Video Transcript And Relevant Links:
Hey there, I've had a student recently asked me how I could master that B chord with that partial bar thing. She told me she's tried the other B chords and they're okay but they really don't sound as good as this partial bar B chord. Here's what I'm talking about right here this thing. And of course you can use it for other chords too.
The first place often students needed is for a B chord and it's a very convenient way to make a B chord. But of all the bar chords that most students encountered, they find this partial bar the most difficult. I hadn't thought about it but I really don't talked much about that and I think I should. In this case, I have several tips that will help you get this B bar chord and if you're ready to kinda just take the bull by the horns I say go for it and integrate it into your practice little by little using these tips to help you and you will get a lot faster with a couple of little tweaks.
I made a little clip in my studio and I can show you a little closer so let's go on over there and I'll play this clip for you. It's only a couple of minutes lo. Two recommendations for learning the partial bar B chord. So this of course applies to any partial bar chord up and down the neck.
The first one which might seem counter intuitive is don't worry if you're muting this high E string or not. And here's the trick, when you play the partial bar B chord whether or not you mute that string doesn't make a big difference. There's a very tiny difference. Listen. Here's the beat and I'm letting the string ring. Oh, kinda ... there it is. Now I'm going to mute it. Can you tell the difference? No. Most people cannot. So like this, I'll unmute it. There, I can hear there's a fly high E but it doesn't make a difference. By the way it's the high E string not an E note. So that gives you a lot of lead way. Don't worry about it. Use the partial B chords without worrying about that and you'll get a lot of practice.
Now if you want to improve the sound a little bit, work on getting this bar a little bit better. That's a partial bar I'm pointing at my third finger on the fourth fret and I'm barring the fourth, third and second strings. Ideally, yes, you wouldn't bar the high E but I never worry about that myself if I accidentally touched it. What I'm doing is buckling the first knuckle and then raising the second knuckle up in the air. This only works if my hand is fairly up and down or even a little bit pushed out. If I pull it back like this there's no way I can do it. I'm gonna hit that E string easily so I need to let my arm kind of hang down. This is how I think about it. Let the elbow hang down and then push my hand forward a little bit and now I got more leverage. It is easier to make the partial bar chord.
Now my third tip is to just find some simple exercises to practice and there's no absolute right exercise. I suggest maybe just going up and down by half steps and trying to get the best sound if you can. Try pumping. What I mean is, make the chord and then release it and then make the chord and then release it as opposed to holding it down the whole time and getting sore.
Another good exercise would be to go to an open chord so you can get used to actually refingering the whole chord. A good one is an E chord they go well together but any chords. I like to practice at some point a different kind of bar chords as well. That's a very common movement going from the - we called it sixth string root bar chord to the fifth that's because the note of the name of the chord is on the sixth string and the fifth string.
I hope this little lesson was helpful for you. If you liked it, please give me a thumbs up wherever you are and leave me a comment.
My name is Tomas Michaud. I look forward to seeing you again. Let me know if there's something else you'd like to see me make for you and I'd be glad to help out.
Bye for now.
To help you with the B chord I’ve compiled a few exercises along with some tips to get you started. You can access this for free here: 3 Easy Exercises to Master the B Chord