Noob Guitar Question

[Angels&Airwaves]

To all you guitarists out there:

I apologize if this is in the wrong forum; I thought Community Discussion would be the best place to ask this question.

Some background information: I've been playing guitar the past 6 months and it's become an addiction. I pass the hours away in my room just playing simple songs. Now that bar chords are becoming easier for me to play, I'm able to play some more complicated stuff. One bar chord, though, the "B" chord (I play it just as an "A" barred and moved up a whole step) has been giving me trouble. Since I only hold down the D, G, and B string with one finger, I cannot for the life of me get the "e" string to play cleanly as it is always muted by whichever finger is holding down the D, G, and B string. So, my question is how can I go about making the "e" string "ring" with all the other strings? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

I can't do it either, my fingers just aren't long enough or something.

You might try taking your guitar in and getting the action set a bit lower, it should make it much easier to get the e down all the way. Along with every other note as well. But it will take some getting used to since your guitar will play and feel differently after that.

SLC

 

[zachplaysguitar]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

I've been playing for about 6 years and on my acoustic it still gives me trouble.

 

[KettyKrueger]

Try barring the chord first (lay your index finger across the fret board) and slowly add one note at a time with your other fingers, instead of holding the DGB strings with one finger.

As SLC said, get the action lowered too as a higher action will make it harder to finger chords effectively.

 

[floyde]

So, my question is how can I go about making the "e" string "ring" with all the other strings? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Stretch all your fingers as much possible. It's going to take a while since it has a lot to do with strength. So even with the proper technique, it'll give you a hard time until you've worked on you finger strength. Practice by switching from another chord to that one a lot, and eventually you'll get it right.

 

[Macky-Mac]

don't play the chord that way then.....use your first finger for the bar then use the other 3 fingers to form the "A" chord pattern. Practice switching in and out of the pattern, in and out, in and out til you can't stand it! then practice some more LOL

if you make yourself play the chord this way, you'll find you'll gain a lot of flexibility in playing other chords and runs from a barred position

 

[jecapaga]

use your pointer finger and middle finger to bar the three strings, arch your hand/palm to let the e string open.