And here we are for Part 4, I haven't even moved yet.
So in this one we're looking at A shaped barre chords.
And we're going to be looking at the Minor version,
The Dominant 7 version, and the Minor 7 version.
So, I think without further ado I'm going to get ready for a closeup.
See you in a sec.
So here we are now, this is the 3rd fret we're on.
And this is, this would be our C chord, our C barre chord.
Again, remembering all of the way through this,
If I tuck that finger away, you shouldn't do that,
I'm just doing that to make it clear for you what the chord is.
So, there's your, the good old C chord.
Now if we want to make it a C Minor chord,
if we think back to what we did with like our regular A chord,
There was our A Chord.
Am chord, looked like that, it's kind of like E chord isn't it?
But on the wrong strings.
So funnily enough, Cm shape is also.
If we had a G barre chord with the 6th string group,
Remember we did that in mastering barre chords 1.
Give me a G chord at the 3rd fret, if we move everything down a string,
we end up with Cm.
Now this might seem a little confusing, the fact that this was a Major shape here,
and a minor shape on these strings.
But I'm assuming you never got E chord and Am chord mixed up.
They're the same shape on different strings.
So all you have to do is remember what string the Root note is on.
With our E shape, like G Major chord, the Root note is here on the 6th string.
But now that we're working from the 5th string Root,
that same, or very similar shape, looks, or sounds,
rather, looks and sounds and is, a Minor chord.
This one, we've got 1st finger now doing the whole barre thing,
so it's barring right the way down,
cause it also needs to hold down the thinnest string as well,
We've got 3rd finger here, this is on the 5th fret.
It's on the 3rd fret, 5th fret, 5th fret again,
this is the 2nd finger here, pressing down on the 4th fret,
and 1st finger is playing also the thinnest string up there as well.
And of course our 1st finger is still muting that 6th string.
'Cause we don't want that, if say for example,
this Cm chord, if we forget to mute that 6th string,
I mean it just sounds really rank,
make sure you're getting the tip of that finger there muting that chord.
Muting that note rather not the chord.
Really, really important.
Ok so that's Cm.
So we had C Major,which is the one that everybody struggles with a little bit.
So if you're falling into that category, be cool with that.
You know, it is a hard chord.
And then, we've got the Cm.
Now to get to Cm7 is quite a nice one, all we do is lift off our little finger.
Very nice little chord.
So this is now,1st fingers playing the Root note here at the 5th string,
and muting the 6th string, I keep repeating that because it's really important.
3rd finger in the 5th fret,
then on the 3rd string, we're playing that note with our 1st finger,
2nd finger is playing the 4th fret, where it was before for the minor.
And we're using the barre to play the thinnest string there,
also on the 3rd fret. So it should be muted 6th string,
Now remember those things about keeping your finger a little bit rolled on to the side.
It's really helpful.
Remember it's not flat like this, it's slightly onto the side.
And also remember that this note here on the 3rd string is gonna be the hardest one to get.
So that you might need to make sure that you're pressing
down quite nice and hard in order to get that note to ring out.
Now the last one from my little series of looking at the 4 different types,
is this one here, again that finger's normally there,
I'm just tucking it down here to make it clear.
You can see now little finger tucked in underneath there.
So this is 1st finger muting the 6th string,
then it's playing the 3rd fret, 3rd finger on the 5th fret,
1st finger will again be playing the 3rd fret there on the 3rd string.
Little finger down on the 5th fret,
and the barre will be playing the 3rd fret on the thinnest string.
That's your classic kind of Blues chord.
So we have Major, remembering to keep that knuckle forward,
that's the most important part of that. Major, minor,
minor7, lift off little finger as well, and 7,
where little finger goes down. So these two are kind of split,
there's a string in the middle of them, going right the way through there.
That's the 7.
So they're your 4 types of A shape barre chord that you want to learn.
First Major, minor, minor7 and 7.
Mastering these 2 shapes, the E shape and the A shape,
with the 4 different chord types of each shape,
so it's a total of 8 chords that you've got there.
These form the foundation for all of your guitar playing,
that you're probably going to do for the rest of your life.
There are 3 other barre chord shapes, G shape,
which is really, really, really difficult, and hardly ever used.
C shape which is moderately difficult, but used a little bit, cause it's kinda useful.
And D shape which is used in certain parts of that shape.
But very rarely the whole thing.
They're quite difficult and quite advanced.
I wouldn't of thought that you'd probably want to learn those,
until you'd been playing guitar for 3 or 4 years.
And really, really confident with your guitar playing in general.
And think most of, excuse me, your stuff like your Jack Johnson,
and your Bob Dylan's, whatever it is, these kind of people,
if they're playing barre chords,
they're definitely going to be playing E shape and A shape.
Very rarely will any of those other shapes get used.
I'd say there's an awful lot of really fine,
fine guitar players that don't know those other three shapes.
They're really quite rare.
So, the next thing for you to make sure that you do,
is really, really nail these chords properly.
I highly recommend getting a book like the Beatles Complete,
is the one that I recommend the most strongly.
Just the Beatles, are an amazing band, amazing songs,
and really interesting chords and chord sequences.
So, by going through that book, just open the book to a random song,
and try and play it, make sure that you get all of those chords down.
You might come across the occasional chord you don't know,
remembering of course that you can do what's called boiling down chords.
Say if you have a G11 you could just play a G7,
if you have a Gm9 you can play a Gm7 or a Gm even if you boil it down enough.
So, remember just subtract those notes, for the time being you could alter,
if you see an altered chord, like a dom7#9 or a #5,
you can just ignore it, and just,
knock off any of those extensions that you don't know.
The most important bit is whether it's major and minor,
and whether it's sharp or flat.
Like Gb7 would sound really horrible if you played G.
So the # or b is to do with the pitch not the chord type.
But the chord type can be muddled down a little bit.
There's also for any of you Jack Johnson fans,
there's a couple of really, really good tunes for practicing these chords.
One I've already got up here which is Traffic In the Sky,
beautiful, beautiful song for learning these barre chord shapes.
Just cause it, you're picking out the notes one at a time.
So you really have to make sure that you've got your barre chord down,
like properly. And the other one I like as well for this is Gone.
Which is just using E shape and A shape barre chords,
with a sweet little picking pattern.
I think both of those songs actually I've put up here on You Tube already.
So you might want to go and check those out after you've practiced up your chord a bit.
Don't jump into it, spend a bit of time on the chord.
I recommend again just 5 minutes a day with your timer,
making sure that you do your proper concentrating 5 minute timer practice,
just strum pickout and strum, just like you should have done with your open chords,
to make sure every note is really clear, barre chords are difficult.
Everybody struggles with them, but once you nail 'em the world is your oyster,
as far as songs go because there's very, very few songs that you can't play,
with your barre chords so if you've got your open chords down,
and your barre chords down you can play a bit of rhythm guitar,
you're well on your way. OK I hope that was helpful.
Take care of yourselves, and I'll see you soon.
Au revoir.