Description
A barre chord is one in which the first finger of your left hand holds down
adjacent strings across the fretboard. This lets you build chords on any fret
by providing a base from which the 2nd, 3rd or 4th fingers can be use to form the rest of the chord shapes.
Learning how to barre strings is a difficult technique to learn, but it will allow you to play any chord you like. You'll probably find as you start out doing these that the strings will dig into your finger joints and hurt quite a bit. Unfortunately, this is a "right of passage" that all guitar players have to go through. Just be assured that eventually, with practice, this discomfort will go away. The one thing to make sure of is that you apply even pressure across the strings and try to keep your first finger as straight as possible, right behind the fret itself.
There are two main chord shapes that you can use to do simple chord shapes: E shape barre chords and A shape barre chords.
Lesson Info
