Open chords are obviously very important to finger style guitar playing but you also need to practice barre chords.

These chords are used quite often and if you don’t have a lot of experience with barre chords you’ll need to practice them often to feel comfortable.

The most common mistake made with barre chords is not keeping the finger that’s barred (holding multiple strings) close and parallel to the fret.

By arching your hand and placing your thumb flat on the back of the neck you will be in perfect position to pivot on your thumb and achieve the correct angle for your barre.

Below are popular major shapes you need to know. These chords are also moveable and transposable depending on where the lowest note on the 6th or 5th string is located.

In these respective zones we have the chords: A, D and F

     A            D             F
E |--5--------------------------5---|
B |--5------------7------—------6---|
G |--6------------7-------------5---|
D |--7------------7-------------7---|
A |--7------------5-------------8---|
E |--5------------------------------|

Want To Learn More …

fingerpicking-boxFingerpicking is a technique where you can manipulate the strings on your guitar … with great speed, accuracy and most importantly as many strings simultaneously as we want.

That itself can send your head spinning and trying to learn that seems daunting and just too complex before you have even started.

Once you know how to do each individual aspect you can then bring it together and in turn you have learnt to finger pick the easy way!