Playing E Major Barre Chords on the Guitar

Video Transcript

"So we just learned how to use a capo in the previous lesson but capos while they work, they serve a function especially for singers/songwriters who really are concentrating only at open chords they are limiting in a since because once their on you no longer have your open strings to play on. Another way of creating new chord shapes is by using your first finger on your left hand as a bar and creating bar shapes. The first shape we'll look at is the E type bar chord. You'll see what I mean. So watch! Here's what our bar will look like. Our first finger will be laid across the let's say for example the fifth fret. You want to give it enough pressure just that first finger. The closer you get to the fret the better, make sure your thumb is right behind that bar. So you really get an open feeling from it all. Now remember how our E major shape had been second fretted A string, second fretted the D, second fret of the G. Well watch this! If we use a different fingering for the E major here, use our third finger, our forth finger and our second finger instead and we move this shape all the way up and start on the seventh fret and then we apply the bar we have essentially moved an E major chord up to the fifth fret. Which now has a base note of A and has the same value as open A major. Everybody might be like hey why do I want to do this, this is more difficult then A major. Because watch! This same shape right here with your first finger barred, your third finger arched on the seventh fret, forth finger arched on the seventh, second finger arched on the sixth. If you move everything up one fret, keep that same shape, now you have a B flat major which before we couldn't play. If you move that up one more we have a B major. You notice how this works? Anywhere we move the low E string being our base note, and have this shape we have new chords."