Barre Chord Learning Tips For Beginner Guitar Players

By Tom Fontana

Learning how to play barre chords (bar chords) is one of the most difficult tasks any beginner guitarist will encounter. Since lots of songs require the use of barre chords, it holds many people back from fulfilling their desire to learn the guitar properly, or even quit altogether.

The good news is that with enough practice and dedication, playing barre chords will become easy. All professional guitarists learned to play them, you can too. Next time you feel like these chords are holding you back, remember these tips.

* Check your thumb: You need to literally pinch the neck of the guitar between your thumb and index finger, which means your thumb needs to be smack in the middle of the back of the neck of the guitar exerting just enough pressure, to pinch the strings.
* Check your index finger: You need to place your index finger parallel with the fret wire, as close to it as possible. Also, make sure your finger is not just laying flat, but slightly rolled onto its side. A straight and rigid finger will not work.
* Check your wrist: The best way to hold bar chords is by moving your wrist forward, which allows your index finger to become flatter on the neck. Experiment with different wrist positions.
* Check your elbow: Your elbow needs to be closer to your body while you are holding bar chords, since this allows your index finger to be rolled onto its side.
* Check which strings you need to be holding: Your finger usually doesn't have to hold down every string for a bar chord. For example, an E shaped bar chord only requires you to hold down strings 1, 2 and 6 (the high E, B, and low E strings). Concentrating your index finger on holding only these strings, while your other fingers hold down the rest of the strings, will make this bar chord easier.
* Your hand will get tired, but it shouldn't get numb tired. If it does, you are holding down too hard, and not concentrating enough on the correct technique.
* Practice bar chords for 5 minutes every day: As you know, practice makes perfect. If you practice holding down bar chords for just a couple of minutes a day for 2 weeks straight, you will get 300% better.
* Watch famous guitarists: Looking at videos of pros will motivate you, and watching their hands will even give you pointers on how they are fretting the chords.

Remember that anybody can learn the guitar, it's just a bit difficult at first. Believe me when I tell you that all professionals struggled with bar chords as well, but they kept at it, and learned it. You can too!

If you want to read more on the correct technique and types of bar chords, or watch a video guitar lesson on bar chords, head on over to TheGuitarLesson.com, where your find dozens of quality beginner guitar lessons, useful guitar tools, and more.

Tom Fontana is a guitar teacher and musician. His passion for the guitar spanned relatively late, during high school, but has never stopped growing since. ... ...
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How Much Theory Should a Guitar Player Know?

I personally believe that one should know the rules before they break them. Obviously it is not good to be overly analytical but it wouldn't be an entirely bad thing to look at music from an analytical perspective. In order to look at things from an analytical perspective, you need information to analyze. That's where music theory comes into play. So what I am about to present is not only a case for learning music theory but also what basic components of music theory you should, at a minimum, possess knowledge of.

It is important when you are playing along with a band that you have some idea as to what key you are playing in; especially if you are working on original material. You may be able to learn cover material from listening to a CD but it is also easier to pick up any song whether cover or original if you know music theory. Even more so if you know your way around the different keys.

There really isn't much of an excuse for not taking the time to obtain some knowledge in music theory. There are free sources of information all over the Internet. Probably the most basic, yet essential, information would be knowledge of the keys, chords and scales.

You should be familiar with the 12 major keys and their relative minors. Having an adequate understanding of the different keys will allow you to be able to transpose a song from one key into another. There are a number of times where I've transposed a song from one key to another simply because it was a better key for me to sing in. You may find that to be the case with a number of singers.

You should have an adequate chord vocabulary. There are also a few scales that every guitarist should be familiar with, like the major or diatonic scale as well as the harmonic minor scale and the pentatonic scale in both the major and minor modes.

If you don't want to spend the money on lessons or books, you should run an internet search for the information you want to obtain. I would first suggest you run a search for guitar chords listed by key. Check out a few sites to see which one offers the easiest approach for learning.

After you begin to learn the guitar chords by key, you should start learning scales. You should also run an internet search for guitar scales listed by key. You may be even more specific than that. For example: you can enter D harmonic minor and you will get a great number of results.

So, in conclusion, I hope that I have not only convinced you that learning music theory would be a valuable asset to your musicianship but that I have also set you off in the right direction towards doing so.

About the Author:
Bob Craypoe is a musician, writer, cartoonist, webmaster and entrepreneur who resides in Northern New Jersey. He is the creator of
Guitar4Blind.com (a site that teaches the visually impaired how to play guitar), as well as numerous other sites. You can hear his music at: http://www.craypoe.com/bob

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Happy 4th of July!

Time for firecrackers and watermelon and cook outs!

Yes, it's the 4th of July in the good 'ol USA again. try not to blow a finger off and

don't drive drunk. You might get popped by the law, or worse, kill yourself.

Stay cool my friends....BTW, does anybody out there have a pool I can use????

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