Tom,
I have had many students who never mastered bar chords and a few who never got very far with them. Most of them still learned to play lots of songs and had a lot of fun with the guitar.
I have told students that for most people, bar chords take 6-12 months to learn, even more to master. Of course, there are exceptions, on both sides. the real keys are patience and perseverance.
Take a look at the Beginning Lesson #4 (I think). The song Dark Hollow is a great example of a fun song with no bars- so is #5, Brown eyed Girl for that matter.
Best Wishes,
Neil
need to cancel my membership
Chasplaya wrote:
Good question, with their method of playing they don't need a cutaway to reach the higher notes and a non-cutaway would give a better/fuller sound. I'm thinking its because they want acoustic electric guitars so they
can plug in and most A/E guitars are cutaways.
6string wrote:Why do the guitarists have cutaway guitars?Hope you find a solution, maybe a wider necked electric and or
higher frets? slide guitar?
Here's a few videos that may be of inspiration
the 1st is a ukulele player with big fingers,
2nd and 3rd have no fingers, they play with their toes.
Good question, with their method of playing they don't need a cutaway to reach the higher notes and a non-cutaway would give a better/fuller sound. I'm thinking its because they want acoustic electric guitars so they
can plug in and most A/E guitars are cutaways.
Don't give up playing on the sake of not being able to use barre chords. I am 51 and have been playing on and off since I was 15 years old. When I started using this site, I could only play a few decent barres. In fact I have a post somewhere here talking about my frustration as well. Then one day I was watching Neil and I notice how far his index finger was sticking above the fretboard. First I thought that Neil had extra long fingers or something. Then I looked at how I was forming my chord, which was the top of my index finger was almost even with the top of the fretboard. I moved my finger up to match what he was doing and then "shazam" my chords started coming through much clearer. No muffled strings. So after all this time and frustration it was just a simple fingering change that corrected the problem.
We are all here for you, so use the power of the Forum. When your frustrated drop us a note and maybe we can all learn something from it.
Hang in there!!
We are all here for you, so use the power of the Forum. When your frustrated drop us a note and maybe we can all learn something from it.
Hang in there!!
-
caymandiver55
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- Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:39 am
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I love the Uke song and I never can remember the name of it. It so reminds me of the trip my wife and I took to Maui some years ago. This song was everywhere you went. Learning to play those bar chords is like working out, I promise. It hurts like hell but one day you don't give it a thought when you are playing a great song. Practice them every day, but don't kill yourself in each session. You will see improvement in a little time. Good luck.
JJ
JJ
Tom, if your problem is pressing down the strings so they contact the fret cleanly is one thing, if you are having problems getting your 2nd, 3rd 4th fingers placed properly is another problem. If it is the first, pressing down enough to get contact I've seen a couple guitars that are "scalloped" at the 1st 2nd & 3rd frets. That is a depression is made in the fretboard leaving about 1/8" of untouched fretboard in front of the fret. They were taken down about 1/16" about 3/8" wide, making it easier to press the strings onto the fret. I WOULD NOT TRY THIS ON A GOOD GUITAR, but as a last effort you might try it on a inexpensive electric guitar which is much easier to barre to start with. Good luck, Gary
goldleaf wrote:
Gary- just to keep our forum advice consistant, Neil posted a few weeks back that scalloping is a terrible idea and there really is no logical reason to do it. I totally agree because if you need the added relief that scalloping could provide you are already pressing too hard. If you press that hard you will literally press the guitar out of tune!
Hitting clean notes is almost totally a function of hand position. Get that hand down low and cupped and those clunker notes will get much cleaner. Neil talked about hand position today at the TG Live!. When it gets posted for re-play I highly recommend Tom and others watch it!
There are no shortcuts to learning the guitar. Only good technique and practice, practice, practice!!
Cheers!:cheer:
Tom, if your problem is pressing down the strings so they contact the fret cleanly is one thing, if you are having problems getting your 2nd, 3rd 4th fingers placed properly is another problem. If it is the first, pressing down enough to get contact I've seen a couple guitars that are "scalloped" at the 1st 2nd & 3rd frets. That is a depression is made in the fretboard leaving about 1/8" of untouched fretboard in front of the fret. They were taken down about 1/16" about 3/8" wide, making it easier to press the strings onto the fret. I WOULD NOT TRY THIS ON A GOOD GUITAR, but as a last effort you might try it on a inexpensive electric guitar which is much easier to barre to start with. Good luck, Gary
Gary- just to keep our forum advice consistant, Neil posted a few weeks back that scalloping is a terrible idea and there really is no logical reason to do it. I totally agree because if you need the added relief that scalloping could provide you are already pressing too hard. If you press that hard you will literally press the guitar out of tune!
Hitting clean notes is almost totally a function of hand position. Get that hand down low and cupped and those clunker notes will get much cleaner. Neil talked about hand position today at the TG Live!. When it gets posted for re-play I highly recommend Tom and others watch it!
There are no shortcuts to learning the guitar. Only good technique and practice, practice, practice!!
Cheers!:cheer:
Bar chords...a couple of things to consider. Scaloping most likely is not the way to go. Some professionals use guitars that have that feature but I am not sure why or what they are going for with it.
First lets consider this. It is the F bar chord you have most difficulty wiht. How does the A at the 5th or the B at the 7th go. They can be easier to hit.
