Barre chord alternative solutions.

[Sloplay]

Hi all. I've been learning to play guitar for a little over two years now, self taught except for a player who once showed me pentatonic scales. My main problem is when using barre chords, or to be more specific, finding alternatives to barres. I can usually find some type of single note runs, mostly within a pentatonic box, to fill in where a barre would normally be placed, but of course this doesn't always work. My question is, do any of you have problems finding substitutes for barres, and what methods are utilized in so doing? Thanks, Ricci

[Nymuso]

Thumb wrap.

[Sloplay]

Originally Posted by Nymuso

Thumb wrap.

Yeah, I try that once in awhile; sometimes can get it to work, usually not. My hands are real short, no monkey thumbs, LOL.

[mr. beaumont]

Well, avoiding things because they're tough is never a great idea, but yeah, thumb wrap, play the middle strings only (so an F chord becomes x3321) and if you want to mess with lead lines, yeah, every chord can correspond to a scale you can mess with...what's your knowledge of pentatonic like? Do you know major and minor?

[Sloplay]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Well, avoiding things because they're tough is never a great idea, but yeah, thumb wrap, play the middle strings only (so an F chord becomes x3321) and if you want to mess with lead lines, yeah, every chord can correspond to a scale you can mess with...what's your knowledge of pentatonic like? Do you know major and minor?

Indeed they are virtually impossible for me to play cleanly. I worked my hands HARD for most of my life, and my knuckles/joints literally will not allow clean barres, so I try to find ways to work around them. I am always open to new ideas, especially since I'm so new to this. Oh, I play 99% fingerstyle, thumb and one finger, if that makes any difference. As far as the pentatonic scale, another guitarist demonstrated the Emin pentatonic and mostly incorporate that, although I have been muddying around with conversions to Amin and maj pentatonic for last few months. Also playing with arpeggios, I think they're called.

[FrankHudson]

Most chords can be expressed with three or four notes even if one is playing solo guitar. So, once you know what notes you want to voice your chords with, you can play them without an index finger barre.

For strummers without infinitively flexible fingers, you may need to learn to intentionally mute strings inbetween sounded strings to get some voicings. For fingerpickers you can just pluck the strings you want to sound and not pluck the ones you don't

Moveable barre chords are often the intellectually easiest solution to finding a chord--and no one should knock easiest just because it's easiest!--but this other approach can be just as sophisticated if not more so. That said, being able to barre chord will give you another choice, and one that once mastered rapidly opens up a great many chords from just a few shapes.

Two other "cheats" common to acoustic guitar players: capos and open tunings. Either of them can allow you to voice chords that you otherwise would barre. Note sometimes this is also done for other reasons that mere inability to barre. And I'm not telling you to not learn to barre.

When playing with a bass player or a chordal instrument (like piano, another guitarist) you may not need to voice the full chord either. A lot of rock players voice their rhythm chords with I and V note "power chords" and the lead instrument or singer etc provides the harmonic color with their notes. I played with a piano player a lot, I didn't need to state a lot of harmonic information and get in his way.

[Sloplay]

Frank Hudson, yes, a lot of what I do is try to find notes which, played together or in some combination, work in place of the otherwise barred chord. But, it is frustrating not having the ability to use a barre in those places where it just fits. Maybe I'm on the right track and just don't realize it, LOL.

[mr. beaumont]

Those barre chords are just triads...notes are doubled and repeated.

So an F chord is ANYWHERE you can play F, A, and C.

Learn the fretboard and chord construction, itll change your life...there's a 90 days to fretboard freedom thread in the play and write section that I started...13 week study group...join us!

[Sloplay]

Hey, thanks! Just looked at the thread, I might try that.

[thechariot1x]

Originally Posted by Sloplay

Indeed they are virtually impossible for me to play cleanly. I worked my hands HARD for most of my life, and my knuckles/joints literally will not allow clean barres, so I try to find ways to work around them. I am always open to new ideas, especially since I'm so new to this. Oh, I play 99% fingerstyle, thumb and one finger, if that makes any difference. As far as the pentatonic scale, another guitarist demonstrated the Emin pentatonic and mostly incorporate that, although I have been muddying around with conversions to Amin and maj pentatonic for last few months. Also playing with arpeggios, I think they're called.

