BAR CHORDS: Tips and Exercises for Bar Chord Practice

[Music] all right hi today I want to talk about how to practice Barre chords I also will do another video about kind of how to understand making Barre chords because if you can make Barre chords you can make any chord but today I just want to talk about how to practice them so we're gonna focus on the AE shaped Barre chord which looks like this and I'm just gonna give you some methods for how to practice this is a video for you if you can already play some open chords and you're having a hard time figuring out how to jump to the you know the next step which is Barre chords and maybe you're trying Barre chords and they sound like this so maybe right now this is your practice method where you kind of sit there and you go we've all done it it's the thing where you just sit there and try to make the chord sound good this is not even remotely helpful okay maybe that's an exaggeration it's it's useful to know how the court is supposed to sound but if that's your practice method it is the most inefficient practice method here's why think of it this way back when you were learning open chords and you're going okay alright this is how I'm practicing getting from C to D just practicing that is way more helpful when you're learning either of these chords than it is to sit there going alright make this sure the chord sounds perfect this is something I call core muscle memory and it's this idea of what you got to develop first and core muscle memory in my opinion means getting your fingers to the right places from there if you can get your fingers to the right places most of the time that's when you can start making little changes oh and the point of getting there getting your fingers to the right place is to get them there quickly so for C and D and G all the open chords that you know getting your fingers there quickly is the most important part it's the same with Barre chords the only problem is if you practice doing that it's not gonna sound very good at first and that is normal so what I want you to do to practice Barre chords is instead of sitting there trying to make one chord sound really good see how many times you can make the chord in a minute so I'm gonna set a one-minute timer and I'm gonna see how many times I can switch how many times I can fully let go of this chord and then play it in the course of a minute countdown so and if you mess up every once in a while it might end up like okay just try again okay maybe slow down a little bit if you're having a hard time doing it well you can do it slower that's okay but this is the idea and let's just say well fast-forward a little bit okay in one minute I played this this many times the amount of times you get your fingers to the right place as quickly as you can the more your brain is gonna go I think I get what this chord is way way more effective way more efficient the other thing you can do is if it's boring to just play the same chord over again or if you feel like you're starting to get the hang of it keep in mind it might not sound good for a couple weeks just ignore them the other thing you can do though is this you can try to just work your way up the neck F is the hardest if it's not gonna sound very good but as you move up I recommend for now completely lifting your fingers off it's gonna get a little more crowded as you get higher then you just move back down whenever you want it's a little more fun but the idea there is you're just trying to get yourself to switch shapes as much as possible so I mean that's my basic advice for how to switch chords the other thing to think about here is always make a chord shape this one finger bar chord thing like this practicing trying to strengthen that whole finger is unnecessary when you're making a barre chord you don't actually need to put even pressure on every string what am I talking about let me show you if I'm making this chord I've got these three fingers that are already holding down notes on the g string the a string the D string I don't need to put any pressure on those strings because they are already fretted so instead of trying to get straight pressure across all the strings I'm gonna focus all my pressure on these two strings here and this one up here and sometimes if you have to sit down and search for a good sound what you can do is here's a better angle for this okay not as good of an angle as I thought Here I am kind of looking at this cord the way you're probably gonna look at it what I want to do is since I'm already playing these three strings I'm gonna focus on finding a little spot on the fleshy part of my finger here that can actually fret these two strings down here now I'm going to do that by moving up this direction or down this direction depending on what part of my finger frets that's the easiest and then with whatever I have left over I'll grab this string down here here I'll show you the front of you now that you can see what I'm talking about threaten these two strings down here and then trying to grab this one with whatever is left over okay so you've seen it from the top down here's from the front what I'm doing is I'm trying to find an angle that my first finger can be at that lets me grab just the the high E string and the B string and with whatever finger I have left over I'll grab the string down here and because everyone's different some of you especially if you have bigger fingers it might be easier for you to have a lot of index finger hanging over the top here if you got smaller fingers it might be easier to have you know a little less sticking up at the top it just kind of depends on how your fingers work so that's a thing to think about with Barre chords is it might be that whatever fleshy part of your finger you want your on with your index finger it might be easier to play or harder other things to think about here with Barre chords is a thumb placement and I'll set my camera up again for that so something to watch out for is thumb placement if you're trying to put your thumb in the middle of all your fingers here not only does that use less muscles smaller muscles but it also kind of makes it harder for your fingers to stretch apart from each other generally speaking if you're around where your index finger is or sometimes a little closer to the headstock from your index finger it can be a lot easier to get your fingers separated from each other see what I'm saying here if you're in here it can actually cramp your hand a little bit compared to if you're out here I like to think of it this way if I set my hand down here excuse this pile of wires and a pen but if you set your hand down this is where a thumb likes to be not cramped like this right if you try to put your hand on the neck that way so it's roughly the same that's generally better for your hand health and Barre chords can really hurt your hands which this this I cannot stress enough this is another reason why it's so important to try making the chord and then letting go and making the chord and letting go because if you're sitting there trying to make the chord sound good for a minute or two there is almost no song you're gonna play where you're gonna have to constantly hold pressure for a minute usually if you're switching chords you're only holding pressure for a couple seconds or a half a second depending depending on how long your strumming pattern is and I guess depending on a lot of things but generally speaking you're not gonna hold one chord for the entire song and that's really gonna hurt your wrist and your forearm these muscles in here and part of why I was talking about thumb placement either pinching against your fingers are being closer to your index finger is the farther your thumb is kind of away from your fingers and not inside your fingers the more you're using bigger muscles up here and when you pinch against your fingers you tend to use this tiny muscle in here which gets really tired really quickly and I don't want you to hurt yourself so if you feel your arm hurting or getting tense stop playing bar chords for the day or if you know for a couple hours at least try it again later but just know that it does take time to build the strength and to build the calluses and just accept that it's not gonna sound good for a while I want to show you another thing about thumb placement here so okay you got a nice view of my printer so the other reason I think that thumb placement is important is because when you push your thumb into the middle of your fingers here it tends to pooch your wrist out down here and that's not very good for your arm bar chords in general are not actually very good for your arm but having your thumb over here at least straightens your wrist out a little bit and that's good for your carpal tunnel where it's better for your carpal tunnel which is this fleshy stuff in here that all your nerves and your other wires and stuff go through and when you have your wrist like this that can get really cramped so that's why I'm saying it's nice to have your thumb out at least in line with your index finger if not even closer to the headstock from there good wrist angle is gonna make you comfortable playing Barre chords for a longer time so those are some tips on how to practice making Barre chords just thumb placement letting go a lot while you build strength and giving yourself permission to sound like crap for a couple weeks while you just get used to getting your fingers there quickly and then as you get your fingers there more consistently you can start thinking about how high up your index finger needs to go in order to fret those other strings there are some tips for Barre chords I hope that's really helpful if you enjoyed this video please subscribe check out my other ones I don't know have a nice day or night or whatever is happening where you're at and take it easy [Music]

Channel: Scott Paul Johnson

Views: 364,771

Keywords: bar chords, barre chord, practice, technique, tutorial, easy, beginner, guitar, step by step, guide, bar, barree, chords, help, made simple, lesson, made easy, exercises, tips, F chord, tricks, explained, demystified

Id: SiDSrYiLc8Y

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019