The great thing about the way you teach Merce is that you explain everything so that even a beginner can understand but even an advanced player can still gain new ideas and a new way to approach their playing from a different perspective. As always congratulations on your UA-cam channel. I hope you gain millions of followers and wish you all of the best. Peace,Love & Happiness. ❤
Notes: Side of the finger - slightly curved to hit the first and last strings Weight of the arm rather than the pressure of the thumb - elbow and arm pulls towards the floor Practice without the thumb to get the feeling Slight hyperextension if needed (not major chord) Avoid the lines of the fingers - adjust finger up and down to avoid Great lesson! 😁
Girl, you are a super awesome teacher. I have walked through many guitar lesson videos but you are extraordinary. Thank you so much for your awesome lesson. I am subscribing to learn more. Hats off! (...and your English is lovely).
You are an amazing guitar player, i have been playing for years and i'm not terrible 😂😂 but honestly i think you solved any barre chord technicality issues i had in 10min, thank you, i'm really practicing alot over different styles classical/electric guitar sweep picking etc etc etc, but at some point i intend to join your academy and really concentrate on classical guitar, i'm already going to include alot of your speed and technique exercises into my daily warm up as i have time around work and transposing songs i like. I am currently working on developing enough speed on electric guitar for Eugenes Trick Bag, which is Steve Vai's interpretation on Paganini (pretty close) but now i want to develop speed on classical just to play anything from your warm up routine. You are a gift and i am thankful for you. Thank you
These tutorials are great. I've only been playing for a few months and I must say, the tip about using your arm as dead weight is genius and has made my life muuuch easier. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your fantastic content! I had been a guitar student throughout my undergrad as well as grad school. After a hiatus of many years, I have now returned to playing. These are my experiences... in the first months of playing again, practicing many hours per day, my index finger was all swollen... it was also difficult to execute certain chords in the first few months. This abates, thankfully, after the first few months, with swelling of index finger no longer an issue while execution of barre chords much improved. Also, spider crawl and speed drills are painful in the beginning, with joints aching for the first couple months. This too should improve with time. Once again, thank you, Merce, for all the content that is so helpful!
I wish I knew about that dead weight trick years ago, I suppose I do it a little already, but being cognisant of it will definitely help me with barres. Huge thanks!
Thank you for the good lesson. I also notice with myself that playing a steel string acoustic guitar can help to make your fretting hand stronger. Not to mention a guitar with good action across the finger board helps also.
I've seen players who can barre an A-chord formation by just using their ring finger on the 2nd,3rd, and 4th strings. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this? Excellent presentation and thanks for the PDF.
Everyone: “Bar” chords Merce: “Ba-ray” chords ❤️❤️ Thank you so much for your deep insight into how barre chords work, definitely will be putting these tips into practice! Already noticing a difference~
Thank you for your tutorials and suggestions Merce. My most annoying problem (habit) is a lazy thumb - it ends up sticking out to the side when changing positions on the fretboard. Very frustrating as it makes barres more difficult.
very true... one has to build up good habit slowly. If you know you have that particular one, always keep an eye to your thumb. If you consistently correct it for 1 or 2 weeks, you should start to see it staying in the right places much more.
Hey Merce! -- Excellent barre video, and yes you are totally on fire with these tutorial videos every week :) . Not sure how you are keeping this pace - I still need to catch up on the earlier barre video and play with those exercises! Yeah..my most common problem is the finger crease issue across 6 strings, which I solve by moving up a bit, which turns this into an issue of consistency. Also yes -- leveraging gravity is also a great help!
Thanks a ton! I'm not sure either... hahaha now I'm working on some music videos and that's challenging the entire schedule... yes, moving the barre up or down a bit helps, one just has to see how much in order not to compromise the fingers that come next :) Wish you a great week tim!
Amazing tutorial Merce!! My problem personally is transition between regular and bare chords, but possibly is more head rather than hand problem. It requires more concertation I think...
Thanks very helpful. Especially appreciate the focus on barres in first position. Even though I've played guitar for years, I find first positom playing to be quite physically demanding and stressful feeling like I have to engage the shoulder which results in lot of tension would you have any suggestions about this?
