After the seventh fret I have trouble with barre chords . My thumb is ibehind the neck and I am using the side of my finger Around the seventh fret I have trouble turning my finger on its side and the b string is muted Up to the seventh fret i do not have to apply a lot of pressure From the seventh fret on I have to apply a lot of pressure . I have this problem on both acoustic and electric Any suggestions
Thank You
I just figured out if I rest the guitar on my left leg I can do barre chords up to the 11th fret and every note rings out . I dont know why this method works
Hey Greg,
I was going to suggest putting the guitar on your left leg. It's because the angle of your arm and position of the guitar neck isn't optimum when it rests on your right leg. Your own body will get in the way of fretting, and a lot of guitarists will start squirming around and leaning, pointing the guitar neck out to try to accomodate. Moving your entire guitar to the left of your body solves this and gives you way more access to the higher frets.
Classical guitarists have it figured out. :)
Here's a video in which Steve Vai talks about the injuries he's had, some of it from putting the guitar on his right leg, hunching over, and raising his right shoulder too high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKXoX9n_2tA
-Carl.
Carl King[br]GuitarTricks Video Director / Producer
Thanks Carl great video The classical way does take a little getting used to I am trying to incorporate barre chords into my daily routine to build up stamina A lot of the songs I play have barre chords and I tend to lose strength after playing for awhile
Greg..forget left leg or right leg, it's all just going to make it very difficult to play standing up in the future. Put on a guitar strap to your instrument and adjust it so you can sit down and hang it directly in front of your upper stomach/lower chest area. The entire fretboard will be accessible and it will help you vision the neck from a standing point of view.
I had this exact problem.
I play sitting down and about 8 months in.
I found that moving the thumb position further up the neck i.e. closer to behind the ring finger rather than the index finger helps torque my wrist/hand so the index finger is forced more on its edge getting a clean barre including eliminating the muted B string.
I've had this exact same problem on my Dreadnaught acoustic, that doesn't have a cutaway. I can only barre that high up by shifting to "classical guitar" position. I thought I was crazy doing that, until I saw this tread :-)
It's worth noting that I CAN barre reasonably all the way up at the 12th fret on my electric stratocaster, with those lighter strings and cutaway. So the type of guitar and the strings matters here too, I think.
