How to Play Barre Chords on Guitar - Avoid THESE Top 5 Mistakes!

let's face it playing BARC chords can be a real pain in the A and the problem for most beginners is you don't know where the F to start hi my name is Ellen and welcome to my brand new bar chord miniseries where I'll cover everything from how to form bar chords properly to transitioning in and out of them with ease so if you want to see minor changes lead to Major breakthroughs then stick with me and let's begin so let's start off really quick by discussing what a bar chord is basically bar chords are any chord that requires you to use one finger to hold or press down on multiple strings the most common barcord shapes for beginners are F and B minor and I'm sure you're probably already familiar with these because you've tried them before but with no luck or even if you haven't tried bar chords before then you've come to the right video let's try one now this is a B minor chord can you play it go ahead and give it a try if that didn't sound too good and now you're sitting there frustrated because you don't know what you're doing wrong I'm going to go over the top five mistakes that IC beginners made making that in my opinion are what's preventing them from playing clean bar chords and how to fix them so let's get into it let's start right at the source of most people's struggles which is the index finger we need to use to Bar chords with because cord diagrams often show bar chords like this I think a lot of beginners tend to lay their index finger flat across all the strings and right in the middle of the two fret wires but placing it like this is too flat and too far for bar chords a more effective way to Bar your string strings is to roll or rotate your finger about 45° to the more bony side closest to your thumb because your finger tends to be less smooshy on this side it'll do a much better job at holding the strings down so they produce a clear sound it's best to keep your finger as straight as you can but if you find yourself having to curve your index finger a little bit to do this just watch out for any knuckle crevices where a string might not be pressed down adjust your fingers slightly so your knuckles are in between the strings and that's can help with reducing muted strings after you roll your finger to its side also make sure to slide it up as close as you can to the Fret wire as is true with fretting any cord shapes the closer you can have your fingers to the Frets the less hard you have to press down and the more clearly each note will ring out again if you struggle with keeping your finger straight it'll be especially important for you to scoot up as close as you can to the Fret wire to have a clear sound something my violin teacher taught me when I was 4 years old and still has stuck with me to this day is the idea of a waiter or a waitress hand what I mean by that is holding your hand in a way that looks like you could carry a tray when you cradle the neck of your guitar like this it makes it so much harder to play bar chords because you're not giving your hand the room it needs to make the proper adjustments don't get me wrong holding your guitar this way can be useful in certain situations like when you want to mute strings or if you want to use your thumb to play different notes and things like that but when it comes to playing bar chord shapes just remember you're not a waiter unless you are one so instead of keeping your wrist touching your guitar neck try moving it away to give your finger enough leverage to roll onto its side moving right along down the arm let's talk about your elbow you might have already started doing this when trying out the first two tips but notice how when you roll your index finger and push out your wrist away from the guitar your elbow will naturally follow these two movements to tuck in closer to your body this positioning will help so much inle cleaning up the sound of your bar chords and it should feel more comfortable when you're doing so sometimes I'll see beginners popping their elbows out like a chicken wing when learning guitar although this might help you see what your fingers are doing a little bit more clearly it's important to resist this when practicing bar chords and in fact embrace the complete opposite if you can train your elbow to stay closer to your body whenever you're playing those bar chord shapes then you can trade popping out for popping off if you've ever tried fixing your bar chord shape by just pressing down harder and harder on the strings then this tip is for you although you do need to press down hard enough on your strings to make a bar chord ring out clearly something you might not have actively thought about is balancing the pressure from the other side of the guitar your thumb plays an important role when it comes to forming guitar cords because it can move around the back of the neck to help you pinch your strings down and relieve some of that pressure from your other fingers with bar chords you should think of your thumb and index finger as working together to form a pinching AC ction on the strings however much pressure you're using to press the strings down with your index finger is the same amount of pressure your thumb should be using to push the strings up towards your index so instead of thinking about it as the harder you push the cleaner it'll sound think of it more as a balancing act as for the placement of your thumb experiment with raising or lowering it to counterbalance your other fingers where it feels most comfortable and has the best sound will be different from person to person depending on the size of and shape of your hand for me my thumb will usually fall right in the middle of the back of the neck of the guitar about where you would imagine a spine would be and depending on which bar chord shape I'm playing my thumb will move just slightly away from the spine however if you have bigger hands or longer thumbs it might feel and sound better to scoot your thumb higher or lower than the spine this is where a little bit of experimentation will help but once you find that sweet spot you'll know exactly where to aim every time you're trying to play a bar chord do you feel like the be minor chord shape is a little bit easier to play than the F chord shape one reason for that is because generally speaking the closer you're playing to the nut of the guitar the harder it is to press those strings down as you go higher up on the fretboard the strings will have a little bit more slack to them making it feel easier to hold them down in addition the Frets get closer together the higher up you go so anyone with smaller hands or less range of motion can use this to your advantage if you find it difficult to play a clean bar chord near the nut of your guitar then stop going nuts and shift you that same bar chord up higher on the neck not only does this allow you to keep your fingers a little closer together but it should also feel easier to press the strings down I like to start people around the fifth fret form your bar shape here and as it starts to improve and feel easier over time then you can scoot your hand down one fret at a time until you make your way back to the net so now that we've covered the top five mistakes and how to fix them let's try play that B minor cord again this time applying all of our tips how did that sound hopefully better if you heard an improvement in your bar chord since the beginning of this video make sure to give me a thumbs up down below and let me know in the comments which tip helped you the most remember that everyone's hand shapes and finger dexterity is a little bit different so feel free to take these tips and adjust them to better suit yourself also remember that playing bar chords is a skill and as with any any skill you will need some time and patience and practice to get it down right the most important thing to work on is having good form whenever you're practicing these bar chords so you can train your muscles to develop that muscle memory in an effective way which actually leads me to the next topic did you know every basic major or minor bar chord boils down to just one of four different shapes in the next video I'm going to show you how to form these shapes what order to learn them in and my top tips for how to practice them so that you can start sounding like a pro so so make sure to join me right here and I'll see you over there bye

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Views: 33,484

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Id: 6vBK7EL9gkE

Length: 7min 34sec (454 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2023