Barre (pronounced bar) chords are a special kind of moveable chord. You create them by using your first finger to stop all the strings across a fret, and then you play a moveable shape under it. Don't panic. It's pretty easy although it takes a little practice.

Practice this. Put your first finger across all six strings at the first fret. If you have trouble getting all the notes to sound clearly, put your second finger on top of your first to help press it down until the notes ring clearly. Relax. Flex your fingers. Now try it again. Move your first finger to the second fret, play the strings, then relax your hand.

Repeat this at the third fret, and then the fourth — and so on — trying to get a clear sound from each note on the strings as you do it. Use that first finger to stop all the frets in turn as far up the neck as you can go, playing all the strings at a fret, relaxing your hand, and then trying again, all the time making sure that the notes on each string sound clear, and don't buzz or sound muffled. Like everything else with the guitar, it gets easier with a little practice.

Now look at the notes on String 6. If the root note, or name note, for the E major chord is String 6, open, then theoretically, if you move the E chord form up one fret, you move the root note up one fret as well.

Use your first finger to bar the strings on the first fret. Use the suggested fingering to play an E chord form at the first position/fret while you bar the first fret with your first finger. This is not easy, but persevere. Try to get all the notes on all the strings to sound clear when you play them. Relax your hand.

The note on the first fret of String 6 is F. That means that an E chord form, which in the open-string position is called E, in the first position (that is, at the first fret) is now called F. Move it up to the third fret and now it is called G.

Quick test: Try to find and play these chords:

• G (major)

• F7

• C7

• A

• E7

• F

(Hint: You'll find the root notes of all these chords on either String 6 or String 5.)

Having trouble with this exercise? Take a break, grab a guitar magazine, and then reread this chapter until you're comfortable with the concept and you can find these chords. It's really not that hard. Honest.

Go back through some of the earlier lessons and try playing the songs using the moveable chord shapes you've learned.

FIGURE 8-10 shows moveable chord types gathered together based on the location of the root note. Some of these chords have fingerings that are not that easy because they involve using more than one finger to bar more than one fret — A, for instance, or D minor 7 — but with a little practice, you'll get it.