Is there a specific name for this?

stylo17

when a guitarist plays a chord shaped like a G or C (anything really) in it's non-traditional place. it looks like the same shape, and I think it is, but instead of being played at the top of the neck, it's more around the 6th fret. is there anything important to know about these??

Trailer

one of my favorite chords is when I fret the C chord with my middle, ring, and pinky fingers and then bar the fret below with my index finger. you can slide that guy all over the fretboard and it serves the same effect as playing a power chord, but offers different voicings and tonal qualities. Basically, instead of playing an E power chord on the 7th fret.. try making this chord with your pinky starting on the 7th (A), your ring on the 6th (D), your middle on the 5th (B), and your index barring the 4th fret... but don't bar the low E. It's basically like playing a C chord and having a capo that moves up and down the neck.

I call it the Bob Weir chord:cool: He always used that..

ianvomsaal

stylo17 wrote:

when a guitarist plays a chord shaped like a G or C (anything really) in it's non-traditional place. it looks like the same shape, and I think it is, but instead of being played at the top of the neck, it's more around the 6th fret. is there anything important to know about these??

Yes, it's not the same chord anymore.
Think about where the nut is in those 1st position chords.
The nut on your guitar actually acts like your index finger on bar chords.
If you move the open position C-fingering up to say the 6th fret, the notes
are (from low to high) E,F,A,G,F,E, which is NOT a C-Major chord (C,E,G).
These notes in the C-shape on the 6th fret create chords like:
Emin9 sus4 (no 5th),
G13 (without a 3rd or 5th),
A-Aug5/7th (with 5th but no 3rd),
Fadd9 (with maj7 but no 5th).

If you use your index finger to bar everything at the 7th fret, and use your middle,
annular (ring) & pinky to play the C-Major shape, you're playing a G-Major chord.
Bar at the 9th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an A-Major.
Bar at the 5th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an F-Major.

savman

Trailer wrote:

one of my favorite chords is when I fret the C chord with my middle, ring, and pinky fingers and then bar the fret below with my index finger. you can slide that guy all over the fretboard and it serves the same effect as playing a power chord, but offers different voicings and tonal qualities. Basically, instead of playing an E power chord on the 7th fret.. try making this chord with your pinky starting on the 7th (A), your ring on the 6th (D), your middle on the 5th (B), and your index barring the 4th fret... but don't bar the low E. It's basically like playing a C chord and having a capo that moves up and down the neck.

I call it the Bob Weir chord:cool: He always used that..

Is that the same formation as the first chord to State of Love and Trust?

xtremehardy388

savman wrote:

Is that the same formation as the first chord to State of Love and Trust?

i think so

Trailer

savman wrote:

Is that the same formation as the first chord to State of Love and Trust?

I just checked given to wail.. it pretty much is, nice find:D I've never played that song before:o

the only difference is that I don't play the low E when I'm fretting this chord, just like you wouldn't play the low E when you are playing a basic C chord.

actually sometimes I play the C chord with all the strings. The difference is that I place my ring finger on the third fret (low E)... and then form the normal chord with my pinky on the third fret of the A string. Gives it a bigger, darker sound.

Trailer

ianvomsaal wrote:

If you use your index finger to bar everything at the 7th fret, and use your middle,
anular (ring) & pinky to play the C-Major shape, you're playing a G-Major chord.
Bar at the 9th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an A-Major.
Bar at the 5th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an F-Major.

exactly.

an easy way to remember this, is whatever note your pinky is fretting on the A string... that's what chord you are playing.

ianvomsaal

Trailer wrote:

ianvomsaal wrote:

If you use your index finger to bar everything at the 7th fret, and use your middle,
annular (ring) & pinky to play the C-Major shape, you're playing a G-Major chord.
Bar at the 9th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an A-Major.
Bar at the 5th fret and play the C-Major shape and you're playing an F-Major.

exactly.

an easy way to remember this, is whatever note your pinky is fretting on the A string... that's what chord you are playing.

Or your index finger (B-String) . . . but this fingering can also be other chords.
Baring the 7th fret with your index finger, and playing the C-Major shape with your
middle, annular, & pinky gives you a G-Major chord - The G Major triad is G-B-D, &
the notes being fretted from low to high are (B,G,B,D,G,B), thus all G's B's & D's.
*But, B-D-G also gives you a Bmin-Aug5 CHORD, & D-G-B gives you a Dsus4-add6 CHORD.
Remember that a different arrangement of the triad can give you multiple chords.

stylo17

so basically they're just other chords with the same shape? and barre chords are MUCH easier to understand lol. the original question just came to me cause I always see Dave Matthews playing chords all over the guitar and wanted to know what it was called.

Jack Bauer

stylo17 wrote:

so basically they're just other chords with the same shape? and barre chords are MUCH easier to understand lol. the original question just came to me cause I always see Dave Matthews playing chords all over the guitar and wanted to know what it was called.

