Video Question: Barre Chords

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Date: November 5th, 2007 | Length: 3.43 | Instructor: David MacKenzie

Louis Aves asks: "Hi Steve- What is the correct position of the thumb when making a barre chord ? I have tried putting my thumb in line with my first finger and also running my thumb along the neck pointing toward the nut but both cause a lot of pain around the base of my thumb when I move position.The only way I can kind of do it is by bending my thumb in almost a right angle shape and using the tip, not the pad,to press on the back of the neck but this makes for quite a lot of movement and time to get from open to barre chords and vice versa. Any suggestions? (Apart from sell my guitar ! ) Love the lessons Steve." Another benefit of being a member of JamPlay is the video response section. Our expert staff fields questions from our members and provides video responses each week.

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Puma_jaguar asks, "Hi My name is Saul ,im taking lessons with Steve Eulberg and im a begginer i really enjoy the lessons, i have an acoustic guitar Esteban legacy AL-100 41" and i think that the neck of my guitar is very small im not sure,the top of the neck is 1 5/8" and low is 2 1/8", i have problem when i'm playing the easy c cord ,my first finger hit the second string first fret, but when im playing part of my tip of my finger touches the first string too and it makes a buzz all the time i dont know if it is because the neck is very small and the strings are really close could you tell me, if there is a position that will help me not to make my tip touch both strings ( how will i change to easy c chord to d7th chord?) if the neck is small or how should i bend my fingers in this case? . how should i hold the guitar guitar easier? is the position of my thumb incorret ? thanks" View Response

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Thumb Independence - April 21st, 2008 (3 minutes, 10 seconds)

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