Barre Chords
Lesson on Barr Chords
You are about to learn the secret to play about a thousand rock songs…the moveable power chord or bar chord.
Remember our simple power chord from the previous lesson ? If you want to play a “B” power chord you just slide your
hand up two frets so that your index finger is on the “B” note
E---------------------------------------------------------------- B---------------------------------------------------------------- G---------------------------------------------------------------- D---7----------9------------------------------------------------- A---7----------9------------------------------------------------- E---5----------7-------------------------------------------------
You can also move the exact same chord shape to the “A” string. At this point it is now a “D” power chord.
This is because your index finger in on the “D” note.
E---------------------------------------------------------------- B---------------------------------------------------------------- G---------------7------------------------------------------------ D---7-----------7------------------------------------------------ A---7-----------5---------------------------------------------- E---5-----------------------------------------------------------
Chord Progressions
This is a good time to talk about chord progressions. A chord progression, as its name implies, is a series of chords played in an order.
The most common chords are based on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale. This is also notates as I, IV and V.
The I, IV, V progression is the basis for a million songs including twelve bar blues.
If you look at the above fretboard it’s easy to visualize the chords in a progression.
In the key of in the key of A, these would be the A, D and E chords. In the key of C, these would be the C, F and G chords.
You can arrange these three different chords to come up with different ways to play them.
For example you can play a I-IV-V-IV progression.
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