Can somebody explain barre chords to me?

This is an Amaj:


It's got an open A, E, A, C#, E.

This is an Amaj bar chord:


It's got a A, E, A, C#, E, A

It's the same chord, just with a fuller sound because of the extra A note.

If you slide that bar chord to the seventh fret, it would be a Bmaj (up 2 steps). At the twelth fret it would be an Emaj (up 5 more steps).

Some good answers up in hurrr

What's the science behind building chords? Why do the notes get put together the way they do?

And why do they get the names they do, major, minor, sharps etc?

since when? I haven't lived in the US for well over two decades. when I was a little nipper and studying music, it was BAR.

did this come in with the pussyfication of 'Merrka?

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It is used both ways

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yeah, I saw that googling now.

weird.

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Some good answers up in hurrr What's the science behind building chords?

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Chords are built from the notes of the major scale. Typically, a chord is formed from the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the major scale which is called a triad. Think of it as your foundation chord in which other notes can be added/taken out to create different varations.

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Why do the notes get put together the way they do?

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Because our ears are tuned to the major/minor scales system of harmony. Some eastern types of music use different intervals in the scales, thus creating more of an 'exotic' sound.

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And why do they get the names they do, major, minor, sharps etc?

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Major/minor is something completely different from sharp/flats.

1) Major/minor comes from the triad I mentioned above. When you have the 1st, 3rd, 5th notes of the major scale, that creates a major triad/chord (happy sounding chord).

When the 3rd is brought down back one fret (flatted 3rd), it creates a minor triad/chord (sad sounding chord).

2)Sharps and flats are just the notes "between" our letter notes. For examples, in music there are 7 letters, ABCDEFG. However, between most of theses notes are sharps/flats.

A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - A and so on. no notes between B and C, E and F.

You can have a C# Minor chord, for example. Don't confuse sharp/flat with major/minor. Two different things.

Hope this helps.

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not really. major and minor, are just two modes of a 7 mode system: ionian and dorian. we call them major and minor because it simplifies the system. in actuality you have heard the other scales and know them well. when you hear jeff beck or eric johnson, they usually play in dorian, or a pentatonic transition from dorian to minor, or dorian to major. al dimeola and john mclaughlin use mixolydian a good bit, and yngwie and blackmoore use phrygian almost exclusively (especially as phrygian dominant of harmonic minor).

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Smoke on the Water??

How do you play it?

I am lost. Should have bought my guitar when I picked up golf.

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The other notes are E and C sharp, since they are the major fifth and major third. If the chord were an "A minor," the minor scale would determine the other two notes, and they would be E and C, the minor fifth and minor third.

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actually... both of those 5ths would be perfect 5ths. you can have M3 and m3, but 5ths are perfect or diminished.

sorry, not trying to be an arse.

ill explain as easy as anyone wants. you have a possible 12 notes before you repeat the series chromatically. where you start the #1 is irrelevant, it only changes the name. the spacing STAYS THE SAME regardless of what the root is as long as you stay in the same mode. inside of these 12 possibles, we play 7 note scales. the eighth note is the root again. here is the layout of every possible note from the root (#1).

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12

okay. now where we place the notes on this 12 possibilities, is what gives us this name. the modes are
ionian
dorian
phrygian
lydian
mixolydian
aeolian
locrian

so lets lay out an ionian mode. you can call it major if you want, but its ionian. w=whole tone, and h=half tone.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-1

W-w-h-w-w-w-h is the spacing for ionian. i bolded the W to show a relative position for later.

effectively that same spacing is used for every mode. you just start on the 1st-7th relative spot. you all like to use major vs minor, so lets now make a minor. minor is aeolian, which is the sixth in the series of modes.

w-w-h-w-w-W-h-w-w-h-w-w so to make the aeolian, all i did was count down 6 positions on the spacing and place my root there. i extended the ionian spacing out to show that the relationship between ionian and aeolian is cyclical. but the same could be said for any of the 7 modes.

so lets go back to our 13 notes (12 plus our octave root) and apply the aeolian mode. we already know the spacing because we set that up, so all we have to do is lay that template out either over the frets, or keys.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-1

so if you want dorian, just go back to your original spacing and start on the second position and fill out your 7 notes.

I named some things to give you some stuff to look up. If you really want to understand it, I think this book by Tom Kolb focused on the guitar is a great place to start:

Music Theory: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask (Guitar Method)

Among many other things, it will teach you how chords work and why they have the shapes they do.