Play a song with barre chords and just keep playing it whether the notes ring out or not. Don't obsess over the notes not sounding right. Your fingers will eventually find their way.


A great song to learn barre chords on is Eddie Floyd's Knock on Wood.

Have you ever heard an instrumental titled "Tequila"? It was first recorded by a group called The Champs. I know The Ventures also covered it. Point being the bacis back track is moving a barre G to a barre F and back again. It's a good rythm work-out too.

Have fun with it,
John.E

I made a video lesson for barre chords, have look at http://www.dolphinstreet.com/guitar_vid ... son-63.php maybe you find it useful.

A song where I always use barre chords would be Black Magic Woman, and it's pretty simple too.

Robert

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I have Free Guitar Lessons at www.Dolphinstreet.com

I play them all the time--it seems like every time I play guitar in Church (or just about every time) somebody picks a song in Eb--and I hate using a capo--so out come the barre chords.

One tip--loosen up your fretting hand first before the barre chords--often people worry about the barre chords and their fretting hand frets the bad way & tightens up, making it harder to play properly.

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

Indeed - there's bits of Hendrix you can only play using the thumb. The first fret F major in The Wind Cries Mary, for example. You can't use a barre because you need to be able to pull off on the third string to an open note, so you must finger the bottom F root with the thumb.

Along similar lines, I'm fond of this fingering of a major 13 chord (and probably use it too much):



Because the fifth string is silent it's almost impossible to play except by thumbing the sixth string root note. Move up and down the neck to taste. Nice...

Cheers - C

That's interesting... I, too, am guilty of playing too many 13 chords! I've never considered them good candidates for the thumb treatment before, though. I'll have to give that a go. I always play that voicing with the first, second, third and fourth fingers in that order and forget about the high E string. It's easy to mute the A string that way.

I acquired the habit from the days when I was into jazzier blues... taking the 7th and 3rd of the chord with the second and third fingers allows you to use the first and fourth fingers for walking bass lines or other embellishments. I tend to use my thumb for bass notes only when I need some notes that fall behind where the barre would have been if I'd taken it as a barre chord... erm. Sorry, that probably doesn't make much sense. But that Wind Cries Mary F would be a prime example. Any time I need to slur between a 9th and a major 3rd, or a 6th and major 7th...

Hi mondo. Well, quite. Same here - but then I found using the fingering in the diagram (above) leaves the pinky free to do twiddly bits on the first string, which is why the home note is being duplicated there.

...When we do these things quite a lot there's a fine line between it being part of our signature sound - and just a tiresome mannerism, isn't there?

Cheers - C

I was thinking of starting a topic about exactly that sort of thing... lately I've been wondering which of my habits may constitute my personal style (I use the word very loosely!), and which are just plain old bad ones that crept in and were never dislodged. When I think of thumb-over-the-top-of-the-neck mannerisms, I'd say I abuse the aforementioned Wind Cries Mary bass note followed by a couple of hammer-ons from the 9th to the 3rd to the point where I don't always pick it up if another guitarist is playing exactly the same notes but with a different emphasis.

Another one: bending up to the note I want from the one a semitone below. Cool most of the time, but not when you start hitting major sevenths to bend up to the root... and you're playing over a dominant seventh blues progression. Heh. Ah, well.

Ha! An excellent choice for a thread! I'd have plenty to say on that!

For example: early on it was pointed out to me that Clapton got that short attacking and then abruptly choked off note, sometimes with a half upbend, from BB King. I immediately though, "Ooo, me too!" So I did it to death for a while - till I heard myself on a playback and realised; get over it, quick!!

- C