Funkin barre chords

Hey,
first post on here... just starting to play, and am doing fairly well teaching myself, along with the help of these lessons. I was picking up everything and moving right along, until these barre chords came up. Im having a hard time wit hthe bottom three strings in particular. Does anyone have any tips, or suggestions of what i might be doing right or wrong, and what i might practice, so i can figure out these funkin barre chords.

Hi mate,

I'm by no means an expert but I can pass on advice given to me by my previous tutor. I'm sure someone will come along with a definitive answer soon.

I struggled with barre chords for a long long time, I used to try a few, give up, try again a month later. The advice I was given was firstly when positioning my finger across all the strings to make sure that the creases in my finger where it bends are positioned between strings if that makes sense, and practice. I practiced every day for 10-20 mins a time on barre chords and after a couple of months I'm now comfortable holding down all six strings. Just working on convincing the rest of my fingers to press where I want them now.

Hope that helps some way.

M.

Originally Posted by: imacountrymanI was picking up everything and moving right along, until these barre chords came up. Im having a hard time wit hthe bottom three strings in particular.

When you write "bottom three strings", do you mean the E, A & D strings (the thicker, lower strings) or the G, B & E strings (the thinner, higher strings)?

Most of playing barre chords properly comes down to having the right approach to leverage with your arm, hand and fingers. Make sure you curve your arm around without bending your wrist resulting in an uncomfortable bending angle. It's best if you avoid bending your wrist at all by raising the neck up at an angle toward the ceiling.

To do this, reach your entire hand under the neck and only then reach back and place your thumb back behind the neck. Many beginners hold the neck in their palm or allow not enough of their hand and fingers to grab the strings.

Next, like I show in the vids, just work on barring with your index finger until you've got all the strings barred. Then move on to adding the other fingers one at a time.

This thread has some info regarding barre chords:

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28256

Hope this helps! Let us know how it goes for you.

(Can a mod move this to the Full Access Forum or Lesson Q&A, please? Thanks!)

I appreciate the advice. I havent given up, i have worked on it for 5-10 minutes a night, thn move on, but i kind of feel stuck with my progression, until i get it down... A freind told me about d tuning, where by using just the bar, and the lower strings, or thicker strings, makes the chords that a bar would, does that make sense??? and when i said lower strings, i meant the higher sounding strings, but from where im sitting, looking at this guitar, they appear lower.. and thanks alot chris, your vids are awesome, im enjoying learning, and you do a decent job teaching, i would tell you that you awesome, rather than decent, but i dont want you to get a big head or anything.. lol...