Beginning Guitar IV - Lesson 4

Bar Chord Exercises

check your tuning

Lyle: Welcome everyone! The last few lessons have been about some of the basic bar chords, the moveable ones that you can play up and down the neck. This lesson is filled with exercises to help you get better at remembering where the main bar chords are located.

Lyle: Here's your first exercise using minor bar chords in the E and A positions:

exercise 1

exercise 1

Lyle: Notice in exercise 1 it starts with Cm off the 5th string then you play another Cm off the 6th string.

Lyle: Here's the same type of exercise, but using different chords:

exercise 2

exercise 2

Lyle: Next is the major chords:

exercise 3

exercise 3

Lyle: Now let's mix up those major chords a little:

exercise 4

exercise 4

Lyle: Those are all good exercises for you to practice because you get to see and hear the relationships of the bar chords in the E and A positions.

Lyle: Next is a combination of minor and major chords, much like you would use in a real song:

exercise 5

exercise 5

Lyle: I can tell you're all busy practicing because there isn't much chatter... :-)

sammy_andrews: Yup.

Al: My left hand is cramping, I can barely type now :-)

Lyle: Here's a rather long progression of minor and major chords for you to try:

exercise 6

exercise 6

tommy: Can you put together a dark evil progression?

Lyle: Yes, try using minor chords to do that. Minor chords have a dark and moody sound to them.

Joel: Yeah Lyle, one can almost make up Celtic Ballads with minor chords I think, it's cool sad depressing stuff.. ;)

Lyle: Here's my minor moody example I just made for you:

Tab 3

Lyle: The last exercise for you is based on the dominant 7 chords. These are the bluesy sound chords:

exercise 7

exercise 7

Lyle: Now I'd like to show you a basic blues progression that uses a combination of these chords such as the minor, major, and dominant chords:

blues progression 1

john: These chords seem to be the beginning of a 1-4-5 progression

blues progression 1

Lyle: John, exercise 7 goes from 1 - 4, 1 - 4 all the way up the neck.

Lyle: Once you learn the chord progression, try playing along to this looping jam track:

chord chart


Jam Track in Em

Lyle: Here's another way and place to play the chords for that last blues jam:

blues progression 2

blues progression 2

Al: Is the timing right on that last blues progression?

Lyle: Yes, the rhythm is a little different for blues progression 2.

Lyle: That's all for this lesson. You have a lot to practice with these bar chord exercises. These will help you build up wrist strength too.