Bar chords: every beginner guitarist’s nightmare. The fear comes from the chords feeling awkward to play and often bringing tension to your hands. But you can’t always get away with only playing open cowboy chords on guitar, you’ll eventually need bar chord shapes to play more and more songs you want on the guitar.
Ayla shares tips and exercises to make playing bar chords less difficult and painful. There’s a specific way to hold the guitar and placing your fingers on the fretboard comfortably while getting all of the strings to ring out clearly. She also explains a simple chord progression, used in a lot of popular songs, that serves as an exercise to master these two bar chord shapes:
And once you can play those, you’ve essentially mastered the minor and major bar chord shapes!
It’s important to practice bar chord shapes to know what sounds good and identify what is and isn’t working with your technique. And if you follow Ayla’s tips, and go at your own pace, bar chords will become a natural part of your guitar playing instead of an intimidating one.
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