So you've been strumming away on your guitar and ripping through some
pentatonic blues scales over the last few months. However, something in
the back of your mind is eating away at your playing style. You think
relentlessly for a few agonizing days and nights and then it hits you
like a freight train. When you see a band live they are playing the
guitar low on the neck while you have been playing chords towards the
nut. Eureka!
So you've been strumming away on your guitar and ripping through some
pentatonic blues scales over the last few months. However, something in
the back of your mind is eating away at your playing style. You think
relentlessly for a few agonizing days and nights and then it hits you
like a freight train. When you see a band live they are playing the
guitar low on the neck while you have been playing chords towards the
nut. Eureka!
The proper technique is to lay your index finger flat across a
particular fret (let's choose the third fret for now). The back of your
thumb pad will brace itself against the back of the neck and help you
make contact with the strings on the neck. You will want to test each of
the strings to make sure you can strike a note and not a muted string.
The next task is to finger an open chord shape with your remaining three
fingers (middle, ring, and pinky). The common open chord shapes are E,
Em, and A. However, you can still finger a C and G chord as well as some
non-traditional chords you have been experimenting.
As you slide the fretting hand up and down the neck you are effectively
changing the pitch of each chord 1/2 step over the course of each fret.
In other words, if you make an Em open bar chord shape on the third fret
it now becomes a G Chord. (Em on the open second fret, F on the first
fret, F# on the second fret, and then G on the third fret). If you
continue this same chord shape to the fifth fret it will become an A
Chord and so on and so forth.
As you slide the fretting hand up and down the neck you are effectively
changing the pitch of each chord 1/2 step over the course of each fret.
In other words, if you make an Em open bar chord shape on the third fret
it now becomes a G Chord. (Em on the open second fret, F on the first
fret, F# on the second fret, and then G on the third fret). If you
continue this same chord shape to the fifth fret it will become an A
Chord and so on and so forth.
