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Part II: Setting Up to Play the Blues
You say bar, I say barre; Let’s call
the whole thing off
Barre is the Spanish word for bar, and guitarists
use the Spanish form for two reasons:
It distinguishes barre from the word bar,
which guitarists use for two other meanings
in guitar: as a synonym for measure and for
the arm that moves the floating bridge on
some electric guitar models.
Guitar music uses Spanish words for much
of the notation in the same way Italian is
used for other musical terms (forte for loud,
piano for soft, and so on).
Barre chords may be physically difficult to master for the beginner, but conceptually
they’re very easy to understand. A barre chord is like a “human
capo,” in that it allows you to play familiar basic chords all over the neck of
your guitar to change keys and transpose music by using only a few forms.
Unlike a capo (a mechanical device that wraps around the neck at a particular
fret), a barre chord can move quickly and in time with the music.
Because barre chords contain no open strings, you can move them around
the neck, allowing you to play any chord by using just one fingering form. The
letter names of the chord change (from A to B to C, and so on), but the fingering
and the quality stays exactly the same. Because all the strings in a barre
chord are fretted, you have more control over the sustain (or ringing out) of
the strings, which is why barre chords sound less folky or cowboy-like than
open-position chords.
Barre chords are harder to play than open-position chords — and even
harder on an acoustic than an electric guitar. But luckily playing these chords
gets easier quickly, and before you know it, you can’t even distinguish between
a barre chord and an open-position chord. You simply chose the right chord
for the job, and if it happens to be a barre chord and not an open-position
chord, you just play it and don’t even think about the agony you endured
while learning it.
Playing barre chords is much, much easier on electric guitar, so if you have
both an acoustic and electric, consider mastering barre chords on an electric
before transferring over.
Most barre chords used for the blues use only two forms, the E form and the
A form. The next sections focus on building barre chords, naming them, and
using these two popular forms.
TEAM LinG