It basically is a barre chord. Just like you have the more traditional barre chords, based on the open e chord and the open a chord, you can play a barre chord based on the open c chord.

stylo17

Jack Bauer wrote:

It basically is a barre chord. Just like you have the more traditional barre chords, based on the open e chord and the open a chord, you can play a barre chord based on the open c chord.

can you expand on this?? especially that last past

ianvomsaal

Basic Bar chords using the 1st position C-Major Shape . . . thought I went over it earlier.
Remember that the nut on your guitar acts like your index finger barring an entire fret.
032010 - of coarse the zeros are the open strings on the nut (think of that as barred fret).
To move this chord up a fret you use your index finger in place of the nut, like 143121.
The 1 is your index finger barring the entire 1st fret, 2 is middle, 3 is annular, 4 is pinky.
You can move this fingering anywhere, you just need to know your alphabet to know the chord.
This C-Major shape with the 1st fret barred (143121) is C#.
Moving everything up one more fret (254232) is D, (365343) is D# or Eb, (476454) is E-Major, etc.

Think about the basic first position E-Major Chord (022100)
Now say you want to play a typical A-Major BAR chord on the 5th fret (577655).
Take a look at the shape of this fingering - it's the same basic fingering as the open-E-Major chord,
except you're just using different fingers for the E-Major shape, and you're barring with your index.
If you slide that basic A-Major fingering down to the 1st fret without your index finger barring
anything you're still playing E-Major, but you're using you middle anular, & pinkey fingers.
If you lay your index over the nut with this fingering you'll see exactly what the nut is doing.

stylo17

ianvomsaal wrote:

Basic Bar chords using the 1st position C-Major Shape . . . thought I went over it earlier.
Remember that the nut on your guitar acts like your index finger barring an entire fret.
032010 - of coarse the zeros are the open strings on the nut (think of that as barred fret).
To move this chord up a fret you use your index finger in place of the nut, like 143121.
The 1 is your index finger barring the entire 1st fret, 2 is middle, 3 is annular, 4 is pinky.
You can move this fingering anywhere, you just need to know your alphabet to know the chord.
This C-Major shape with the 1st fret barred (143121) is C#.
Moving everything up one more fret (254232) is D, (365343) is D# or Eb, (476454) is E-Major, etc.

Think about the basic first position E-Major Chord (022100)
Now say you want to play a typical A-Major BAR chord on the 5th fret (577655).
Take a look at the shape of this fingering - it's the same basic fingering as the open-E-Major chord,
except you're just using different fingers for the E-Major shape, and you're barring with your index.
If you slide that basic A-Major fingering down to the 1st fret without your index finger barring
anything you're still playing E-Major, but you're using you middle anular, & pinkey fingers.
If you lay your index over the nut with this fingering you'll see exactly what the nut is doing.

now I got it. I had never heard or seen before the barre chord with the C-Major shape, only the E-Major shape, so when you kept saying, "C" I was seeing it, just not really registering it all.

so to play a major barre chord I could either use the E-Major shape or the C-Major shape? I had only ever heard of the E shape and the A-Major shape (when barring starts on the A string)...

ianvomsaal

stylo17 wrote:

now I got it. I had never heard or seen before the barre chord with the C-Major shape, only the E-Major shape, so when you kept saying, "C" I was seeing it, just not really registering it all.

so to play a major barre chord I could either use the E-Major shape or the C-Major shape? I had only ever heard of the E shape and the A-Major shape (when barring starts on the A string)...

You can play almost any chord shape to get a Major or Minor (the Am shape
works) bar chord, it's just whether or not you can finger the chord (some aren't
that easy to bar with your index and then play the rest of the chord with your
other 3-fingers). You typically can't use any chords with more than 3-fingers
because you're using the index to play the moveable bar version, thus you only
have 3-fingers left. If you're able to stretch a little bit you can also use the 1st
position D-Major, D-minor, D7, DMaj7, Dm7, Dsus2, Dsus4, Dm7b5 chord shapes.
Basically any first position chord in which you use 3 fingers to play can be used.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

stylo17

ianvomsaal wrote:

You can play almost any chord shape to get a Major or Minor (the Am shape
works) bar chord, it's just whether or not you can finger the chord (some aren't
that easy to bar with your index and then play the rest of the chord with your
other 3-fingers). You typically can't use any chords with more than 3-fingers
because you're using the index to play the moveable bar version, thus you only
have 3-fingers left. If you're able to stretch a little bit you can also use the 1st
position D-Major, D-minor, D7, DMaj7, Dm7, Dsus2, Dsus4, Dm7b5 chord shapes.
Basically any first position chord in which you use 3 fingers to play can be used.
Cheers . . .

- Ian

ahhh yes. okay. clear now. thank you very much Ian and everyone else. as always, much appreciated