How to Switch Between Chords

Barre Chords Technique Hi, I'm Grey and this is Hub Guitar. Let's talk about the overall technique needed to successfully play barre chords. I'll preface this with saying that most beginners should avoid barre chords, for at least 6 months. It's a big obstacle to learn to play barre chords and it depends on your physical conditioning. There's alot of other things you can do instead while you work up the strength to play barre chords. A barre chord is when you use a single finger from the fretting hand, normally the index finger, and push down multiple strings at the same fret. One of the first barre chords that players usually encounter is the F major barre chord. And that's ironic because it's also a fairly difficult barre chord. This chord works by fretting across the entire first fret with the index finger, and then with the remaining fingers, you create an "E Major" chord shape. So if this is E Major--notice that I'm using middle, ring and pinky to create it-- and then it up one fret, and barre across the entire first fret. My students are sometimes surprised to find that as a guitar player, I don't usually play this chord in this way. I don't really like to barre chords in the open position. There's usually an easier way to play an F chord. And I like to play things the easy way. When you practice barre chords, you should start with the easiest ones and move your way towards the harder ones. That makes "F Major" a poor choice, because it's among the harder ones. Actually, barre chords are largely a function of strength. So practicing really hard barre chords will help you build that strength. But if no pleasant sound is coming from your guitar when you practice, you're not going to practice long. So what makes barre chords more easy to play? 1 - Barre chords in the center of the neck, around Fret X or so, will be easier. That's because the tension of a string feels lighter in the middle than it does at either end. 2 - Barre chords where the finger doing the barre is not responsible for pressing the middle strings are easier. For example, in the F major shape we talked about, that's easier than an F7. F7 requires us to lift up the finger on the fourth string, and now the barre is responsible for playing four strings instead of 3. And one of those four is in the middle and it's very hard to transfer the force from the barre into that string. 3 - Barre chords on a properly set up guitar are easier to play. If you spend less than $1,000 on your guitar and you did not have it set up by a professional before, chances are your guitar is not properly set up. Setup refers to the string height and all kinds of tiny little adjustments that are made by a professional to make the guitar easy to play. Only very expensive instruments will arrive from the factory set up properly. The rest will usually need adjustments. The store selling the instrument is supposed to do these adjustments. But they are often done hastily--if at all. 4 - Barre chords on a guitar with lighter strings will be easier. The strings are thinner and easier to push. 5 - Barre chords on a guitar with detuned strings are also easier. So you can actually tune down the pitch of every string by an equal amount. Now there will be a little bit more slack on the string length between the nut and the saddle, and thus the string is easier to push. So knowing what we now know, we can come up a practice routine that takes that into account. I'm going to go to the Xth fret and play a D major, and then switch that shape down one string to create a G minor. And that's a fairly easy motion; same shape. I'm going practice back and forth, making sure all of my notes are nice and clean and I'm pressing firmly. Then I'm going to slide that whole thing down one fret and repeat. Db Major and Gbmajor. And I can continue all the way down the neck. The frets are getting larger, and the strings are feeling tighter. Once I've mastered that, I can go back to the Xth fret and try it again with a harder chord progression, like D7 to G7. Now my barre has to do some of the notes in the middle of the chord on strings 34 and 5, so it's getting harder. And then I work my way back down. So that's it. If barre chords are difficult for you, find a way to make them as easy as possible. And practice them slowly, until they become more and more easy.