Try to optimize the pressure on the part of the barre that is actually needing it. Don't use full barre unless strictly necessary and isolate note by note to realize if you are maybe puting all your tension in one or two fingers and the rest is very unbalanced, resulting in you adding a lot more pressure than what's needed.
hahaha yeah, I keep changing my mind about it because in europe people say it in one way and english speaking people in another so... let's be inclusive! haahha
Scuse me, can you suggest me a piece to learn about barrique music different from Bach. Please say me which are the authors that you prefer about classical music. Regards
Hi Matteo! well for beginners till medium I'd recommend the 12 Partitas for Colascione by Brescianello (edition Suivini Zerboni), for more advanced levels you can search some Sonatas by D.Scarlatti or the Telemann's Fantasias (for violine or flute). There are awesome works playable for guitar :)
For me, most of what you are saying here is not new to me. Nonetheless, all solid tips and good reminders to focus on. I still get stress on certain upper positions when barre chords are rooted on the fifth string. I will reapply your tips here on the Bach prelude I’m working on Prelude #1 from the week tempered clavier. Big stretches and barre chords. And it is so important to keep the legato and the tempo up. Thanks again, great video.
The one exceptional running about Merce is her knowledge of anatomy. All her videos involves tricks to understand our own anatomy to play better. Love your videos Like and subscribe to help her make more free and awesome content
Your second solution really helps me on the classical guitar, so thanks :) On the steel string however it is different, doesn't work that well - for me. Is there an important difference to you or might there be a nifty extra detail to pay attention to? Also, women teachers often pay attention to tings men don't and tend to do it more effectively, so thanks again :)
Yeah that's interesting, might it be because guys have more raw strength and they can bypass some difficulties just with that and woman need to be smarter and find a more ergonomic way to avoid using the extra force that doesn't come so easy for us? The situation might vary from passage to passage but I always had the feeling this general observation is quite real at hight level repertoire...
My hands are short and not fast enough to form a Bb chord like you did (sigh) so I usually 'barre' my ring finger to compensate. That's fine and all but some scores requires you to lift a finger on that chord to proceed with the melody so I'm basically done.. 😑
If that makes you feel better, I hate 3rd finger barres, I avoid them at all costs, so maybe therefore I'm faster the opposite way... I guess it's all about how much you dislike a movement to get enough motivation to work on the solution ahhaha😅
Hi Randomester! In my opinion, if you are used to having the 3rd finger with this mini barre setting is a skill you can totally use whenever you need it. In classical pieces where you come from and where you go will dictate if you can or can't use this fingering option. But certainly I see it as an advantage! :)
Hello, myself think that, for me also an d barre lessons couldn't be helpull, as i am considering myself as good teacher in guitar playing, scinse i have few tips how to improve guitar masterpiece but mysef not a good pupil, as may be my phisical telent isn't perfect with guitar, have few problems with motorik of a left hend would not say as health problems just it is less adoptive, then very often need to play
Thank you I’ll definitely be trying tips on how to play barre chords👏🏽👏🏽
The great thing about the way you teach Merce is that you explain everything so that even a beginner can understand but even an advanced player can still gain new ideas and a new way to approach their playing from a different perspective. As always congratulations on your UA-cam channel. I hope you gain millions of followers and wish you all of the best. Peace,Love & Happiness. ❤
beautiful teacher in every way, yes pretty and a good teacher as well, what a combination,
Notes:
Side of the finger - slightly curved to hit the first and last strings
Weight of the arm rather than the pressure of the thumb - elbow and arm pulls towards the floor
Practice without the thumb to get the feeling
Slight hyperextension if needed (not major chord)
Avoid the lines of the fingers - adjust finger up and down to avoid
Great lesson! 😁
Keep going, Merce! Very good and educational materials!
Thank you! 😃
Girl, you are a super awesome teacher. I have walked through many guitar lesson videos but you are extraordinary. Thank you so much for your awesome lesson. I am subscribing to learn more. Hats off! (...and your English is lovely).
Hi Merce, ! Due to your dedication, effort, persevance and excellence , You will have soon 98K followers ! Best wishes 🙏
You are an amazing guitar player, i have been playing for years and i'm not terrible 😂😂 but honestly i think you solved any barre chord technicality issues i had in 10min, thank you, i'm really practicing alot over different styles classical/electric guitar sweep picking etc etc etc, but at some point i intend to join your academy and really concentrate on classical guitar, i'm already going to include alot of your speed and technique exercises into my daily warm up as i have time around work and transposing songs i like.
