Barre chord


In music, a barre chord is a type of chord on a guitar or other stringed instrument, that the musician plays by using one or more fingers to press down multiple strings across a single fret of the fingerboard.
Players often use this chording technique to play a chord that is not restricted by the tones of the guitar's open strings. For instance, if a guitar is tuned to regular concert pitch, with the open strings being E, A, D, G, B, E, open chords must be based on one or more of these notes. To play an F chord the guitarist may barre strings so that the chord root is F.
Most barre chords are "moveable" chords, as the player can move the whole chord shape up and down the neck. Commonly used in both popular and classical music, Barre chords are frequently used in combination with "open" chords, where the guitar's open strings construct the chord. Playing a chord with the barre technique slightly affects tone quality. A closed, or fretted, note sounds slightly different from an open, unfretted, string. Barre chords are a distinctive part of the sound of pop music and rock music.
Using the barre technique, the guitarist can fret a familiar open chord shape, and then transpose, or raise, the chord a number of half-steps higher, similar to the use of a capo. For example, the current chord is an E major and the next is an F major, the guitarist barres the open E major up two frets from the open position to produce a barred F major chord. Such chords are hard to play for beginners due to the pressing of multiple strings with a single finger.

Etymology

The term barre comes from the method of using the index finger to form a rigid "bar" across the strings. The original spelling "barré" is French, translating to "barred".

Technique and application

Guitarists typically use barre chords to voice chords in higher positions. Keys that don't have many open notes in standard tuning require many barre chords. The two most commonly barred notes are variations on the fingering shapes of A and E in first position. The E-type barre chord is an E chord shape barred up and down the frets, transposing the chord. For example, the E chord barred one fret up becomes an F chord. The next fret up is F, followed by G, A, A, B, B, C, C, D, E, and then back to E at fret twelve.
E A
E-------------0---------------5---
B-------------0---------------5---
G-------------1---------------6---
D-------------2---------------7---
A-------------2---------------7---
E-------------0---------------5---
Guitar tablature of an open E chord and an E-shape A barre chord.
The "A" type barre chord, occasionally called the double barre, is the A chord shape moved up and down the frets. To barre the A chord shape, the guitars puts the index finger across the top five strings, usually touching the 6th string to mute it. They then barre either the ring or little finger across the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings two frets down, or one finger frets each string. For instance, Barred at the second fret, the A chord becomes B. From fret one to twelve, the barred A becomes B, B, C, C, D, E, E, F, F, G, A, and at the twelfth fret, it is A again.
A D
E-------------0---------------5---
B-------------2---------------7---
G-------------2---------------7---
D-------------2---------------7---
A-------------0---------------5---
E---------------------------------
Guitar tablature of an open A chord and an A-shape D barre chord.
Sometimes the gutiarist leaves out the highest note in a double barre chord. Most variations of these two chords can be barred: dominant 7ths, minors, minor 7ths, etc.
Minor barre chords include a minor third in the chord rather than the major third. Example:
F Fm C Cm
E--------1--------1--------3-------3-------
B--------1--------1--------5-------4-------
G--------2--------1--------5-------5-------
D--------3--------3--------5-------5-------
A--------3--------3--------3-------3-------
E--------1--------1------------------------
In addition to the two common shapes above, barre/movable chords can also be built on any chord fingering, provided that the shape leaves the first finger free to create the barre, and that the chord does not require the fingers to extend beyond a four fret range. Examples:
D A
E--------2--------5-----
B--------3--------2-----
G--------2--------2-----
D--------4--------2-----
A--------5--------4-----
E-----------------5-----
The above shows D major in open "C" shape form and A major in open "G" shape form. In the example above, the "C" shape offers an alternative voicing to the open D major and to the "A" shaped D major in fifth position. Variations of the basic major and minor triad chords can also be formed using the barred chord as their foundation. For example, the open Cadd9 shape can be used in its C shape barre form up the guitar neck, as desired.

CAGED System

The CAGED system is an acronym for the chords C, A, G, E, and D. This acronym is shorthand for the use of barre chords that can be played anywhere on the fret board as described above. Some guitar instructors use it to teach students the open chords that can work as barre chords across the fret board. By replacing the nut with a full barre, a player can use the chord shapes for C, A, G, E, and D anywhere on the fret board to play any major chord in any key. This system also provides a way to remember scale shapes, though some debate the usefulness of this teaching method due to potential technical problems.

Use in popular music

The use of the leading-tone imperfect authentic cadence in popular music is often attributed to the ease of sliding a barre chord up two frets. In the context of classical music,Fernando Sor recommends using barring and shifting sparingly. His principal reason for avoiding barre chords is that they require more effort—but he acknowledges that they are frequently the best or only solution for playing some passages.

Partial barre chords

F F
E-------------1---------------1---
B-------------1---------------1---
G-------------2---------------2---
D-------------3---------------3---
A-------------3-------------------
E-------------1-------------------
An F-shape "great bar" chord and an F-shape "small bar" chord.
Guitarists distinguish between the "great bar"/"grand bar" or full barre chord and incomplete or "small bar" chords such as the half barre. The small bar or regular F chord is easily obtainable, but "Being able to play the Small Bar chord formations does little towards developing the technique required to play the Great Bar chord formations."
Gm Gm Gm Gm7
E------3------3------3------3------
B------3------3------3------3------
G------3------3------3------3------
D------5------5-------------3------
A------5---------------------------
E------3---------------------------
E-shape Gm 'great', 'small', "simplified version",
and Em7-shape Gm7 'small' chords.
The 'simplified version' on the upper three strings is "useful in playing solos," and may be played with any of the first three fingers. The minor seventh chord whose root is located on the first may instead be considered an added sixth chord whose root is located on the third string, in which case one may consider the Gm7 a Badd6.

Diagonal barre chord

A diagonal barre chord is a "very rare chord" involving "the barring of a couple of strings with the first finger on different frets."

Notation

Standard music notation indicates the barre technique with one of two letters, "B" or "C"—followed by a positional indication via an Arabic number or Roman numeral. Examples: BIII, CVII, B2, C7.
The two abbreviations "B", "C", represent the terms barre or bar, cejillo or capotasto, the later being Spanish and Italian terms for capo. The choice of letter is an editorial decision that reflects the style adopted. Roman numerals are more prevalent than Arabic numbers to avoid confusion with other fingering indications and common chord symbols. Roman numerals without the "B" or "C" indicates fingerboard position only.
Editorial style also affects partial barre indications. A vertical strike-through of the letter "C" commonly indicates a partial barre—the number of strings to barre depends on context and performer choice. Other editorial styles use superscript fractions indicates the number of strings to barre in addition to the letters B or C. In some notation styles, the letters "B" or "C" are omitted altogether, with the number of courses to barre written as an index. For example: on a guitar, VII4 indicates a barre on the 7th fret over the highest four strings. There is no rule for whether to write full barre chords with indices or without. It is a matter of the editors personal taste. It is customary to place the barre sign above the staff, with a spanning line to mark duration.
The barre is often signed on tablature as "C" with the fret number as Roman numeral, such as
CVII CVIII CXII CII
E--------7--------8--------13-------2-------
B--------9--------8--------15-------4-------
G--------9--------8--------14-------2-------
D--------9--------10-------12-------4-------
A--------7--------10-------12-------2-------
E--------7--------8--------12-------2-------
E Cm Dm B7