Written by Danny Poole | 23 April 2009

Bar chords are broken into 2 parts,

• The Bar (this is first finger that covers either the five or six strings).
• The Extension (the fingers that make up the chord shape, 2nd, 3rd & 4th fingers)

The first two animated examples below are showing the same idea two different ways. An open chord that can be played using only 3 fingers can be transformed into a bar chord. In the first example you can see how moving the E7 shape up one fret turns the chord into a F7 chord. By using the method of bar chord placement learnt previously, you could then play a G7 chord using the same shape but moved to the 3rd fret.

---

5 Main E Shape Extensions

These are the five most common extensions I have come across,

• Major
• Minor
• Seventh
• Major Seventh
• Minor Seventh

Learn these common extensions first, then you can move on to some more colorful chords later.

Major

---

Minor

---

Seventh

---

Major Seventh

---

Minor Seventh

< Prev		Next >