Have you ever put your guitar down in disgust after attempting to reach the impossible chord? Well, you are not on your own … the vast majority of guitarists are slaves to learning chords via chord shapes.The real trick is to know how chords are spelt. Yes, each chord in our musical language has it’s own unique spelling in exactly the same way as every word in our spoken language has it’s own specific way of being written.

The real issue with learning guitar by “chord shapes” is that the guitarist is at the mercy of the generic chord book shapes, quite often the guitarist on the recording is using a totally different chord shape than the “one-size-fits-all” shape in the chord book.

Have you ever wondered how professional guitarists make everything look so easy? Obviously, many hours of dedicated practice helps … now, let’s dig a little deeper and see exactly ‘how’ they make it easier for themselves.

By knowing the precise spelling of each chord professional guitarists can design the easiest chord shape for (a) their particular musical presentation, (b) their fingers.

Get the idea? The reason your fingers go to a particular shape on the fingerboard is because of the notes contained in the chord. Therefore, it stands to reason that each chord could be played in many different ways, so long as the spelling of the chord remains the same.

Today, we’re looking at playing chords with one finger, you’ll have to admit you can’t get much easier than that!

When you place a single finger over two or more adjacent strings this is called a barre chord, often referred to as a ‘bar’ chord.

All our one finger chords will be played as barre chords. Let’s get started:

(1) Barre the 1st, 2nd & 3rd strings at the 12th fret this will produce the following chord: Em

You could also play Em chord by simply playing the 1st, 2nd & 3rd strings open! Now, that’s easy.

(2) Barre the 1st, 2nd & 3rd strings at the seventh fret this will produce the following chord: Bm

(3) Barre the 2nd, 3rd & 4th strings at the 12th fret this will produce the following chord: G

(4) Barre the 2nd, 3rd & 4th strings at the 7th fret this will produce the following chord: D

When we are playing chords on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th strings using a barre chord we actually cover the 1st string as well, however we don’t play this string.

By the way, it’s highly unlikely you will ever find any of these shapes in your standard guitar chord book.

Once you know how each chord is spelt you can also avoid playing any incorrect open stings with your strumming hand.

Remember, every note you play when you strum a chord must be correct, not just the notes you have your fingers on, often the guitarist has their fingers on the correct chord shape and spoils it all by playing an incorrect open string.

About the Author
Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at: www.guitarcoaching.com…

Let’s face it, there are so many chords to be learned, and it would seem like so little time to learn them! I’ll combat that mindset by saying that there is a really great way to get crackin’ on an awesome set of guitar chords.If you have already learned some basic open guitar chords like G major, C major, D major, E minor, A minor, then you are completely ready for the next step.

The next set of chords to learn are called barre chords, because you will literally be barring a single fret across all six strings. This is done with the index finger, and you’ll need to put a lot of focus into the index finger, in order to ensure that you have the frets firmly pressed down.

The great thing about barre chords is that you can create major, minor, major 7th, and minor 7th chords from this formation. Barre chords are also exceptional in the sense that the fingering doesn’t change. There is a certainly formula for the major, minor, 7th, and minor 7th chords and it doesn’t change. If you want to create a new chord out of a new key, then you simply slide the formation up or down on your fretboard.

1 All the barre chords

We’ll start with a G major barre chord, and build all of our other barre chords as we build up to the major barre chord.

Take your index finger and lay it across the 3rd fret on all six strings. You’ll have to press down a little hard at first, and you should go ahead and strum all the strings to make sure that all the third frets ring loud and clear.

Now take your ring finger and place it on the 5th fret of the A string. If you strum this right now, you will have a G minor 7th barre chord! its that simple and you can slide this chord into different areas of the fretboard to create a new minor 7th barre chord. If you slide it up two frets you will have the A minor 7th barre chord, but we still need to finish the major barre chord!

By now you should have your index finger barring all the third frets across all six strings, and you should also have your ring finger placed on the fifth fret of the A string.

Once you have this down, place your pinkie finger on the 5th fret of the D string.

If you strum this right now, you will have yourself a G minor barre chord. Again, if you maintain this exact fingering you can slide this chord around to produce other minor barre chord sounds.

How do we make it major? you simply add one more finger. You’re going to take your middle finger and place it on the 4th fret of the G string. If you strum this now, you’ll have a G major barre chord.