Ok assuming you might have an issue with the nut being too high check it like this. Press a note at the 3rd string and check the clearance at the first fret. It should be clear but not by much. If yours is too high it might require too much force to bring the strings down for a clean bar. Here is a link about this:
http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musicia ... ction.html
Next lets consider the strings your using. If this is a steel string instrument do you know what tension string you put on last. If you have not replaced the strings. You can look up make/model on the internet and come up with what it should have come with. You can use that as a guide as to what might be lighter. When you go to lighter strings you might have to loosen the truss rod to get it to give reliable non buzzing sound. I had to do that on mine. Took a couple passes of loosening to get it reliably clean sounding but I did.
Next thing to consider is the action at the 12th fret. If you have a ruler with small scale markings you can use that. I picked up a metal one at harbor freight for a dollar. Only 6 inches long but that is plenty for poking around the guitar and checking things out.
Here is a article on checking 12th fret action which means lowering or possibly raising the saddle:
http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musicia ... ion01.html
If you find you might need adjustments at the nut or saddle you might want to take it to a tech and have them do it. I am doing mine myself, but know full well I can wind up with trash when I get done. But I am replacing the nut and saddle instead of just sanding them. The raason for this is it makes it possible to go back to the old nut and saddle and have what I had before I started. Cuts my risk to $20 the cost of teh tusq nut and saddle I bought.
One last thing to consider. I struggled with this issue for months when I first started playing guitar at 12. I had a steel string folk guitar of some type. I think it might have been a carlos brand. Well at some point the instructor suggested why don't I put nylon strings on it. He had nylon on his. I was like WHAT? So off I did it...I put ball end nylons on. In retrospect it had to sound like crap after that. No truss rod adjustment was made. Heck I didn't even know what that was and the instructor didn't mention it. But I hit those bar chords solid within days after that. And I had a lot of fun with it so it was worth it. Now I don't recommend you do that. But you might try a nylon string guitar that comes with those strings to begin with. They will have a wider neck and a flat neck. But I think I like that better than the radius neck currently. But you might have the opposite reaction to that. There are some hybrid nylon string guitars with the smaller neck and the radius necks. Fender makes one. The CDN-240 SCE, but alas I just don't like the sound of it compared to like a Coroba C5-CE.
So those are my suggesions. You might take a break for a while, I never try to play through frustation myeelf and come back and look at these suggestions and others and see where you want to go.
David
First lets consider this. It is the F bar chord you have most difficulty wiht. How does the A at the 5th or the B at the 7th go. They can be easier to hit.
Ok assuming you might have an issue with the nut being too high check it like this. Press a note at the 3rd string and check the clearance at the first fret. It should be clear but not by much. If yours is too high it might require too much force to bring the strings down for a clean bar. Here is a link about this:
http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musicia ... ction.html
Next lets consider the strings your using. If this is a steel string instrument do you know what tension string you put on last. If you have not replaced the strings. You can look up make/model on the internet and come up with what it should have come with. You can use that as a guide as to what might be lighter. When you go to lighter strings you might have to loosen the truss rod to get it to give reliable non buzzing sound. I had to do that on mine. Took a couple passes of loosening to get it reliably clean sounding but I did.
Next thing to consider is the action at the 12th fret. If you have a ruler with small scale markings you can use that. I picked up a metal one at harbor freight for a dollar. Only 6 inches long but that is plenty for poking around the guitar and checking things out.
Here is a article on checking 12th fret action which means lowering or possibly raising the saddle:
http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musicia ... ion01.html
If you find you might need adjustments at the nut or saddle you might want to take it to a tech and have them do it. I am doing mine myself, but know full well I can wind up with trash when I get done. But I am replacing the nut and saddle instead of just sanding them. The raason for this is it makes it possible to go back to the old nut and saddle and have what I had before I started. Cuts my risk to $20 the cost of teh tusq nut and saddle I bought.
One last thing to consider. I struggled with this issue for months when I first started playing guitar at 12. I had a steel string folk guitar of some type. I think it might have been a carlos brand. Well at some point the instructor suggested why don't I put nylon strings on it. He had nylon on his. I was like WHAT? So off I did it...I put ball end nylons on. In retrospect it had to sound like crap after that. No truss rod adjustment was made. Heck I didn't even know what that was and the instructor didn't mention it. But I hit those bar chords solid within days after that. And I had a lot of fun with it so it was worth it. Now I don't recommend you do that. But you might try a nylon string guitar that comes with those strings to begin with. They will have a wider neck and a flat neck. But I think I like that better than the radius neck currently. But you might have the opposite reaction to that. There are some hybrid nylon string guitars with the smaller neck and the radius necks. Fender makes one. The CDN-240 SCE, but alas I just don't like the sound of it compared to like a Coroba C5-CE.
So those are my suggesions. You might take a break for a while, I never try to play through frustation myeelf and come back and look at these suggestions and others and see where you want to go.
David
Bear, again, you are right, & my bad. Don't scallop your guitar Tom. There are better ideas, like trying nylon strings. I have played a scalloped guitar and it definitely was easier to barre but with my normal pressure it stretched the strings out of tune. My thought was if you were not pressing down with normal power scalloping might work but I was wrong. Just trying to think of anything to try to keep you from giving up Tom. Lots of good suggestions so far, mine wasn't one of them. Good luck. Gary