Barre Chords... hand and arm strength?

[TGNesh]

I've been reading through the thread Lynn, I do believe that Wiley gave some great advice there. The first and most important one should be to RELAX. This sounds simple, but for some reason, it's not.

Try this: When you bar a fret, no other fingers just yet, press the strings down half way through (so just a couple of millimeters), so dón't touch the fretboard just yet. When you do this, focus on relaxing your neck, shoulder, arm, hand, everything ('focussed attention' to 'total body awareness'). Keep doing this multiple times, while being as relaxed as you can. Then at one point, gently press the strings down to the fretboard, still making sure and focus on your body to be relaxed. You will find out that you actually need just a líttle bit of pressure to make all the notes sound clean. I was pretty amazed, when doing this the first time. It's worth it to stop playing every couple of minutes 'Posing' (especially when your hand gets tired) and notice what's happening in your body, in this case in particular the neck, shoulder, arm and hand. Is everything still relaxed?

One of Wiley's other points is that the index needs to be placed differently (higher, lower) depending on which strings you actually need to fret. At one point you'll know it instantly and automatically, but you need to experiment with that. For example, an Am-shape barre chord, your index only needs to fret the 5th and top string. An 'arched' or 'curved' bar. It's actually easy.

And then of course, the action of the guitar has to do with it as well. It's worth it to check it out, all your guitars for that matter.

Hope this helps for now. Keep us updated if you will.

Ness

[auntlynnie]

Thanks, Vanessa,
Excellent description - I'm going to give this a try. It makes a lot of sense.
I'll report back here after working on it a bit.
Lynn

[wiley]

[wiley]

[TGNesh]

I'm not sure what you're saying Wiley or what you think I'm saying.

A guitar player needs to be able to do both. Putting fingers down in the order that you need them (when fingerpicking for example), but also all at the same time, in particular when strumming.

In this thread we are talking about being able to fret a barre chord cleanly (without excessive tension), which has a lot to do with keeping everything as relaxed as possible, adjusting the index depending on which strings you need to actually fret (in the E-world, that's obviously the bottom and two top strings), and/or checking out the action.

The suggestion that I gave earlier has to do with playing relaxed and focus on doing so. And that is applicable to ánything you do on the guitar and it of course involves the other hand, arm, shoulder etc. as well


wiley wrote:

In no way do I mean this in a bad way, the few times I have spent with Ness have been more than helpful and flat out great. And I'm looking forward to doing more of that this year at IGC. Yet....

I honestly believe that if we practice 'laying down individually' each finger in the order of which they are being played is a huge help. Once this muscle memory is in place by countless hours of doing such, our bodies and mind take control and we do so without the need for thought. So, when we 'slap' down all of the needed strings at once, are we really doing that? Or, are we doing the 'one-at-a-time' practice in "SUPER SPEED"?

Honestly, I cannot say, I do know once I did began to do the practice, those pesky 'misses' and the sometimes 'over-shoots' on the 6th and 1st strings began to diminish.

[wiley]

[TGNesh]

Wiley, what i described wasn't in any way related to actually playing. It has to do with focussing on to relax when you actually fret a note, or a bar and what that feels like. It has to do with body awareness and finding out that you don't need and shouldn't use excessive tension when fretting anything for that matter. It doesn't involve actual playing.

As for actual playing, again, one should be able to do both. 'One finger at the time' and all fingers, depending on which chord youre playing of course, at the same time. The latter shouldn't be 'one at the time' in superspeed. It's all at the same time. So practice both, 'one at the time' drills and 'all at the same time' drills, depending on which one is giving you troubles.

[wrsomers]

Ness,

If I may add my two cents. I totally agree with your statements about excessive tension. I am so guilty of that because my first guitar had such bad action, I had to do it, and thereby developed a habit which I struggle with to this day. Both of my guitars are extremely easy to play but I still find myself pressing too hard. That's probably why I'm struggling with left shoulder pain right now.

So thanks for reminding us to play relaxed and thanks for being such a holistic teacher. Sometimes the little things mean the most.

Bill

[michelew]

Ness,

Your reminders about tension while playing and how to minimize it have come at a good Time for me too. I've been working on a fast fingerpicking song. I've definitely been tensing up, especially in my hands. I'm already prone to too much tension in my neck, shoulders and back generally because I work at a computer too much. Stretching, changing up my activities and finding ways to reduce and avoid tension are really important for my general health. So yeh... I've been consciously trying to minimize it in my playing too. And it's been helping me to pick up the speed. Brilliant!

Thanks teach! You're a gem!

M

[TGNesh]

Thanks Bill and Shel, I'm glad that it's useful and a good reminder. I find myself regularly 'posing' when playing, tension creeps in before you know it.

As a teacher i find it extremely important to make sure that my students work on keeping everything relaxed (nowaday I do that more and more), since, as you say Bill, it will effect the rest of one's playing life and will cause physical problems at one point.

'Pick up the speed', great!! :cheer:

Ness