I am currently working on developing enough speed on electric guitar for Eugenes Trick Bag, which is Steve Vai's interpretation on Paganini (pretty close) but now i want to develop speed on classical just to play anything from your warm up routine. You are a gift and i am thankful for you. Thank you
These tutorials are great. I've only been playing for a few months and I must say, the tip about using your arm as dead weight is genius and has made my life muuuch easier. Thank you!
yaaaay! That's great! 🥳
Thank you so much for your fantastic content! I had been a guitar student throughout my undergrad as well as grad school. After a hiatus of many years, I have now returned to playing. These are my experiences... in the first months of playing again, practicing many hours per day, my index finger was all swollen... it was also difficult to execute certain chords in the first few months. This abates, thankfully, after the first few months, with swelling of index finger no longer an issue while execution of barre chords much improved. Also, spider crawl and speed drills are painful in the beginning, with joints aching for the first couple months. This too should improve with time. Once again, thank you, Merce, for all the content that is so helpful!
Thank you so much for the advise! I can tell it's really helping me! So glad I found your channel!
Thanks for your channel
Very instructive
So nice of you! thanks Joel!
thank you..this video was very helpful
You're welcome!
I wish I knew about that dead weight trick years ago, I suppose I do it a little already, but being cognisant of it will definitely help me with barres. Huge thanks!
Hola. Estaba viendo tu videos con subtítulos traducidos automáticamente al español y ahora ya no salen. ¿ha ocurrido algo? Gracias ;-)
Thank you for your great videos! they have helped tremendously.
Thank you for the good lesson. I also notice with myself that playing a steel string acoustic guitar can help to make your fretting hand stronger. Not to mention a guitar with good action across the finger board helps also.
Absolutely, a bad action can actually be horrible to keep developing! Glad the video was helpful for you! 😊
I've seen players who can barre an A-chord formation by just using their ring finger on the 2nd,3rd, and 4th strings. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this? Excellent presentation and thanks for the PDF.
Absolutely love your tutorials. I always find something very useful :)
Awesome, thank you very much Francisco! Best wishes to you!
Well then first congratulations🎂🥂and thank you very much for all the knowledge you are sharing!😁😁
Thank you! 😃 you are so very welcome! 🤗
Everyone: “Bar” chords
Merce: “Ba-ray” chords ❤️❤️
Thank you so much for your deep insight into how barre chords work, definitely will be putting these tips into practice! Already noticing a difference~
hahaha You're so welcome! Keep it going! 🙌🏻
Thank you for your tutorials and suggestions Merce. My most annoying problem (habit) is a lazy thumb - it ends up sticking out to the side when changing positions on the fretboard. Very frustrating as it makes barres more difficult.
very true... one has to build up good habit slowly. If you know you have that particular one, always keep an eye to your thumb. If you consistently correct it for 1 or 2 weeks, you should start to see it staying in the right places much more.
Superb teacher, thanks...
So nice of you
Hey Merce! -- Excellent barre video, and yes you are totally on fire with these tutorial videos every week :) . Not sure how you are keeping this pace - I still need to catch up on the earlier barre video and play with those exercises! Yeah..my most common problem is the finger crease issue across 6 strings, which I solve by moving up a bit, which turns this into an issue of consistency. Also yes -- leveraging gravity is also a great help!
Thanks a ton! I'm not sure either... hahaha now I'm working on some music videos and that's challenging the entire schedule... yes, moving the barre up or down a bit helps, one just has to see how much in order not to compromise the fingers that come next :) Wish you a great week tim!
Amazing tutorial Merce!! My problem personally is transition between regular and bare chords, but possibly is more head rather than hand problem. It requires more concertation I think...
This was great, thank you!
You're so welcome!
Your English is really very good,you don't ever need to apologise .We all appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
Sam.
Muchas gracias! Estoy actualmente practicando una canción con barre y me ayuda mucho a mejorar mi tecnica.
Genial! me alegro que te este ayudando Jordan!! un saludo y continua con la buena practica!! 🙌🏻
High quality content, really like it
Thank you 🙏🏻
love your content keep it up!
Appreciate it!
Thank you, this helps
Thanks very helpful. Especially appreciate the focus on barres in first position. Even though I've played guitar for years, I find first positom playing to be quite physically demanding and stressful feeling like I have to engage the shoulder which results in lot of tension would you have any suggestions about this?
Try to optimize the pressure on the part of the barre that is actually needing it. Don't use full barre unless strictly necessary and isolate note by note to realize if you are maybe puting all your tension in one or two fingers and the rest is very unbalanced, resulting in you adding a lot more pressure than what's needed.
@@MerceFont thanks will try!
