Bah, the barres

My first 3 month complete having never even picked up a guitar before.

Working through Fund 1 and 2 but jumping around seeing what is what and where

Concentrating on open chords and getting the very slow changes a tad quicker

Just got a tiny cut on the end of my first finger which makes fretting painful .

Conveniently found Christopher Schlegel tutorial on the CAGED system so was trying the chords using fingers 2,3 and 4 .

Now then.

I can usually make the barre across the frets and I find I can make the chords with the alternate fingers but there is no way I can make both together in any of the CAGED shapes

Just not enough stretch in my hand and fingers. Take it it will only get better

Originally Posted by: ddiddler

Conveniently found Christopher Siegal tutorial on the CAGED system so was trying the chords using fingers 2,3 and 4 .

Now then.

I can usually make the barre across the frets and I find I can make the chords with the alternate fingers but there is no way I can make both together in any of the CAGED shapes

Just not enough stretch in my hand and fingers. Take it it will only get better

It's important to keep in mind that the CAGED shapes are fundamentally about fretboard visualizing & seeing possible patterns. As I mention in the tutorial several times, it's not necessary to play each & every shape all over the fretboard. Some of them are quite difficult!

Some of them are better used as a visual reference & you actually only play part of the possible notes. Most guitarists just use 3 note groupings, or triads & their inversions. Which are part of the CAGED shapes, but much more managable & practical in many cases.

I encourage you to continue to focus on open chords, barre chords & learning songs. My tutorials on triads & inversions might also be beneficial in this context.

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/triads-and-inversions

And yes, with practice everything becomes easier & possible.

Hope that helps! Please ask more if necessary.

thanks Chris

yes I took that from it

obviously early days to know my 1,3,5s for the triads then I saw someone mention diads the other day. Always new terms creeping in.

I was just surprised how the 2nd fret positions were so difficult off the barre

I did in fact take the D shape along the fret and compared the notes to the tone table to see if they did indeed make the 1,3 and 5s of the chord .

Not important,there is a typo in the notations for the D shape. they still say G shape in the last sentence.

Just to show I read it.

Originally Posted by: ddiddler

yes I took that from it

obviously early days to know my 1,3,5s for the triads then I saw someone mention diads the other day. Always new terms creeping in.

I was just surprised how the 2nd fret positions were so difficult off the barre

Good deal. The lower range of the fretboard can be tricky because the frets are so wide & the tension of the strings being so close to the nut.

Keep practicing!

Originally Posted by: ddiddler

I did in fact take the D shape along the fret and compared the notes to the tone table to see if they did indeed make the 1,3 and 5s of the chord .[/quote]

Good experiement!

[quote=ddiddler]Not important,there is a typo in the notations for the D shape. they still say G shape in the last sentence.

Just to show I read it.

Fixed! Thanks for the heads up.