The question I am most often asked is basically something along the lines of….

“I just can’t make a barre chord sound all the way. I have short/fat/stubby fingers and I just can’t get them to play a barre chord. Do I have any chance at all of becoming a decent guitar player if I can’t play a barre?”

First – yes, you will be able to play guitar, regardless of whether or not you can play a barre chord now.

Second – your finger shape/size really has nothing to do with your ability to play a barre chord. I know it probably doesn’t seem that way now, but in reality it’s the truth. I have yet to meet someone who couldn’t do it regardless of age or finger size and shape.

Playing a barre chord accurately is all about precision and placing your fingers in exactly the right place. The problem is, that “exact right place” is going to be a little different for each person because each person’s finger is shaped a little bit differently.

There are 2 common mistakes I see…. 1 is that your first finger must remain absolutely straight. I often put a slide across the index finger of my students and then ask them to play the barre chord. The slide makes it so the finger won’t bend.

What usually ends up happening is because they cannot bend the finger, they do the other things they should do because there is no choice. 1) They lift up the guitar neck to get it closer to their own head and this always makes it easier.. 2) The adjust the position of their wrist and thumb to allow the finger room to lay straight across the strings.

The other thing about barre chords is that they do take some time. Once you learn them, you may not be able to play them right away. But what you may have forgotten is that you couldn’t play any chord right away. When you first learn open ‘C’ you can’t just play it perfectly. It may have taken days or weeks to get it to where you could play it consistently, and your barre chord shapes will be no different.

Finally, remember that in most “band” playing you’ll play a full barre chord maybe 1% of the time. if you’ve heard me talk about “little chords” then you know that I use the barre chord shape as a guide, but I rarely play it entirely.

So relax, be patient, and have some fun with it. If it doesn’t seem like you’re getting anywhere, turn your guitar over and remind yourself what it was like to play as a beginner… always good for a laugh.

A slur is just an unarticulated note. It’s a note you don’t pick. Under that umbrella, you could execute a slur with a hammer-on, a pull-off, or a slide.

Slides can be slurs, but slurs don’t have to be slides. You can slide your finger and still pick the note you slide to.

Slurs are awesome, and absolutely necessary, for creating longer, faster blues runs. Modern blues rock players and traditionaly bluesmen alike have used them to put fire in their playing.

I am currently speeding up my box 1 to box 2 scales but I struggle with one thing, which finger to use as the slide finger when moving from box 1 to 2 on the 3rd string. Coming down is easy, it seems, as the first finger seems to naturally be the one to slide down with. But going up there are many options.

1. Use 1 then slide 2 frets and go 1 2 3
2. Use 1 3, then 1 fret and go 3 4
3. Use 1 3 4 then slide 1 fret and go 4
4. Use 1 stretch 2, no slide and go 3 4

The answer is not always the same for everyone. Since I’m comfortable sliding with my pinky, I tend to use option 3 quite a bit, though it’s not technically the most correct way. From a classical, traditional technique standpoint, you would use option 1. Some of you, however, might feel comfortable with option 2. I would definitely advise against option 4, since stretching like that is always prone to error.

This is all in reference to changing from box 1 to box 2 on the 3rd string. You would use your 1st finger to play the 5th fret (in the key of A here,) then slide up your first finger to the 7th fret, use the 2nd finger to play the 8th fret, and your 3rd finger to play the 9th fret.