When Should I Start Learning Barre Chords?

What is a barre chord?

A lot of times you'll see an advanced guitar player placing one finger across five or six strings and forming a chord with the rest of the fingers. That's a barre chord. When you remove open strings, (strings that have no fingers on them), everything on the guitar can be moved. This enables you to play the same notes, chords or songs in different sections of the fingerboard.


When do I start learning them?

Many students try to learn too many things too fast, leading to frustration and confusion. I try to get my beginning guitar students to wait until they've learned the basic chords, can change smoothly and can make them sound nice and clear. Learning guitar is difficult enough in the beginning without making it even harder by trying to play things you're just not ready for.

What's the difference between barre chords and power chords?

The main difference is that power chords are really not chords at all, but rather what we call intervals. A chord needs to be made up of 3 or more different notes.  Power chords are what you hear in the background of many popular rock songs.

So the take away from today's post is to remember that learning guitar is going to take time. You definitely don't want to have to try learning something only to find out that you weren't ready for it.