Originally Posted by: haghj500I'm surprised your hand still gets tired that fast. First three things that come to mind that do that so fast.

As I read other people saying on the site.
1. How hard are you pressing/grabbing the strings/neck?
Try using less for both.

2. The angle of your hand in relation to the neck.

3. The height/angle of the guitar when you play.

Ok
4. Lack of practices.

1. I'm probably using excessive force for the Barre. Only the necessary amount of force for the fretted notes, though.

2. My wrist usually bends somewhere between 0 and 15 degrees from the arm. Not sure if that tells you anything. I generally try to get that curving shape around the wrist, as shown in Christopher's videos.

3. I usually have the guitar fairly low, angled at roughly 30-45 degrees. That is, the pickups are a bit below belt-height (which I find handy, as I have long arms and the strumming hand automatically defaults to that position anyway), while the neck goes up so I can more easily fret the Barre Chords. When I need to reach the notes beyond the 12th fret, the neck goes closer to vertical (usually only during solos or the intro to Sweet Child O' Mine...), but it comes back to the before-mentioned 30-45 degree angle after solos.

4. Lack of practice is the explanation I'm most willing to go with. I've tried playing with the guitar hanging higher, but it just quickly became uncomfortable to strum that way, so I figured hanging it low and raising the neck would be better. Lack of practicing also helps explain why I find them hard to play confidently and switch between fast. I just need to put in hours (or more likely, weeks) of intense Barre Chord workout :)

And you are absolutely correct. I don't know the song. Never heard it before, but the Chord Progression looks like a pretty common one, so learning to play this will definitely be worth the time. And it's a good little exercise for switching Barre Chords. At least, in this case, the chords are all E Major and A Minor shaped Barre Chords. Same finger-positions, just on different strings and moved a bit around (you know what I mean).