Barre chords are a versatile chording technique for guitar. Their position can be easily altered up and down the fretboard to produce various voicings of major chords – which makes it especially useful in keys without many open chord fingerings.
A-Type barre chord is an A chord shape (022100) barred across five strings at once, beginning at its first fret as A, becoming B at second fret and back into A again one octave higher at 12th fret.
CAGED system
CAGED is the ideal system to learn fretboard without memorizing notes; in fact, this approach actually increases music theory knowledge. Although many criticize memorization as harmful for learning music theory, that wasn’t how we learned our alphabet or multiplication tables either!
Once you’ve mastered basic open chord shapes, you can use them to find other chords across the fretboard. This will save your fingers from fatigue by eliminating four-finger barre chord voicings and shifting shapes up and down the neck using a capo.
A-shape
Many guitar players harbor the belief that an A shape barre chord prevents you from barring the lower E string. However, this is simply not true and it is crucial that guitarists fully comprehend why.
Reason being, while a chord’s root note does define its shape, this doesn’t give an exact indication of its key signature; rather, its form merely describes a set of relationships which can be furthered with various theoretical layers and musical aspects at once.
The open A shape, for instance, provides you with many possibilities when it comes to creating G and D major chords or E-shaped D minor ones – providing more choices in voicings and sounds that contribute to creating the overall sound of any song.
D-shape
D shape chords are among the most widely played guitar chords. Easy to play and versatile enough for various situations, the D chord is especially well-recognized in jazz music.
This chord can be played by fretting the 2nd fret of the A string with your middle finger and fretting the 1st fret of the F# string with your index finger – creating a staggered chord shape which can be moved anywhere along the fretboard, just be sure to maintain its shape!
Experimenting with variations of this chord shape is also possible, such as lifting off one finger and adding more notes to it.
E-shape
With the E shape, you can produce several barre chords on guitar. For instance, an open E shape with your ring finger across three strings will form an E minor barre chord which can be adjusted up or down the fretboard depending on its key.
E shapes are ideal for barre chords that use bass notes as it will reduce finger movement at chord change time.
Errors on the guitar can lead to serious difficulties. For instance, playing an E minor barre chord at the first fret with your index finger could produce an unexpected D chord result.
G-shape
G-shape chords are one of the first chords most guitarists learn, making it an indispensable staple in popular, rock, and folk songs. But its complexity may prove challenging for novice players – luckily there are various variations that may make playing easier for beginners.
Root notes of each chord shape should be identified and utilized when moving it up and down the fretboard; for instance, moving G shape one fret up will result in an A chord.