« | Home | »

Beginners Guitar Lesson: Chords With Only One Finger

By Mike Hayes | January 2, 2009

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.
 

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System

http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson | No Comments »

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.