorts of different chords. So the two most popular common chords you'll see are Major and Minor chords, and like I said in another lesson I am going to talk about how to build chords, like you would in a song, how that works. Usually, you have mixture of Major and Minor chords if you build them up like a Major scale, which I'll get into. But the great thing with this Major shape is that, by lifting your middle finger off of the second fret there, you have got a Minor chord shape now. So basically you can tell, like if I do that, it's got the sadder sound, more Minor kind of sound. That's why it's called the Minor chord. That's actually the third of the chord. So you are lowering it by one fret so that it is played by your bar, your index finger. If you move that up two frets again, G Minor, A Minor. So they are pretty full sounding chords as well, and the great thing is using, you're playing, soloing and stuff like that up higher and gives you more freedom to move around the fretboard. So try working on that, and like I said when you add your other fingers to the bar, there's even more force required; you've got to push four fingers down. So basically that's going to take some time, and be comfortable and make sure each note is ringing nicely. When you add these all fingers, they might take some force off of the bar and then you might get some muted strings in that. So before you go any further with the chords you want to make sure that you can play those cleanly, so you've got the Major shape and the Minor shape. Like I said, I have got those on my website so you can check them out. I also encourage you guys to subscribe to -- I have a sign up form on my website and there's a five-week beginner course. So go through these videos of how to play the various chords you need to, how to tune your guitar, how to hold the guitar. There are some scales in there and stuff like that. It's very varied course and you'll get a weekly email and then I'll be using that email as well for future emails, for other lessons and updates on, when I'm adding content. So, I hope you enjoyed that lesson. I really would like you guys to provide some feedback on the YouTube site where for other things you might want to learn, so I can focus and tailor my lessons basically on what you are interested in. So good luck with that, and we'll see you in the next lesson.