I'm assuming that you've made it out of the saloon safely if you were able to join us again. You cut it pretty close by only knowing half of your chords and it's a good thing the guy didn't challenge you to a song in the key of F or Bb. If you'll notice, we didn't really mention these chords in the past two lessons. No, these bad boys have their own personalities and it's gonna take some fancy fingerwork. Let's get to it and jump right in to Barre Chords.
People hate barre chords. Beginners hate barre chords. I've been playing for 11 years and I hate barre chords. I've had countless people that were learning to play guitar come up to me and say "Do we really have to play these chords like this??" Unfortunately, yes. But, it is what it is and it will open up your eyes to something really cool about the guitar.
A barre chord is not any different tonal wise from any of the open chords. Your major chords are still formed by the 1 - 3 - 5 notes from the key you are playing in, and the minor chords are still formed by the 1 - b3 - 5 notes from the key you are playing in. The difference being in the chord shape or how you finger the chord.
When playing a barre chord, you will use a finger (usually the index) to span mutliple strings within the same fret. Then you will use your remaining fingers to fret individual notes the way we mentioned in the last lesson. All at one time. Nothing to fear, let's just jump into some tabs.
This is what the F chord looks like when tabbed out on all six strings:
----1----
----1----
----2----
----3----
----3----
----1----
Now obviously we don't have three separate index fingers to fret them as individual notes, so we will have to lay the finger flat accross the strings to fret all of the notes with one finger. This is how your fingers will lay accross the three frets used in the F major chord.
|---1---|--------|-------|
|---1---|--------|-------|
|---1---|---2---|-------|
|---1---|-------|---3---|
|---1---|-------|---3---|
|---1---|--------|-------|
or
|---i---|--------|-------|
|---i---|--------|-------|
|---i---|---m--|--------|
|---i---|--------|--p----| ( i=index, m=middle, r=ring, p=pinky)
|---i---|--------|--r----|
|---i---|--------|-------|
As you can see, the index finger lays flat accross all strings in the first fret.
Another way of looking at this. Do you remember the E chord that we learned in the cowboy chord lesson? If you will notice, the only difference between the E and the F is the E shape was moved up one fret, and you added the barred index finger in behind it.
Now this is where it get's interesting. You can take this chord shape and move it up and down the fretboard to play any major chord. Say you played this shape with the barred finger on the 5th fret, you would now be playing an A major. Move it up some more to the 10th fret; now you're playing a D major. This works for all notes on the fretboard, but remember it is only major if you use this shape exactly as it is written.
So what about minors? Do they have their own fancy, movable barre chord shape? Well of course they do. Let's take a look at one.
For the sake of simplicity and a good A/B test, let's go with F minor.
|---1---|--------|-------|
|---1---|--------|-------|
|---1---|--------|-------|
|---1---|--------|---3---|
|---1---|--------|---3---|
|---1---|--------|-------|
or
|---i---|--------|-------|
|---i---|--------|-------|
|---i---|--------|-------|
|---i---|--------|--p----| ( i=index, m=middle, r=ring, p=pinky)
|---i---|--------|--r----|
|---i---|--------|-------|
Looks oddly familiar, but there's something missing. Look closely and we will notice that there is only one note difference. It's that dang b3 we keep hearing about. Now that we've taken it out, this is the shape we get for 6 string barred minor chords. Yep...it's that simple.
Just for some further clarity, let's remember back to our use of E major to show the barre chord F major. The minor chords work just the same. If you were to take an E minor and shift if up one fret, then place your index finger to bar all six strings on the first fret, you would have an F minor. And you guessed it...if you were to move this barred shape up and down the fret board you could play any minor chord with the same shape.
The same principles that applied to open chords applies to barre chords as well. Even though you are using the palm side of your finger to fret the notes as opposed to the tips of your fingers, you should concentrate on pressing down firmly and creating equal pressure on all strings that are barred. This is the only way to ensure clean, controlled chords that will ring out beautifully.
Once you get the shape down, begin to implement changing from barred chords to open chords and vica versa. We're going for fluidity here and once you learn the shapes and where to place your fingers, the key is going to be practice, practice, practice. That is the only way to guaruntee improvement; you've got to build up your chops.
This chord shape will keep you at the woodshed for a while so that is all for this lesson. The next lesson will be another "pt. 2" style lesson where we will focus on 5 string barre chords. You'll have 6 strings down by then so 5 strings will be a breeze. The next lesson will be the last one of the week and I encourage you all to go through all of the chords and nail them down this weekend. Then when we resume at the beginning of next week we will begin to visualize the fretboard.
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