[petelanger]

All the best for your journey in this your forth year that started in May!

Is your son’s name Luke?

May the forth be with you!

[petelanger]

Nice! And good to know that the right guitar makes it easier to play.

[petelanger]

Nice to hear from a veteran TACer! Please do try to drop in more often and tell us about what you’re doing!

Peter

[petelanger]

I would go with whatever feels more natural. I wouldn’t switch if it causes a lot of confusion. You can definitely get by without use of the pinky.

I just read this article yesterday about what Andy Summers (very notable guitarist for The Police) where he said you can play any chord with 2 or 3 notes. I’ll try to find it again and post it here. He has a very unique style of playing, as does with Stewart Copeland on the drums. Add Sting’s infamous song writing skills, and well you’ve got one of the top bands of the 80’s.

[petelanger]

I actually found it right away, thanks Google!
https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/andy-summers-robert-fripp-collaborations

I see that the OP posted about 2 months ago. I am wondering what his decision was?

guitarworld.com

“I’ve never played a barre chord in my life. I hate them. You don’t need more than two or three notes to express a chord”: Andy Summers on his “abstracted instrumental” collabs with Robert Fripp, his dream pedalboard, and what he learned from Béla Bartók

It was the ’80s and Andy Summers was living the dream as guitar culture grew, and his side-project with King Crimson's mad-genius Fripp gave him the opportunity to work his art-house cinema influences into music

[petelanger]

Oh my! That’s a bit of a surprise, lol!

Rubber bridge…..muted sound, that’s interesting. Maybe it beats the pinky mute (that Tony uses and I struggle with)! Haha!

Hope you will be able to play this beauty soon!

Peter

[petelanger]

paradise5254, you just have to learn to not worry about whether you can do the daily challenge well or not. They are set up to challenge everyone here!!!! So it’s little surprise that they challenge beginners even more.

Remember, if it’s easy you are not being challenged much and growth will be small or non-existent. When it’s hard is when the most growth is happening. The secret is that this growth may not be noticed until months later. If you give up now, then that growth will never meet the light of day!

Keep rockin’ Friend!

Peter

[petelanger]

Thanks Loraine!

I feel like the chords are coming along as far as knowing the shape and executing that. Now it’s all about quickness, got to be able to change chords in a flash if you want to play actual music.

[petelanger]

“There are professional musicians that don’t play them and avoid them to the nth degree.”

Yeah, Andy Summers claims he never played a barre chord in his life! I posted an article about this in another thread,

https://tonypolecastro.com/family-forums/topic/learning-left-handed-or-fretting-without-a-pinky/

which didn’t seem to hold him back….

[petelanger]

I started angling the finger to mimic Tony, lol!
When I was muting almost all the strings I started looking more closely at Coach. The straight finger wasn’t working. Now that I am able to play it that way, I can’t when the finger is straightened. I pretty much have it coming over the top the fret with a bit of curvature allowing me to reach the 3rd fret nicely with my ring and pinky fingers.

Angling the neck forward (which is actually pulling back with the right elbow with the guitar body pivoting on my right leg) definitely makes things easier.

I’m not able to play it on demand yet, but I can form the chord and then tweak away until everything is clean in about 5 – 10 seconds. Then I can hold it long enough to play through the E shape exam. I’m trying to this about 4 or 5 times daily.

The B chord (A shape) is a piece of cake, I can get this in a couple of seconds and hold it indefinitely.

[petelanger]

❤

[petelanger]

Haha, you may be onto something!

[petelanger]

Good advice!

[petelanger]

I had fun with Horse With No Name very early in my TAC journey which was this summer. Chords are easy, the strumming is slightly more challenging but you can simplify it by just doing one strum per measure.

[petelanger]

Today I worked for quite a while on trying to get at least one barre chord working. The full F is still out of reach but I’m having a bit of success with the “mini” F. What I had trouble with was that so called “rolling of the pointer finger. It just didn’t want to roll that way and at the same time allow me to place my middle and ring fingers in the second and third frets. But I’ve been heeding various peoples instructions about tucking the elbow tight into my side and looking for the sweet spot. Now I’ve got that mini F in about the same place I had the G chord in May this year (able to play it cleanly on occasion rather than never).

Spacing of the fingers definitely has a lot to do with it also because it really helps to get your fingers up against the frets so you don’t have to push down as hard. That’s an area that’s hard for beginners because you haven’t yet trained your fingers to be spread apart in that way (to reach across those big frets near the nut).