Hey guitar enthusiasts! In this tutorial, we're tackling bar chords. We'll examine the best approach to forming a clean-sounding bar chord, and the steps for constructing a ton of cool chords (covering all major, minor, 7, minor 7 and major 7 chords).
So to begin, what is a bar chord?
A bar chord, in essence, is a chord where one more fingers cover more than one string at a time. In our case, our index finger will be our "bar", covering between 5 and 6 strings at a time.
A great way to warm up to bar chords is by using the following technique (as demonstrated above): Cover both the E and B strings (on any fret) with the index finger, pick them individually, make sure it's clean, mission accomplished. Then we step it up to covering three strings at a time (E, B and G), bar it off, pick them individually... all clean? Perfect. Up to four strings at a time, then five, and ultimately six. This will ensure that we develop our technique gradually and make any minor adjustments with each step forward.
Alright, so know that we got that bar finger burnin', let's make some real chords!