Friday, March 9, 2007

Bar-chord ruminations

I'm refusing to use the spelling barre on general principle.

I have a general understanding of bar-chords and use them occasionally, but I've been working hard of late to make my transitions to bar-chords smoother and to get them to sound better. The ones I use the most seem to be the E-shape

|-1-|---|---|
|-1-|---|---|
|-1-|-2-|---|
|-1-|---|-4-|
|-1-|---|-3-|
|-1-|---|---|

and the A-minor shape.

|-1-|---|---|
|-1-|-2-|---|
|-1-|---|-4-|
|-1-|---|-3-|
|-1-|---|---|
|---|---|---|

The E-shape barred at the first fret is a full F, which I use all the time and the A-minor shape barred at the second fret is a B-minor, which I'm using a lot too.

I find that I'm really slow at moving into these positions and that my left hand is pretty sore. (The old soreness seems well under control though and I'm assuming the new soreness will fade as I get better at this.)


O.k. a switch of gears. I just noticed that a C-shape barred at the second fret should be a D and seems to be identical to a D if you just look at the first three strings.

|---|-1-|---|---|---|
|---|-1-|-2-|---|---|
|---|-1-|---|---|---|
|---|-1-|---|-3-|---|
|---|-1-|---|---|-4-|
|---|---|---|---|---|

Is this right??? If so, does this mean that what we think of as D is really a truncated barred C?

1 comment:

Patep said...

Hey again -

1 - yes on the D/C chord stuffs

2 - Barred chords were way hard for me to learn at first too. I remember hating them because of all the pain they caused! Ugh! I remember totally avoiding learning songs that had them.... heh. I think it took me having to use them for my own stuff before I really got over the fear & then the pain. It still surprises me that I seem to do them all the time now. They're probably not as clear as I'd like them to be, but they're functional. Good luck!