It's time to move on to a more full sounding chord:  Bar Chords.

What you will find is a bar chord (also known as a barre chord) is essentially an extension of a power chord.  They provide more notes, which gives it a more full sound.  If you ever play rhythm guitar in a band, you will need to know these.  They're used in many pop/rock songs.

The other difference you'll find is that with bar chords, because of the additional notes they could be either major or minor, where with power chords there is no differentiation.

So first lets look at the concept of barring.

In the above photo, you will see my index finger is pressed down on the 3rd fret, tight enough to hold down each fret on all 6 strings.  This is what we mean when we say barring.   

While you are holding this down, you then will place your ring finger on the 5th fret of the A string, pinky finger on 5th fret of the D string, middle finger on 4th fret of the G string.  This should look like the photo below. 

Below is a tab of this.
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What you have learned is the fingering for the major bar chord in the E form or E shape (don't worry about the name of this for now, we'll focus on this later).  

In this example you played it on the 3rd fret, but you can take this same fingering and move it to any fret.  For example lets take this same exact fingering, but move it down to the first fret, as in the photo below.

Below is a tab of this.

Once you are comfortable with this, congratulations you can play bar chords :)

Now lets put this together in a full sequence by playing the following exercise.
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What we're doing here is putting the bar chords in a context where you are playing rhythm, but then also adding leads.  Think of it like this:  the rhythm guitarist in a band will be playing the power and bar chords, while the lead guitarist will play solos and more individual notes instead of chords.  Of course any good guitarist will know how to play both, but for the sake of simplicity that's a good way to look at it.

Once you have this down, lets add more.  Play the first exercise, but then add the below tab to combine the two.

We're adding another bar chord on the 6th fret, but again we follow the same fingering as the previous two chords you played, and then adding more individual notes at the end.  Combine these two exercises by playing them one after another.  Practice this until it becomes smooth.  

When you can do this... congratulations you can play some rhythm and lead guitar. 

​Click the link below for Lesson 5.

Lesson 5