I was brought up in the era of Jimi Hendrix and bands like The Who
Pete Townsend who could jump around and play the guitar behind his back like a
lot of my friends that I knew growing up we had this kind of romantic notion that
we just filled around long enough on the guitar we'd be able to play I mean not
that I ever thought I'd be like Jimi Hendrix but you know we kind of thought
that gee if they could play the guitar behind their back or with their teeth
like that certainly sitting normal or standing up we'd be able to get to a
place where we could at least play basic chords and strum and time and and have a
good time I'm sure most of you who are watching this video have come to the
realization that it's not that easy especially when it comes to learning
things like Barre chords I had the students send me a message asking me if
my fingers were somehow exceptionally long because I was doing a lesson on
Barre chords and I was demonstrating just for the record my fingers are not
exceptionally long they're probably about average and I'm not exceptionally
talented but I have learned over the years a system that I use to learn new
things and it I applied a guitar and it really works it's not something new in
fact I think it's what most piano teachers have been teaching their
students for years somehow if guitar players I thought anyway we were beyond
the normal rules of learning music in any case I've organized it into a
clearer system that I think you'll find incredibly valuable especially for
learning Barre chords now I'll go through the system first this is kind of
a theoretical part and then we'll do the practical approach I'll apply it
specifically to learning Barre chords I've divided my system into five steps
the first step is to overview the second step is to break it down the third step
is to practice what you've broken it down to or what I call increments the
fourth step is to combine two or more of the increments and the final step is to
assess where you are and then start over now let's go over the steps in a little
more detail the overview step number one you want to take a look and see where
can I break this down into logical parts how can I break this skill down into
pieces and then combine them back later or what is the smallest part that I can
break down you also want to think about what are the more important parts here
we want to think about what's called the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle the
idea is that there's 20% of something that will get you 80% of the results so
we want to look for where you can get the most bang for your buck step number
two break it down you want to break it down to the minimum smallest part that
still makes sense and that you can feel a sense of accomplishment within a
reasonable period of time step number three is to practice that part now
you're not going for mastery on this one little increment we'll call them what
you're going for is something sufficient to feel a sense of success another way I
teach students is to think about 80% of on the way to mastery think about
getting it to just about 80% of where you think it should be now when you
practice you always want to start slow and then pick up little by little
mistake US adults often make is to try and go too fast and stop and start and
and end up reading the rhythm or just getting frustrated so go slow get it
right in and pick it up little by little step number four is to combine and
integrate what that means does it take a couple of parts and put them together
and see how they fit so for an example if you were learning a piece of sheet
music you might practice this measure and then the next measure when you got
those both pretty good then you put it together and see if you go from one to
the other you can do that until you get to a whole phrase and then you practice
one phrase and combine it with another phrase and so on with a skill like
playing Barre chords you want to break down into parts of playing a bar chords
and then put those parts back together and finally step number five is to
assess where you're at take a look and see is this the best place to put your
time and energy have you made enough progress let's take a look now again and
see what's the next increment that you should be working on this entire process
is a cycle what you're doing is you get started you go around the cycle then you
go back from assess to overview and start some more increments you see you
don't know what you don't know so you can't wait until you know exactly what
you need to work on to get to where you want to go you get started you get more
information by going through the cycle and then you know what else
so you need to work on you start again let's put this into practice we're going
to apply it directly to learning bar chords so playing bar chords involves
making a bar and then some fingering we're gonna start with the most basic
part of making a bar chord so first of all probably the most useful bar chord
in the beginning would be the F chord I'm going to reduce that name a little
bit I'm going to call that a major chord with the root in the sixth string or
sixth string root major chord the reason I do that is because once I learn a
sixth string root major chord I can apply it all up and down the neck they
just say it's an F chord kinda is limiting and the sixth string has the
name of the chord that's what the sixth string root means so yeah that's an F
note the first fret on the sixth string so one increment of making a sixth
string root major chord would be that bar itself and that usually is a big
stumbling block for people so you might want to work on just the bar by itself
and there's a number of different exercises I can put something in the
description field so a next increment might be the actual form of the court
without the bar really this F chord is nothing but an E chord moved up one fret
and the e chord without the first finger because you need that for the bar so you
might want to practice that an exercise that uses this form so let's say you
practice those two increments and you're feeling fairly confident now we might
want to put them together we'll make that major chord form and then make the
bar with it once you get to that point I'd probably use an increment that I
often use with learning chords which is to just go through forming the chord
without strumming and to taking a hand off you see that's two different skills
making the court and then strumming so it sounds good
by just making the fingering you get a chance to practice the fingering
separate from just how good all the notes sound cuz once you strum you're
gonna hear the buzzing and everything so I have students maybe do that just a
dozen or so times a day and I'd spread this out trying to do it all in one day
is probably not realistic I spread out over a series of days maybe even a week
or so of just practicing each of the increments and then little by little
adding them together the next increment might be to actually
strum the chord as you form the chord more and then take your hand off just
get used to making the chord that's drumming it doesn't sound right
take a few seconds to adjust it but don't spend too long on it this is
another principle that really has worked for me and for my students to keep
coming back at something and little short bursts not to try to bear through
something for a long period of time in this case makes the koi Strom bet the
same sounds a little like this make some adjustments if it gets a little better
take your hand off shake it up put it back on then after a few days of that I
think you're ready for an exercise that actually moves the chord around once
you've got in the major chord to where you can move around the neck it might be
time to add another form of the Barre chord and so on step by step now a
couple things to keep in mind first of all that everyone at some poor along the
process will get the motivate it will feel lost the momentum this is normal
and happens to everyone I tried to address that by thinking about ahead of
time and coming up with some strategies there's a lot of different things you
could do and there's not time on this video to go into it but you know for an
example I often make a strategy when I'm learning something new that's difficult
after breaking it down I'll make a calendar and say for seven days I'm just
gonna practice this part then for the X for each day so regardless of how good I
do it I just want to get that X that helps motivate me I don't know if that
would work for you and there are lots of other strategies that we can talk about
later or that you might even be able to share in the comments another thing I
want to mention is that when students feel frustrated or confused they think
something is wrong maybe something is wrong with them or more likely the
teacher but I want to tell you that that is normal and it's always going to
happen but it's not a bad thing this actually is what provides the fuel
for overcoming difficulties confusion and frustration is your friend I would
encourage you not to dwell on but use that as a signal to you to go back and
break it down to smaller pieces or use it as a energy and motivation to just
work through a particularly difficulty and finally don't be afraid to keep
going back around the cycle this is not something where you just go around and
you get it and you're occasionally that happens but most of
the time you go around figure out what you still need to work on and then go
back around the cycle and keep doing that again this will help you get
through any difficulties with frustration or confusion as you keep
going back and assessing where you're at what you need to work on next thank you
for joining me today hey I'm considering making a course on
bar chords that would be available to the public if you're at all interested
to help me out I've created a little survey and I'll put a link in the
description it's very short and then let me know what your difficulties are and
how I can best help you and you'll have the option to be contacted when I
complete the course but only if you choose that particular selection take a
minute now and go ahead and complete that survey I appreciate it I'll see you
in another lesson