The last chord formation left is the major 7th barre chord formation. This is very simply, because all you have to do is start with the major barre chord formation. Let’s take a look at that formation one more time, just to make sure we’ve got it down.

Your index finger should be “barring” all the 3rd frets across all six strings. You should have your ring finger on the 5th fret of the A string, your pinkie finger on the 5th fret of the D string, and your middle finger on the 4th fret of the G string. Now, take your pinkie finger out of the equation. Go ahead and lift it off of the 3rd fret on the D string.

If you strum this new formation now, you’ll have the G major 7th barre chord. Just like all the other barre chord formations, you can slide it around to create barre chords in other keys.

2. Tips for practicing

The best way to practice barre chords in order to get them down, is to practice the major, minor, major 7th, and minor 7th barre chords, in that specific order.

Start with the major barre chord formation on the 1st fret (F), move to the 2nd fret (F#), then to the 3rd fret (G), and so on.

Take this chord formation up the neck, as high as you can go. When you have completed a round of major barre chords, do the same with the minor barre chords, starting on the 1st fret. Once you have completed a round of those, work on the minor 7th barre chords and then the major 7th barre chords.

3. Strumming

When you’re practicing your barre chords, you might as well incorporate a little strumming practice as well.

The best way to do this is to keep it simple. Strum down through the strings once, and then strum up through the strings, and try to do this at a slow and even tempo. This would be called “alternate strumming”, because much like alternate picking, you are alternating your strumming.

Keep repeating this, because it will pay off in the long run. After you have practiced alternate strumming for a while, your picking hand will get very comfortable with alternate strumming. Eventually you’ll be able to alternate strum fast or slow, and at some point you’ll reach a level where you can include variations of the alternate strumming movement. A good example of this would be Latin music. Latin guitar work uses a lot of minor and major 7th chords, and the barre chord versions of these chord structures work beautifully.

Latin music also has amazing rhythms, and by practicing alternate strumming, you’ll really be able to take advantage of this.

Best of luck, and here’s to many years of enjoyable playing!

 About the Author
Tennyson Williams has been studying guitar for eight years, sixteen hours a day, and has studied many styles of music. He has recently written a guitar instructional book called The Essential Guide To Guitar Virtuosity that can be found at www.guitarspeedsecret.com/

To Learn and Master the guitar will require some knowledge of the basics before you actually begin playing notes and chords. This is important because you’re progress will be a lot slower without covering the basics to playing the guitar.

Therefore the purpose of this article will be to run through some of the guitar playing basics.First of all you need to decide whether you want to learn and master the electric or acoustic guitar. The electric guitar tends to be more expensive. This is due to the expense of buying an amplifier and the construction of the guitar tends to be more expensive. However, the electric guitar requires less strength in the finger tips to play.

You can also get a good variety of sound with the sound effects and you can sustain the notes for much longer. The acoustic guitar is cheaper is generally used for learning to play the guitar.

One of the drawbacks of using a a steel string acoustic guitar is the sensitivity of the fingers. However you soon build up a layer of hard skin to protect the finders. The basics to learning the guitar involves correct body and hand positions and posture to protect your lower back and shoulders from over straining. It is advisable to use a support strap and to be seated when first starting.

This will enable you to balance the guitar nicely on the leg with your right arm supported by the superior rim of the guitar enabling your fingers to be correctly position over the strings. Your left hand should be able to hold the neck in a relaxed position with you thumb behind the fret board. For protecting the finger tips and for accurate string picking you can use a spectrum. The spectrum is a plastic teardrop shaped piece of plastic which is held between your right hand thumb and index finger.

You should have your fingers as close to the tip as possible for better control over the strings. For tuning your guitar I use a electronic tuner. I started using pitch pipes which is a cheaper option but you have to train your ear to the different pitches. It is so much easier using an electronic tuner.

The tuning unit I use has a built in microphone and all that was required was to reduce or increase the tension of the strings to get the needle on the electronic display dead centre. A well tuned guitar makes all the difference to your sound quality and is one of the basic skills needed to learn and master guitar.

About the Author
James Joyce has written a number of books and has a several websites on the subject of learning the guitar. If you would you like to know more about learning the guitar check out http://www.stxx2.jamorama.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=LG for more information about the above topic!