Are there any hand/finger exercises one could do while away from the guitar (out and about) to strengthen the left-hand fingers?
Thank you. Barre is really difficult for me. (83 years old).
You are funny. You changed the way you pronounced "barre" between the beginning and halfway through. Good stuff...
hahaha yeah, I keep changing my mind about it because in europe people say it in one way and english speaking people in another so... let's be inclusive! haahha
Nobody showed the technics that you mention, thank you
Glad to help! 🙏🏻
Scuse me, can you suggest me a piece to learn about barrique music different from Bach. Please say me which are the authors that you prefer about classical music.
Regards
Hi Matteo! well for beginners till medium I'd recommend the 12 Partitas for Colascione by Brescianello (edition Suivini Zerboni), for more advanced levels you can search some Sonatas by D.Scarlatti or the Telemann's Fantasias (for violine or flute). There are awesome works playable for guitar :)
@@MerceFont thank you for the advice
For me, most of what you are saying here is not new to me. Nonetheless, all solid tips and good reminders to focus on. I still get stress on certain upper positions when barre chords are rooted on the fifth string. I will reapply your tips here on the Bach prelude I’m working on Prelude #1 from the week tempered clavier. Big stretches and barre chords. And it is so important to keep the legato and the tempo up. Thanks again, great video.
You are so welcome Lawrence!! Thank you for your insight!! Wish you a beautiful summer!
The guitar was a little out of tune but the sound was really good and round!
The one exceptional running about Merce is her knowledge of anatomy. All her videos involves tricks to understand our own anatomy to play better. Love your videos
Like and subscribe to help her make more free and awesome content
thank you so much for the sub!! That helps me a lot to keep bringing more content! thank you! 🙏🏻
1:17
Oh special, is this from your creativity in the minute (I mean the melody) you, without a doubt 😉😃
How is it you know just which issues I have? Thank you.
Hahaha
Thankyou❤
Your second solution really helps me on the classical guitar, so thanks :) On the steel string however it is different, doesn't work that well - for me. Is there an important difference to you or might there be a nifty extra detail to pay attention to? Also, women teachers often pay attention to tings men don't and tend to do it more effectively, so thanks again :)
Yeah that's interesting, might it be because guys have more raw strength and they can bypass some difficulties just with that and woman need to be smarter and find a more ergonomic way to avoid using the extra force that doesn't come so easy for us? The situation might vary from passage to passage but I always had the feeling this general observation is quite real at hight level repertoire...
Great
Thank you Abu!!!!
Sé que este es un canal de guitarra pero tengo que declarar que la luz del lado derecho le sienta de maravilla ;- )
hahah gracias! :)
My hands are short and not fast enough to form a Bb chord like you did (sigh) so I usually 'barre' my ring finger to compensate. That's fine and all but some scores requires you to lift a finger on that chord to proceed with the melody so I'm basically done.. 😑
If that makes you feel better, I hate 3rd finger barres, I avoid them at all costs, so maybe therefore I'm faster the opposite way... I guess it's all about how much you dislike a movement to get enough motivation to work on the solution ahhaha😅
Que nadie se atreva a darle pulgar abajo este video. Maestra video perfecto 😍
muchas gracias Chris!!! te mando mis mejores deseos para este 2021!!
@@MerceFont lo mismo para ud maestra.
I am used to the Hendrix style barre chord. Do i need to change if i wanna play some classical?
Hi Randomester! In my opinion, if you are used to having the 3rd finger with this mini barre setting is a skill you can totally use whenever you need it. In classical pieces where you come from and where you go will dictate if you can or can't use this fingering option. But certainly I see it as an advantage! :)
Cya there
I just had a serious lightbulb moment!!!! Thanks Merce!!👍😁
Wonderful!!! wish you lots of improvement with your Barre technique!
Video starts at 1:22
Best
😊
@@MerceFont 🙏🙏
Most Barres have not been open since the pandemic. I think that is the biggest problem.
😂😂😂😂😂 very true, that's why I'm bringing you some barre moments instead 😂😂
@@MerceFont Thank you. Some of my favorite moments have happened in a Barre.
Hello, myself think that, for me also an d barre lessons couldn't be helpull, as i am considering myself as good teacher in guitar playing, scinse i have few tips how to improve guitar masterpiece but mysef not a good pupil, as may be my phisical telent isn't perfect with guitar, have few problems with motorik of a left hend would not say as health problems just it is less adoptive, then very often need to play
🙃
No, your English is not weird, English is weird.
😂