Lesson 5 Le Barre

Lesson 5

Le Barre

Jump to lesson Contents Lesson 1 · Hello Guitar! Lesson 2 · Chord Placement Lesson 3 · Chord Switching Lesson 4 · Let’s Play Lesson 5 · Le Barre Lesson 6 · Re: Le Barre Lesson 7 · Strumming Lesson 8 · Re: Strumming Lesson 9 · Plucking Lesson 10 · Re-Plucking Lesson 11 · Guitar Theory

In this lesson, we will learn to hold a barre chord.

Section 1 of 4

5.1 Barre Chords

Barre chords are chords that involve using your 1^st finger to press all the strings across a single fret.

An example is the F chord.

Barre chords are the nemesis of beginning guitarists.

It is very common to have difficulty in using a finger to hold down the entire fret across all strings.

But by now, I hope you are able to appreciate that to play a chord cleanly, it is more of pressing the strings in the correct manner than pressing it down with a lot of strength.

It is the same to barre a fret.

To build up the ability to barre a fret in the correct manner, it is advisable to start with the less common Fm chord.

In holding the Fm chord, you can rest your 2^nd finger on top of the 1^st which helps to make the barring firmer.

Once again, make sure your fingers are as naturally rounded as possible.

Do not let your fingers collapse or joints to lock.

Exercise 5A

Chord in this exercise

1. Hold down the Fm chord. The tempo is set to 60 bpm in 4/4; press Play when you are ready to start the practice. The audio starts with a 1-bar count-in, and the click is higher on beat 1.
2. Strum at every beat for 4 bars (i.e. 16 times). Recall each / represents a downward strum. The chart below follows along as the audio plays. Tap any bar to start from there.

Move on to Exercise 5B when you are able to hold the Fm chord for a clean sound.

Exercise 5B

Chord in this exercise

1. Hold down the F chord. The tempo is set to 60 bpm in 4/4; press Play when you are ready to start the practice. The audio starts with a 1-bar count-in, and the click is higher on beat 1.
2. Strum at every beat for 4 bars (i.e. 16 times). Recall each / represents a downward strum. The chart below follows along as the audio plays. Tap any bar to start from there.

Exercise 5C

Chords in this song

Now we will practice switching to and from the F chord using the song Leaving on a Jet Plane in C major key.

1. The tempo is set to 80 bpm; press Play when you are ready to start the practice. The audio starts with a 1-bar count-in, and the click is higher on beat 1.
2. Strum at every first and third beat. Recall each / represents a downward strum. The chart below follows along as the audio plays. Tap any bar to start from there, or use the arrows to browse.
3. Increase the tempo to 100 & then 120 when you get more comfortable at changing between the chords. Use the tempo slider to change the speed.

Leaving on a Jet Plane (C Key)

Next lessonLesson 6 · Re: Le Barre

Lesson 4 Let's Play! << | >> Lesson 6 Re: Le Barre