Guitar Lesson - Intro To Barre Chords
Posted on March 10, 2008 - Filed Under Arts and Entertainment
There are two ways you can go about learning chords on guitar. One way is to memorise the chord shapes (where you fret your fingers) from a chord chart. The other way, and the advised way, is to get a real understanding about how these chords are built, and where they essentially “come from”.
Now, you may say “what’s the point? As long as I memorise the chord shape, I’ll know where to put my fingers” - true, and to some extent this is not a wasteful way to learn. However, it’s one of those things that once you do understand how these chords are made up, only then do you fully appreciate having that knowledge. You find it overlaps into other areas of guitar theory, not just chords. So, this article will hopefully get you thinking about the scaffolding that allows us to build what we call “barre chords” and “movable chord shapes”.
Firstly, the word “shape”. We get this from the formation of our fingers on the fretboard when we play a chord. Those 5 main open chords you learn as a beginner are the basis of the 5 barre chord shapes, because the barre chords use these shapes up and down the fretboard.
The E-shape barre - based on the open E chord shape, therefore the lowest root note lies on the low E string.
The A-shape barre - based on the open A chord shape, therefore the lowest root note lies on the A string.
The C-shape barre - based on the (yep, you guessed it!) the open C chord shape, which also has its lowest root note on the A string.
And that leaves the G and D shape chords based around their open chord counter-parts.
So using our index finger as the “barre”, it effectively becomes a nut or capo that allows us to form that familiar open chord shape at fret 1 onwards.
The E-shape barre chord at fret 1 becomes “F”. At fret 5 it becomes “A” - this is because the root note lies on “A”. So once you learn the notes across the fretboard, you’ll know where the root notes lie (on the low E, A and D strings) for each of the 5 main chord shapes!
It’s important to point out that calling them “barre chords” is not always accurate. Sometimes the chord does not include an index finger barre, but is still based on one of the 5 chord shapes. I simply call these “movable chords” or “movable chord shapes”, because you can shift it up and down the guitar neck depending on what key you’re in.
You eventually learn to see these shapes as “descending” or “ascending” shapes. For example, the G-shape descends down the fretboard, whereas the E-shape ascends, yet they can both use exactly the same low E string root note.
By mastering the 5 main movable/barre chord shapes, you effectively now have 5 voicings for any given chord!
For example: A major can be played using the E-shape barre at the 5th fret, but you can get a higher voiced A major by using the D-shape barre at the 7th fret. Furthermore, you can play a G-shape A major chord for yet another voicing.
What makes the voicings different? Well, this is where knowledge of the major scale comes in. The major scale tells us where particular notes lie that make up the chord. Guess what? The major scale can be identified as shapes as well! These shapes coincide with the chord shapes we’ve just been talking about.
For example, the C-shape barre descends down the fretboard from it’s root note, but we can see how the notes of this chord shape are formed from an associated descending major scale shape. The chord shape literally gets superimposed onto the notes from its related major scale shape.
Once you learn the major scale shapes, you see how the formation of the notes that make up each of the chord shapes defines their unique voicing. For example (this may not make much sense right now), the C-shape barre has a lower voiced “3rd” than the A-shape barre, and this is part of what gives it a unique voicing.
It truly is amazing how it all seems to pull together naturally. The relationship between scale shapes and chord shapes is often overlooked, and as a result guitarists end up learning chords parrot fashion. This is not a problem at all… until you come to writing your own music - then, knowing how different voicings work, and more importantly how to finger those voicings, your music is not restricted by what you see on a chord chart!
Admittingly, it’s hard to explain and hard to take in, but I hope I’ve at least opened up some curiosity in your mind about how these chords work behind the chord chart scenes.
Experiment, explore and enjoy this wonderful instrument!
Mike Beatham runs a free, easy to follow guitar lessons site with backing tracks and exercises to help you develop your own unique style of playing. To learn more about guitar barre chords, visit http://www.audio-guitar-lessons.com/guitar-barre-chords.html
Tags: barre chords, guitar
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