barre chords

[frodsham]

I am a fifty odd year old who loves to play my guitar but I find it impossible to play barre chords as I suffer with arthiritis, and frankly because my guitars an acoustic I hate Barre chords. Anybody got any easy ways I can introduce more chords to my repertoire without having to stretch my fingers until they break?

[j2buttonsw]

I don't know whether this will help but if I play a G barre chord for instance I will hook my thumb to play the low E string have ring and pinkie on the A and D strings respectively, secomd finger on the G string (or leave the G open) then partially barre the top two strings with my index finger. This can be moved up the neck. If the thumb is too painfull then leave it off and don't play the bass E string. For barred A major positions I would play with the index playing the A string, ring and pinkie on the D and G strings and don't play the other strings. Why don't you get lighter strings for the acoustic or buy a nylon string guitar?

[AndrewHunt]

Hi Frodsham,

You can play barre chords without laying your index finger across all the strings. If you only play the top four strings you only have to fret those notes and it is still the same chord, just minus two low notes. In TAB it would look like this for an A Major chord:

E|------x----
A|------x----
D|------7----
G|------6----
B|------5----
E|------5----

The main part of the chord comes from the D, G and B strings and you can slide this shape to any fret you like (If you play the top string open it can give a nice effect sometimes too). Obviously for other keys you just change the chord shape. For instance, this would be a D Minor:

E|------x----
A|------x----
D|------7----
B|------7----
B|------6----
E|------5----

By leaving out the two bottom notes you don't have to reach across all the strings. This should make it a lot easier. Good luck. I hope the arthritis doesn't hinder you too much.