Tips on holding barre chords?
 

Hey everyone

I've been playing guitar for around 6 months and ive gotten the hang of barre chords, although I'm having a problem with playing major barre chords with the root on the A string.

What I usually do is I barre the fret with my index finger and simply use my third finger to cover the B, G and D strings. The problem is, my third finger keeps muting the low E string so i can't really play the chord 100% properly.

So how do you guys play major barre chords on the A string ? or is there a certain way to alter my position so it'll sound cleaner?

Thanks!

Hmm..not sure I understand. If the third finger is on the 2, 3, and 4 string, how can it be muting the 6?

Oops I meant the high E sorry !

I've been playing for 6 years now (holy shit, I didn't even realize how long it's been till now), but I play A type barre chords the same way. I used to fret them by having my index barre the stings, and have my middle, ring, and pinky finger fret the A major shape. I stopped doing it mainly because of how limiting it was , and you can only go so far up the neck with that formation. I also like having the freedom of my pinky finger to play a 5th or a 7th easily.

Check your wrist position. Somehow it's not right.

Thanks for the input mate, I guess I just gotta sort out my wrist position. Wow 6 years ? That's a long time! Have you performed alot?

@Lord Larelip
Okay man, I'll give that a shot and try and work out a good wrist angle.

I know it's boring, but try practising some really challenging scales, or chord shapes that really stretch your hand - a few weeks of stretching for something you really can't do will make it much easier to do the things you can only just do already. :)

I know those chords can be hard to finger properly so I work my way around them. There are different things you can do to avoid them. Substitute a open chords or use 7th chord. For example if you are playing a B chord, which usually crops up in in the key of E substitute a B7th and if you were playing a Blues progression it would be I, IV, V7th anyway. Play the chord in another position, like an A chord at the fifth fret. Other chords like the C chord you can substitute an open C chord, same with the D and E. All other chords you can sub power chords (Root, fifth, octave) here's a graph of them:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...3/7efa8811.gif