E Shape Barre Chord Grips 7 & Min7 (Guitar Lesson IM-121) How to play IF Stage 2

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-121.
Stage 2, Lesson 1.

In this guitar lesson we are checking out the 7 and minor 7 chords in the E Shape barre grip. Real work out for your barre these ones!

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-121-EShapeDom7Min7BarreChords.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hi, how are you doing?
Justin here

Welcome to IM-121
which is the start of Foundation 2.

In this lesson we're going to be checking out
the E shaped bar chords,

the Dominant 7th, and the minor 7th.

Now I'm hoping
that you've done lots of practice

on your E-shaped major
and minor bar chords,

because these ones are
just a little bit trickier

because they've got a few extra notes
under the bar.

There are things that you need to remember too,

so make sure that all of this stuff
goes into your memory bank.

Don't have to rely on a book
or a piece of paper or whatever,

because when you're playing chords for real
you can't be having a book around,

so you've got to have the chord shapes in here.

Let's get to a close up and check out
this Dominant 7th

and the minor 7th bar chord shapes.

Here we are,
starting with a G Major bar chord.

The same rules apply,
1st finger is still slightly on its side,

the rest of the fingers are all on their tips,

got a nice kind of round shape going on.
Now, to get our Dominant 7th chord,

which is usually just said as a '7'.

What I'm about to show you is
a G Dominant 7th chord,

but usually it will just be written
and said as G7.

All we have to do is lift our little finger off,

so it should be kind of easier, right?
Because we've got less fingers on.

Well yeah and no.

The thing that happens now
is that we're using the bar here for this 4th string,

so for the regular major chord,

we've just got the thickest string,
and the thinnest two strings played by the bar,

so it can be round a bit,
you know,

that's not really touching these middle strings,
but now, once the little finger has come off,

you have to be really thinking
of the pressure there

in the the middle part of that 1st finger.

Now, what some of you may find is
that the note sounds a little bit dead

and there's a few culprits.

The most common one is
the 3rd finger's laying a little bit too flat

and touching that 4th string,

so you'll find just by kind of pressing
this part of your hand up a little bit,

it'll make the finger a little rounder.

. . .

and you'll get that note back again.

Now, other times, people haven't got
their bar strong enough yet,

and that's why we're looking at
these chords now.

It's because they really work on getting
your bar strengths really good,

and you'll have to press that part.

That middle part of your 1st finger
really has to press down hard

in order to get that note.

Now, as usual, you'll be doing strum,
pick the notes out one at a time, and strum.

But you want to pay extra special attention to this note.

For the G7 it's the note F.

. . .

The 4th string,
that's the one that you really want to pay attention to.

Now the other chord we're looking at
in this lesson is a minor 7th.

. . .

and this one, as you can see,
there's a lot of barre work going on,

so we've got,
the barre is covering all 6 strings,

the 3rd finger is in its usual place,
2 frets above the barre on the 5th string.

. . .

But all of the notes are played by the barre,

so this one really requires
good barre stamina and good strength.

I mentioned it last time,
but I'll mention it again

you've got to press in the middle of the barre,

that's where you've got to feel
the pressure going on for this chord.

It's no good having a slightly round one now.

You've really got to be thinking
about that pressure going right in.

Now, I do tend to hear if I'm using this one

the 2nd finger can kind of sneak in here
for a bit of support there.

Because that's a pretty tough chord,

especially when I hold it for a long time
on an acoustic guitar,

it gets pretty tough even for me to do it,
you know so, I do it fine,

but if I had to do it for a long time,
I'd probably get 2nd finger

just laying there on top of the 1st finger
to give it a little bit of support.

As usual you'll be picking the strings
one at a time.

The only kind of common things
that you get here

is the barre not working properly,

you might have the 3rd finger laying down
a little bit too flat

and muting the 4th string,
not as likely

because you generally have to push
your hand around a little bit

to get that proper pressure
down with the barre.

It's a bit of a fiddle, you know,
it's a tough chord.

That's not one you're probably going to get right away,
you know,

unless you've got really big strong hands.

I really struggled with this,
when I learnt it, you know .

It's just developing that kind of strength there

with the muscle in between your thumb
and your' first finger there.

That's the one that gets
a bit of a workout for this.

You should be feeling that.

So now just to kind of recap,
you should know your major

. . .

minor,

. . .

go back to major again,
lift off little finger,

. . .

you've got the 7th

back to major again, lift off your little finger
and your 2nd finger

. . .

and you get the minor 7.

So, in case you hadn't noticed,
lifting off the little finger is the one that makes it 7.

So there's major, there's 7,

there's minor, there's minor 7.

So, that's a good little trick to help you remember
the names of the different shapes,

and now all you've got to do is practice them.

Well I hope that you enjoy the workout
that practicing those chords is going to give you.

Don't be too disappointed
if you find that minor 7 chord pretty hard.

It's a tricky little number that one.

Getting that barre strong enough,
holding down all of those notes,

it's a tough call
and it just takes practice.

It's all about developing that muscle
between your first finger and your thumb.

Technique of course has a role as well,

making sure that your barre is rolled onto the side
and that kind of thing.

That's still important, but, as well,
it's kind of just a strength thing.

It's just going to take a little bit of practice.

So have fun with that,

make sure you remember
to put them into your memory.

Don't leave them out in the cold
in the book, you know,

make sure you get them in there.

Practice them,
look at the relationship between them

so you can see what it is that changes
between the major and the minor.

Listen to them as well, you know.
Not a bad idea to have a listen to them

and kind of get used to
what the different chords sound like.

We'll be doing a bit more of that
later on, anyway.

Have fun, and I shall see you
for more lessons very very soon. Bye Bye.