So I know not exactly what you were asking for, but I struggled with Barre chords for a long time and now feel pretty comfortable with them. A few things I thought were really key first I'll link a YouTube video here that helped me a ton in learning the actual nuts and bolts in clean barre chords. You can skip the first few minutes if you like as this is his intro and him telling some jokes, then he gets into two or three strings barres (I'd say power chords but he calls them barres) but definitely watch from about 9:30 on (if you decide to watch at all) https://youtu.be/DrlF4Tc8qC8. Secondly, the higher the action and the heavier the gauge of string the harder it is going to be. Third, which I think he goes in to with the video, learning barre chords is really more a matter of trial and error to get the finger position exactly right for a lot of people than increasing power. Everyone's fingers are different and it takes some time to figure out exactly how to lay your finger so that the contours of your finger, (and the stars) line up just right to allow you to fret all six strings. I know for me I found that my power was good enough once I found that sweet spot in finger positioning and got my thumb positioning right.

P.S. make sure your strings aren't old, no idea why this affects it but I have found barre chords are harder on old strings or maybe it's just me.

[lowrider]

Slo, you say that you just can't make the barre chords, but how much work have you put into it?

I started playing guitar a little over two years ago for PT after Dupuytren's Contracture surgery. My left hand had been sliced open five ways to clean out the chords.

When I started playing two years ago, one of the first things I practiced was the barre F every day, just for a few minutes at first.

I still go through barre's almost every day in my warm-up. You should too. If you do, even just for a minute at first, you will be able to get into the barre's in time.

[Mandobart]

Have you had your guitar set up with comfortable action and neck relief? Are you using light strings? Learning barre chords is hard enough without fighting a hard-to-play guitar. Have you tried out different fretboard widths and neck profiles? There are lots of folks here that swear a 1/16" difference in nut width is huge.

Also - really get some lessons, not some guy showing you some stuff. "Thumb and one finger" is not "playing fingerstyle." A decent teacher can also evaluate if your guitar needs a setup and can recommend someone to do it. No need to keep struggling alone and teaching yourself bad habits.

[thechariot1x]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

"Thumb and one finger" is not "playing fingerstyle."

Merle travis might beg to differ, but I agree with the sentiment.

[SunnyDee]

I can play barre chords, but triads on the first three strings are an alternative. It's easy to learn the shapes that make any of these without translating all the note names. This chart is my own example, so it's lefty but might give the idea.
http://www.dee.email/OPEN/triadshapes.jpg
The B string is orange. The chart shows where the 1, 3, 5 note of the triad is to make a Major, minor, and dim chord when the root is on any of the three strings. Since they are all movable, knowing these few shapes (for most, you probably only need six of them), the scale pattern of major/minor/dim, and where to find the root note of the scale, you can play in any key just as you can with full barres. I do play these with mini-barres, but I'm assuming you can barre 2-3 of the lightest strings ok.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Sloplay

Indeed they are virtually impossible for me to play cleanly. I worked my hands HARD for most of my life, and my knuckles/joints literally will not allow clean barres

How's your set-up? A low action and lighter strings may make it possible. I'd be surprised if your hands have been so damaged that barres are literally impossible for you. With a properly set-up guitar - and proper technique - they really need very little pressure. The hand learns the optimum distribution of force the more you practice.
Naturally, however, the later you start in life, the harder it is to train the hands for new tasks.

Of course, even if barres are not too hard, it's good to explore workarounds. Although I have no trouble with barres, I often avoid them and play partial shapes, muting other strings. You never (I mean never) actually need all 6 strings to sound. The only reason barre shapes include all 6 is that it's normally easier to play all 6 than mute any you don't need!

The thumb wrap would be the most common alternative (for the "E" shape), probably muting the 1st string. That allows one finger per string on the middle 4 (the thumb can either mute or fret the 6th, doesn't matter too much).
For the "A" shape it's trickier. If I don't use the barre, I might try a middle 4 shape, with thumb muting 6th, index on 5th, ring flattened on 4th and 3rd, pinky on 2nd and leaned over to mute the 1st. It's a crude and clumsy fingering but works for me. A better alternative for that shape is a partial "G" shape, like this one for a B major chord:

-x- mute with partially lifted index
-4- index
-4- index
-4- index
-x- mute with pinky
-7- pinky

The nice thing about that is the free middle and ring fingers, for various added embellishments to the chord.