Hi all,
I'm working on Guitar Fundamentals 2 right now and am in the barre chord lessons. I'm able to get major barre chords fine but am having a lot of trouble getting the tone out of the 3rd string for minor barre chords since my finger has curvature and thus cannot push it all thw way down. I've tried a lot of different positions and tried to increase the pressure but can't seem to get it. Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Hi twaltz,
Sorry to hear that you're having problems. I have a couple of questions for you that will undoubtedly help forum members to help you out on this one.
1.) When you say "3rd string", are you referring to the D string or G string? It's easy to mix these up.
2.) There are 3 different Guitar Fundamental courses, taught by 3 different instructors - Lisa, Anders and Chris. Which one are you currently undertaking?
3.) Which of your fingers has the deformity?
4.) Which barre chord form(s) are you having difficulty with (e.g. A minor, E minor)?
There are methods of stripping down certain barre chords that allow one to omit or mute some of the strings, so there's a good chance that there's a workaround that will work for you. Answering the above questions will help zero in on a specific solution. Thanks.
Sascha
Hi Twaltz837
Try bringing your fretting hand elbow in towards your side so that your fretting hand rotates on the fretboard.
You want to play barre chords with the bony side ( the side next to your thumb) of your index finger and not the softer part.
Try barring across all 6 strings with the index finger, bringing your elbow into your waist and see if you can get all the notes to ring out. If you can then add the ring and pinky finger notes to make up the minor chord.
You can also put a capo on for instance fret 5 and try playing the same minor barre shape, having the capo on will make barre chords easier as you won't have to put as much pressure on the strings.
Once you can play the barre chord on fret 5, move the capo to fret 4, then 3 and so on until you can play the chord on the first fret.
If you want you can do what aliasmaximus said and omit a note or 2 you'd still be playing the minor chord just not as a barre. The same can be done with all barre chords. For instance for an A minor chord you can play these two variations:
e ------×-----------‐--- e -----5------------
B ‐-----×-------------- B ---‐-5-------------
G -‐---5---------‐----- G -----5------------
D -----7------------‐- D -----7-------------
A -----7-‐------------ A ‐----7-------------
E ------×-----------‐--- E ‐-----x--------------
The second one is still technically a barre chord but is easier than barre across all the strings. You can also play the second shape and have your thumb over the neck fretting the A note ( I find this harder). All are A minor chords and sound very similar. :)
