Your Classical Guitar Input Here

barre chord problem

by Ron
(Victoria, Australia)

Dear Trevor,

I can hold the full bar on fret No.5 but when I try to reach bar 8 the full bar goes to pot to say the least. Can you please help?
Ron

Hi Ron,

I presume you mean you can't reach the 8th fret with your little finger as your first finger is holding down the barre. There are several things you might need to do...

Firstly, you might need to apply a little more pressure between the first finger and your thumb to make the barre chord stable.

You might also need to practice stretching your 4th finger into the correct position slowly so that the notes are sounded correctly.

Another thing that might be causing you a problem is that the little ridges of your your first finger could be muting the sound when the string gets caught inside them.

A way round this is to turn your finger slightly to its left side (away from the fingerboard) so that the smooth surface of skin holds down the string without any inconsistency.

You can see a little picture of the barre here...

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Trevor M.