Hi, how are you doing? Justin here
Welcome to IM-121 which is the start of Foundation 2.
In this lesson we're going to be checking out the E shaped bar chords,
the Dominant 7th, and the minor 7th.
Now I'm hoping that you've done lots of practice
on your E-shaped major and minor bar chords,
because these ones are just a little bit trickier
because they've got a few extra notes under the bar.
There are things that you need to remember too,
so make sure that all of this stuff goes into your memory bank.
Don't have to rely on a book or a piece of paper or whatever,
because when you're playing chords for real you can't be having a book around,
so you've got to have the chord shapes in here.
Let's get to a close up and check out this Dominant 7th
and the minor 7th bar chord shapes.
Here we are, starting with a G Major bar chord.
The same rules apply, 1st finger is still slightly on its side,
the rest of the fingers are all on their tips,
got a nice kind of round shape going on. Now, to get our Dominant 7th chord,
which is usually just said as a '7'.
What I'm about to show you is a G Dominant 7th chord,
but usually it will just be written and said as G7.
All we have to do is lift our little finger off,
so it should be kind of easier, right? Because we've got less fingers on.
Well yeah and no.
The thing that happens now is that we're using the bar here for this 4th string,
so for the regular major chord,
we've just got the thickest string, and the thinnest two strings played by the bar,
so it can be round a bit, you know,
that's not really touching these middle strings, but now, once the little finger has come off,
you have to be really thinking of the pressure there
in the the middle part of that 1st finger.
Now, what some of you may find is that the note sounds a little bit dead
and there's a few culprits.
The most common one is the 3rd finger's laying a little bit too flat
and touching that 4th string,
so you'll find just by kind of pressing this part of your hand up a little bit,
it'll make the finger a little rounder.
. . .
and you'll get that note back again.
Now, other times, people haven't got their bar strong enough yet,
and that's why we're looking at these chords now.
It's because they really work on getting your bar strengths really good,
and you'll have to press that part.
That middle part of your 1st finger really has to press down hard
in order to get that note.
Now, as usual, you'll be doing strum, pick the notes out one at a time, and strum.
But you want to pay extra special attention to this note.
For the G7 it's the note F.
. . .
The 4th string, that's the one that you really want to pay attention to.
Now the other chord we're looking at in this lesson is a minor 7th.
. . .
and this one, as you can see, there's a lot of barre work going on,
so we've got, the barre is covering all 6 strings,
the 3rd finger is in its usual place, 2 frets above the barre on the 5th string.
. . .
But all of the notes are played by the barre,
so this one really requires good barre stamina and good strength.
I mentioned it last time, but I'll mention it again
you've got to press in the middle of the barre,
that's where you've got to feel the pressure going on for this chord.
It's no good having a slightly round one now.
You've really got to be thinking about that pressure going right in.
Now, I do tend to hear if I'm using this one
the 2nd finger can kind of sneak in here for a bit of support there.
Because that's a pretty tough chord,
especially when I hold it for a long time on an acoustic guitar,
it gets pretty tough even for me to do it, you know so, I do it fine,
but if I had to do it for a long time, I'd probably get 2nd finger
just laying there on top of the 1st finger to give it a little bit of support.
As usual you'll be picking the strings one at a time.
The only kind of common things that you get here
is the barre not working properly,
you might have the 3rd finger laying down a little bit too flat
and muting the 4th string, not as likely
because you generally have to push your hand around a little bit
to get that proper pressure down with the barre.
It's a bit of a fiddle, you know, it's a tough chord.
That's not one you're probably going to get right away, you know,
unless you've got really big strong hands.
I really struggled with this, when I learnt it, you know .
It's just developing that kind of strength there
with the muscle in between your thumb and your' first finger there.
That's the one that gets a bit of a workout for this.
You should be feeling that.
So now just to kind of recap, you should know your major
. . .
minor,
. . .
go back to major again, lift off little finger,
. . .
you've got the 7th
back to major again, lift off your little finger and your 2nd finger
. . .
and you get the minor 7.
So, in case you hadn't noticed, lifting off the little finger is the one that makes it 7.
So there's major, there's 7,
there's minor, there's minor 7.
So, that's a good little trick to help you remember the names of the different shapes,
and now all you've got to do is practice them.
Well I hope that you enjoy the workout that practicing those chords is going to give you.
Don't be too disappointed if you find that minor 7 chord pretty hard.
It's a tricky little number that one.
Getting that barre strong enough, holding down all of those notes,
it's a tough call and it just takes practice.
It's all about developing that muscle between your first finger and your thumb.
Technique of course has a role as well,
making sure that your barre is rolled onto the side and that kind of thing.
That's still important, but, as well, it's kind of just a strength thing.
It's just going to take a little bit of practice.
So have fun with that,
make sure you remember to put them into your memory.
Don't leave them out in the cold in the book, you know,
make sure you get them in there.
Practice them, look at the relationship between them
so you can see what it is that changes between the major and the minor.
Listen to them as well, you know. Not a bad idea to have a listen to them
and kind of get used to what the different chords sound like.
We'll be doing a bit more of that later on, anyway.
Have fun, and I shall see you for more lessons very very soon. Bye Bye.