Acoustic Guitar Advice - Stretching for bar chords

One tip I received is to take a video your hand playing these chords, and to compare that to online videos of good guitarists playing the same chords. (Justinguitar?) Check your thumb placement on the neck, fix it, and practice your arse off the right way to fix any bad habits.

ETA: It could also be the way you're resting the guitar in your lap that isn't enabling full range of your hand.

Not to get too personal but how wide is your neck at the nut? My Yari's play almost like an electric in size - while my Martin is a fist full in width.

There's variances there and also with the taper on down the neck that might make a difference. As well as radius across back of neck. Martin site has some good diagrams of different cross sections. I play a couple other Martins with friends that are 1 3/4" and the shape of the neck varies a good bit between the 4Martins I'm familiar with. So you might give some other guitars a feel.

Like he said wrist angle and thump placement will make a difference in being able to reach.

For me it matters a lot if I'm doing more finger style and having my thumb more centered on the back. Where having my thumb over the top to fret a low-E or even A string really starts to use up a lot of my hand for stretching. Playing with wrist bent out a little and rotating more around the bottom around helped me out (which moves your thump down some). Believe that's more of a classical position.

Here's one for you to look at... LINK

... it's Chris Cornell. His grip really changes up and down as he moves along. Hadn't specifically noticed before, but he's constantly doing a mix of wrist/thumb both high up and down low. Also here's a good 4fret stretch to help get there (G-bar shape)



although I usually (almost always) just bar the bottom four. That way if you omit high-E it's still a good sounding major chord, slip up a bit/hit and its a nice/acceptable 6th. (eta - it really becomes an easy stretch using 2 littlest fingers and omitting mr.bird finger than fretting whole thing with all 4 - a later step)

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Also here's a good 4fret stretch to help get there (G-bar shape)

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He could also play the B x64447, sort of a 1st inversion form of the chord. That saves him the reach to the low E string. Normally I play it x24442 but that's hard for some people.

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... it was just an easy 4fret stretch to work out on and maybe make the 3fret span easier.

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Yeah I know but he said he was having trouble making a B -- I assume using the conventional A barre shape. Your post gave me the idea that it might be easier to make a B your way but without the bass note until he can make the stretch.

I learned on a Takamine G-series and still use that guitar today.

I looked at that Thalia chart and your (I assume) Korean-made G-series Tak is a "16" radius. Japan-made Taks, the upper tier guitars, are 12" ... refer back to my first reply above, and they tend to have narrow necks in the big scheme of things. MIJs are incredible guitars for the asking prices, and used MIJs can be found for what you'd pay for a new MIK if you shop around patiently. You might want to find a MIJ Tak and test-drive it as your first effort if you think a different yet similar guitar is your best bet.

for that one b

Have you tried just the 4 center strings? You might listen to simply fretting the A string at second with pointing finger (instead of full bar) and DGB strings at fourth with your ring finger laid flat. (omitting both e strings)

If you are looking for an excuse to buy a cooler, better guitar you know we aren't going to try and stop you.

If you mean B as in barre at the second fret, I've found using my pinky for A shape Barre chords much easier than using my ring finger

Wait, are you saying that you only are using your pinky to press on all 3 strings for A shape barre chords?

NM - I think that's what you mean. Just seems difficult to me but I'm sure I can get it down with practice. I've actually never even thought to play A shaped chords without using 3 fingers (shows you how good I am haha). I never thought to just use 1 finger to press down those 3 strings.