Timeline for What does this line across multiple strings mean in this guitar chord?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
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| Mar 10 at 18:45 | comment | added | supercat | @Divizna: In words like "cafe", the diacritics markings are omitted, but the pronunciation is retained. The word "barre", however, is almost always prounounced like the word "bar". I don't think many people would describe such a chord by saying the index finger is "barréed" across the strings; most would instead use the past tense form "barred", pronounced like a minstrel. The adjective spelleing "barre" distinguishes it from a common term for a musical measure. At least in writing, a four barre-chord loop would be different from a four-bar chord loop. | |
| Mar 10 at 10:26 | comment | added | Paul_Pedant | Slides with Spanish guitars are not recommended. | |
| Mar 10 at 9:11 | comment | added | Divizna | @dbmag9 The origin is clear. It's barré in French where it comes from, Barré in German, barré in Italian, Czech, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish. Yes, barré is the participle of barrer which is indeed derived from barre but that's a previous generation of the etymology. When English ambushes other languages in dark alleys and searches their pockets for vocabulary, the speakers then have a tendency to throw out any diacritics and write cafe, nee and fiance (and not even distinguish between a fiancé and a fiancée at that), but that doesn't make keeping the accent wrong. | |
| Mar 10 at 8:11 | comment | added | dbmag9 | @Divizna That doesn't seem to be the case in English; sources I can see are divided on whether it comes from French barré 'barred' or barre 'bar', but the English doesn't generally use an accent. | |
| Mar 10 at 1:58 | vote | accept | bigyihsuan | ||
| Mar 9 at 18:17 | comment | added | Divizna | @dbmag9 Not true, the word is really "barré". | |
| Mar 9 at 17:26 | comment | added | dbmag9 | It's too small for a suggested edit, but the term is barre rather than barré (no acute accent). | |
| Mar 9 at 17:03 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | @Divizna Yes, a slide, sorry, the name escaped me before. It does have another advantage besides not hurting your finger - I know in my case when I try to do a barre, there's always one string that doesn't get pressed all the way down because it's inside the curve of my knuckle. I'm a pianist more than a guitar player (though I do have one), so my fingers have a natural curve to them, which is great for piano but less so for guitar. And yes, slide playing is a different technique, but if you're doing some barre's, you're likely doing a bunch, so it's okay that you can't bend it later. | |
| Mar 9 at 15:23 | comment | added | Tim | @Divizna - been playing barre chords for 65 yrs - never, ever developed calluses on the side of a finger, let alone tips! (None of my students, either). Usually a sign of a badly set up guitar, or bad technique. | |
| Mar 9 at 11:04 | comment | added | Divizna | @DarrelHoffman You mean a slide? As far as I know, that's for achieving a specific sound, not for protecting your finger from hurting. (Btw barré doesn't hurt the finger any more that open chords do. You develop calluses on the side of your finger just as those on the tips. You just have to practice for a while.) And if you're wearing the slide on your index finger, how do you then bend it to play C in the next bar (and then C7 where you need all four)? | |
| Mar 9 at 9:30 | comment | added | Tim | @DarrelHoffman - first time I've heard about that. How does it work with cambered fingerboards? Probably best to bite the bullet, like maybe 99% of us did, and learn to barre with a finger. Imagine a song in key C, where the bottleneck needs to go on for each F chord..! | |
| Mar 9 at 7:19 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | They also make a device you wear on your finger for this purpose, just a short length of rigid tube, which makes it much easier. If you don't want to spend money, literally any tube will do in a pinch, a length of metal pipe, for example (PVC might be too soft, the strings could cut into it with extended use). I've seen people who cut the neck off a beer bottle to use as a barre assist. (There's a technique involving lighter fluid and dental floss that leaves a nice smooth edge so you don't cut yourself on it.) | |
| Mar 8 at 21:26 | comment | added | Divizna | I'll add that sometimes you can see a number next to the barred fret. This indicates which fret it should be, omitting all previous ones from the diagram. For example, the exact same picture with a little 4 next to the black bar would mean barré on the 4th fret, middle finger on 5th fret and the two fingers on 6th, which would be a G# or Ab chord. | |
| Mar 8 at 17:14 | comment | added | Jason P Sallinger | Good answer. It should be noted, too, that the 3, 4, 2 are the fingers you are supposed to use on those strings. (not the fret as OP thought) 1 - index finger - should be the barre, 2 - middle finger - should be the G string, 3 - ring finger - should be the A string, and 4 - pinky finger - should be the D string. | |
| S Mar 8 at 17:10 | review | First answers | |||
| Mar 8 at 19:34 | |||||
| S Mar 8 at 17:10 | history | answered | user97941 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |