When you play a regular open E chord, the low note E is the open string,
which is the 6th string.
So that's kind of the, what we call the 'root' note of the chord.
The concept of this root note is that if we move a chord and it doesn't use any
open strings the chord has a root note and that becomes the name of the chord.
So this chord here, where we moved E up one fret,
and put the barre down to make F, the reason that that chord is called F,
is cause the root note, the note underneath your first finger is the note F.
Now if we think about where the other notes are on the 6th string,
say the 3rd fret of the 6th string is the note G,
so if we put down our barre chord shape, the same one that we're just talking about now,
but now the 3rd fret, the note underneath the 1st finger,
3rd fret, 6th string, is the note G, so it becomes a G chord.
And then if we move it up another two frets it becomes the note A.
So this becomes A barre chord, and you can hear these things if you test them,
it's quite a nice thing to listen to, is the G at the 3rd fret,
barre chord and G open chord. Very, very similar chords.
An A chord with open A. That's A at the 5th fret.
They sound slightly different of course, it's a different voicing,
or a different grip of the chord, but it's essentially the same chord.
So it's a good idea that you hear that.
Now, there's also a few very common variations.
Of this E shape. We've just been talking about E Major,
and that's definitely the first one that you should try and get down,
but after that you can also learn minor, dominant 7th,
and minor 7. Dominant 7th is obviously sometimes just called 7.
So, we're gonna go back to another closeup now,
if I can get my little remote going, and then we'll check
out what these other variations are on the E barre chord shape.
OK, here we are now, this is up at the 5th fret,
I'm holding this chord down, this would be an A barre chord,
A Major, and just very often referred to as just A barre chord.
Now, the first variation that you want to learn of this,
or the first kind of way of changing this into another chord,
is by lifting of the 2nd finger, will get us an Am chord.
Just the same as when you had an E open chord and you lifted off your 1st finger,
you got an Em chord, with this, we started with A,
if we lift off the 2nd finger we get Am barre chord.
Obviously my helps in here (?), there's the Major,
lift off that 2nd finger, and you've got the minor.
Now you can see that my 2nd finger's kind of
lending a little bit of assistance there to the 1st finger.
It's completely cool for that one to sit on top there a bit.
It does make it a lot easier to hold the barre down.
I don't recommend that you only learn that way,
but particularly when you start, you might want a little bit of assistance.
Or if the action's high on your guitar, and you need to press the strings down pretty hard,
that can be a bit of an advantage. So then we've got Major,
lift off the 2nd finger, minor. Now, if we go back to Major for a second,
and we lift off little finger, we end up with a 7.
Just again, if you think back to E chord, if you have a regular E chord,
and you lifted off your 3rd finger, you'd end up with E7.
And so the same shape applies up here, so this is A,
lift off little finger, and you've got A7, now you can combine those two things,
which was lifting off 2nd finger to get minor,
lifting off little finger to get 7, and you get m7.
Am7, so Major, lift off 2nd finger rather, is minor,
lift off little finger is A7. Lift off 2nd finger and little finger,
and you get Am7. So there (?) the four common E shape barre chord forms.
Major, minor, 7 and m7.
So you definitely want to check those things out.
Remember that they all move, so that was A, 7,
with the little finger off, if I move it up 1 it's Bb7,
if I move it up again it's B7. You got it.
They all move around as much as you like.
This is a pretty weird one, I'm not trying to show off my T-shirt,
and I'm not trying to look like I'm chopping my own head off.
I just want to talk a little bit about this part of your arm,
and how it sits for your barre chord.
So right now I'm holding an A barre chord,
You can see here that this join here from my forearm into my hand,
is quite straight along here.
A lot of people when they start their barre chords,
they try and do this, so in order to make their 1st finger straight here,
their trying to straighten their whole hand,
and they put a really big kink in their hand there,
and that's kinda bending in the wrong place.
If you keep your 1st finger straight of course,
you think about it, instead of, to make your 1st finger straight,
you can either do that, bring your whole hand up,
or you could just bend your fingers up, and keep this part of your hand straight.
Which is a lot better, you've got all of
the muscles that control your fingers are in your forearm,
they're up here, you can see them wiggling around when you move your fingers.
And they're controlled by tendons which run down the back of your fingers,
down into your forearm there, and if your wrist is locked like that,
it's not very good for the tendons, they tend to rub,
and it can kinda lead to RSI and I think it's called Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
I'm not a doctor, but this is just the, no, I'm not a doctor,
but I'll have a look at it for you.
So, this is what I've heard about this Carpal Tunnel,
is caused often by the wrist being too locked up like this.
So, try and make sure when you're playing your barre,
if you find that your wrist is forward like that,
try and concentrate on flattening that part of your wrist out,
and making sure that you're bending, it's not perfectly flat,
but it's pretty close to flat.
That's my barre chord shape there.
(?) it's pretty straight, yeah?
So, um, yeah, so just be aware of that.
Also be aware of this.
A lot of people do this when they try and play barre chords.
They stick their elbow right out like this, it looks kinda funny.
I call it chicken wings.
So, just be aware of that.
If you find that your elbow's looking a bit uncomfortable,
or you've got a lot of tension in your shoulder,
try and imagine that your fingers are stapled or nailed onto the guitar neck,
and then just relax your forearm.
'Cause it really should be, even though look I'm playing the chord,
this is really completely loose see, it's not even slightly tense.
So, you want to think about that.
Well I hope you enjoyed that, my first solo installment,
and that it made sense, and that it's helping you with your E shape barre chords.
I'm planning on doing all of the other barre chords as well,
the A shape and C shape, and those kind of interesting CAGED ones as well.
But I thought I'd start off with this and see how much,
how long it takes me to edit it.
I'm a still a bit slow on the i-movie, but practice makes perfect, hey.
You all know about that, as I do as well.
So, hope you have fun, and I'll, I always kind of get stuttery at the end.
It's really funny. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon. Bye Bye.
There's the t-shirt close up, for any of you that missed it.
(Tassie devil singing.)