Moving barres technique ?

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

Interesting. Most people advise beginners to learn new movements slowly.

Not with a barre slide from seventh fret down to the first fret. Lumping a lot of different things into a narrow set of "rules" is
a mistake many beginners make.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Oh, "barres," not "bars." If the bars moved there would be a lot of people on the floor.

Bob

So true, bar hopping is quite hard enough.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Not with a barre slide from seventh fret down to the first fret.

It's an exercise, playing a barre shape at B, A, G, then F accurately.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by perttime

Two frets at a time? Same thing really, the fingers feeling where the frets are, except there's more distance and I'm more slow if I want to maintain accuracy. Things would get much harder if I couldn't see. Seeing the side dots and fret ends certainly improves my aim.

Exactly. The idea is to develop accuracy possibly by figuring out what we're aiming at.

As I work on it more this morning, I'm beginning to think it's the barre on the fret. If I aim there, the other fingers seem to adjust automatically, because they do know how far apart the frets are. But if I focus on the fingers, the barre seems to lose its way and get sloppy.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

I think you can learn it slow, but the move has to become fast to be accurate and natural.

As for the position playing, take something like the minor pentatonic scale, first position, the one everybody knows where the first of two notes on each string is at the same fret. Play that at the first fret, get comfortable, play with your eyes closed. Play the minor barre chord in position, then the scale again.

Try it at the 5th fret...the 10th...see how accuate you can be with your finger placement with eyes closed...that's position playing, if you will. Should help with the distance needed between the fingers.

Interesting. Thanks.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

It's an exercise, playing a barre shape at B, A, G, then F accurately.

It's a slide, not a series of hops - B-Bb-A-Ab-G-Gb-F. You are not going to hear all of those chords between F an B clearly or play them accurately. On an acoustic guitar you will be lucky to end up hearing the F chord reasonably cleanly and with some volume. I would be focused on thinking of the finger spacing on the final F chord and let the intervening chords take care of themselves. You need speed to have any vibration energy left for the F chord.

You can do a shorter barre slide of two or three frets and get more out of each chord. Up barre slides are a little more controllable regarding accuracy (I use those more often, for example on my tune "Guit Sense").

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

It's a slide, not a series of hops - B-Bb-A-Ab-G-Gb-F. You are not going to hear all of those chords between F an B clearly or play them accurately. On an acoustic guitar you will be lucky to end up hearing the F chord reasonably cleanly and with some volume. I would be focused on thinking of the finger spacing on the final F chord and let the intervening chords take care of themselves. You need speed to have any vibration energy left for the F chord.

You can do a shorter barre slide of two or three frets and get more out of each chord. Up barre slides are a little more controllable regarding accuracy (I use those more often, for example on my tune "Guit Sense".

I understand what you are saying. This is a great description of a real slide. You're absolutely right, of course. I was actually talking about stopping at each fret 7, 5, 3, 1 to play each chord accurately. I described it as a tone at a time, but I can see where the confusion came from because I used the word "slide" generally. Sorry about that. Thanks.

[beninma]

I'm pretty new to this.. been working on it a few months with my teacher.

- Can you already do this with power chords? Some of them (say with 3 strings) use the same shapes as the F chord, you just aren't holding the barre down. That gets you used to the speed + holding the non-barre fingers in the right place as you go up/down the neck and getting used to compensating for the changes in size of the frets. Then you're just adding the barre in.

- There are plenty songs that have sequences like this.. they make it fun to practice these.

The one I've worked on with the Barre the most is the intro to "Walk Don't Run" by the Ventures, it's starts up the neck and moves down with A-G-F as the barre chords then the open E then repeats. Going to be a while till I can do that one at full speed.

These are easier on electric for me as someone said.. the strings are pretty easy to barre on my acoustic but the neck shape and quality of the fret job on my electric are superior so it's easier to get cleaner chords.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by beninma

I'm pretty new to this.. been working on it a few months with my teacher.

- Can you already do this with power chords? Some of them (say with 3 strings) use the same shapes as the F chord, you just aren't holding the barre down. That gets you used to the speed + holding the non-barre fingers in the right place as you go up/down the neck and getting used to compensating for the changes in size of the frets. Then you're just adding the barre in.

- There are plenty songs that have sequences like this.. they make it fun to practice these.

The one I've worked on with the Barre the most is the intro to "Walk Don't Run" by the Ventures, it's starts up the neck and moves down with A-G-F as the barre chords then the open E then repeats. Going to be a while till I can do that one at full speed.

These are easier on electric for me as someone said.. the strings are pretty easy to barre on my acoustic but the neck shape and quality of the fret job on my electric are superior so it's easier to get cleaner chords.

I confess, I haven't done a lot with power chords because I think they sound very muddy on my mellow little mahogany 00, but that's a very good idea for practice with accuracy. Thanks a lot for the song suggestion. It's not easy to find good examples of techniques on my own. I tried it, yes, going once Am, G, F, E is fine. The hesitation is in coming back to the Am from the open E before going again. Great example for me to work on, thanks!

Good luck to you as you progress, too.

[beninma]

Yah that's a weird thing.. I'm kind of splitting my time acoustic vs electric. Power chords can sound fine on acoustic.. getting open 5-6 string chords to sound good on electric is harder for me.

Blues shuffle patterns are essentially power chords.. they sound great on electric & acoustic IMO. Play some of those and you see after a little bit why power chords are all over the place in rock music.

I had heard derogatory things about power chords before I started guitar.. not sure I get it anymore, they definitely have their place.

[perttime]

Speed: when learning something new, it is usually beneficial to start at a deliberate pace where you can observe that you are accurate and efficient. Once you get that, you can increase speed but don't push it so much that you lose accuracy.

Releasing tension vs. maintaining it: there's uses for both. If I want to strum or pick each chord, I will release finger pressure, move with the fingers touching the strings, and slap the pressure back on. Sometimes I want to slide from one position to another: strum at one position, move while maintaining pressure, and the chord ends up sounding at the position where I stop.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by beninma

Yah that's a weird thing.. I'm kind of splitting my time acoustic vs electric. Power chords can sound fine on acoustic.. getting open 5-6 string chords to sound good on electric is harder for me.

Blues shuffle patterns are essentially power chords.. they sound great on electric & acoustic IMO. Play some of those and you see after a little bit why power chords are all over the place in rock music.

I had heard derogatory things about power chords before I started guitar.. not sure I get it anymore, they definitely have their place.

Oh, they are useful. I'm pretty sure it's just this guitar, very warm, subtle sound, usually with very "non-bright" strings, too, silk and steel or flat tops, it doesn't appreciate strong strumming, either.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by perttime

Releasing tension vs. maintaining it: there's uses for both. If I want to strum or pick each chord, I will release finger pressure, move with the fingers touching the strings, and slap the pressure back on. Sometimes I want to slide from one position to another: strum at one position, move while maintaining pressure, and the chord ends up sounding at the position where I stop.

I love working on the subtleties. This is great. Thank you.

[beninma]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

Oh, they are useful. I'm pretty sure it's just this guitar, very warm, subtle sound, usually with very "non-bright" strings, too, silk and steel or flat tops, it doesn't appreciate strong strumming, either.

Interesting which of your two guitars are you talking about?

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by beninma

Interesting which of your two guitars are you talking about?

The Martin. The Taylor is back in the US while I travel for over a year.

It's a little sad, I know, that I only have 2 guitars so far. It's a luggage issue.