Quote:
Originally Posted by ljguitar
As for barre chords, that's also another tool in your tool-boxÂ…and why avoid it? Millions of players have conquered and utilized them for hundreds of years.
|
Thanks for the informative response!
To be clear, I am not trying to avoid barre chords altogether. I'm not a beginner, and I have no trouble playing a C#m or A#7 cleanly within a chord progression. Barre chords are invaluable, and my practice objective for the month of January is actually to develop my left hand endurance so that I can play more barre chords for longer. I practice for an hour or two every day, and I always spend some of that time just focusing on barre chords.
Having said that, capos exist for a reason. If barre chords were a perfect substitute for open chords, why would any professional ever need a capo? I am not trying to avoid
ever using barre chords, but open chords have advantages for even the most advanced players. In the George Jones clip in my original post, he clearly moves his capo up during the song as the key changes, which I'm sure isn't
necessary for a guy who had been playing guitar professionally for four or five decades, but he must have felt that it conferred an advantage. Or look at videos of Jason Isbell playing live (
like this one). He's a monster player and is obviously capable of playing a I-IV-V song in F# without using a capo, but he still uses one on a regular basis.
If the answer to my modulation question is just that I need to get more comfortable playing barre chords, I'm all for it! I'd like to do that anyway.
Anyhow, thanks again for the informative post!