Set Fire to the Third Bar (ha ha)

Today we learned about bar chords. I've been anticipating this for awhile, because it means I can now play Sweet Jane along with many other songs which have chords we have not yet learnt. Bar chords though are quite difficult. First of all, they are hard because you have to change the shape of your hand and use muscles that have not yet been used in that way. Your wrist tends to ache after a long time. They are also hard to master because there is more tendency to muffle strings and sound terrible.

By the end of the lesson I could play a couple of reasonable chords (D minor, for one) but I need a lot more practice before I feel confident about them. My left hand fingers are starting to sting again... now I'm using my pinkie finger too so I need to develop a callous there, and the skin is peeling off the others. Plus they are usually black after a practice session.

Anyway, the theoretical part of bar chords is easy enough to get your head around. You can use a hand shape you already know and slide it up along the neck of the guitar to the appropriate fret, which means you can play new notes. It also makes playing F easy- no tricky need to cover two strings with one finger.