[Loraine]

Hey Barbara I feel for you barre chords are extremely difficult at the beginning and even tenured musicians don’t like them and avoid them whenever possible I’m in a jam club that has some very very talented musicians that have been playing probably 40 years or more they outwardly cringe and comment about God no not barre chords. I’ve heard professional musicians from bands that say that they can’t stand barre chords. I on the other hand am a freak and love barre chords, and I have small hands.

Small hands may feel like a detriment, but as moose pointed out many young children a play barre chords, and they have extremely small hands. It takes practice, building strength, expanding your finger flexibility and span.I have smaller hands and I too thought I would not be able to play a lot of things because my hands were so small and the spread of my fingers wasn’t great, but what I found was that I’m now able to do things that I could not do when I was a beginner and it’s because through playing and doing skills and practicing hammer and pull off and all the other skills that Tony teaches your building strength and your fingers your building dexterity and your finger spread loosen up and is easier to fret certain chords. I have arthritis, and there are days that are more difficult than other days I found them buying fingerless compression gloves helped I found them on Amazon. It is extremely important that you do stretches before and after playing especially when you have arthritis Tony has a course stretching if you haven’t looked at it please do so but also keep the arm warm Will add to the flexibility and this is through not only warming up by stretching you can manually warm it up by putting some warm towels compresses on your hands to help too if they’re swollen try alternating between ice and heat. I often put my hands under warm water to try to make them feel better to loosen up.

Make sure you have a good set up on your guitar maybe yours isn’t low enough and you need to have a Luther do a good set up. Is your guitar small enough for you often people have to get a guitar that has a smaller scale on it with a smaller neck I’m not sure what you’re playing.

The trick to barre chords, in my opinion, is finger strength, finger placement, and finding the sweet spot where each string when played separately Will play clearly and strumming the chord rings out clearly. It takes a lot of practice and is not something that you will get overnight but there may be a moment where all of a sudden it just falls into place. That happened for me with barre chords, but in so many areas of playing guitar. And it’s a very cool experience when it does happen. You don’t wanna miss it.

So the goal is to simply continue trying, knowing that it will take time and focusing on what you have control over which is your finger placement your building finger strength and practice. When you’re able to find that sweet spot to play the barre chords, and each note rings out clearly, take note of where and how your fingers are placed. Then play the chord, take hand off neck, then place fingers again and strum, and do this 10 times in a row without error, and you will have mastered it.

Moose had a great suggestion about going to another lesson. I was going to suggest going to the skills courses maybe taking a break and just focusing on something fun. If you haven’t taken the jumpstart courses yet I suggest you take them. You actually learn and play a song in the jumpstart to strumming and jumpstart to Flatpicking courses. Sometimes you just need a break. You have to do something that brought you pleasure in the past go back to it. You might be able to relive that enjoyment. You can go back to 30 days to play course that was always fun.

You’re doing great Barbara. It’s all baby steps. You waddle unsteadily, One foot in front of the other. You fall down a few times, but you get back up, dust yourself off, and keep trying.