Left Hand Technique

Lesson 4/97 | Study Time: 5 Min

Course: Beginner Electric Guitar

Left Hand Technique

Bar chords are difficult to play at first and require a great deal of practice before they are comfortable to use. Try to keep the first finger of the left hand straight and parallel to the fret wires. It is also important to keep the other fingers arched and use the tips of the fingers only. The left hand thumb must be kept behind the neck.

Keep first finger straight.

Keep thumb behind neck.

Once you are reasonably comfortable with the full bar technique, try playing an open E chord with your 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers and then sliding them up one fret and placing a full first finger bar behind them to play an F chord. This is demonstrated in the following example. The G and Am chords here are both open chords.

You are often required to move quickly between single notes and bar chords on the electric guitar. In the following example, all the single notes are played with either the first finger or open strings. The Bm chord uses a bar across 5 strings and the A chord is played with a first finger bar across the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings. This one should give your first finger a good workout. Notice that the first string is not strummed in this example.

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Class Sessions

1- Using the Whole Fretboard 2- Notes on the First String 3- The 12-Bar Blues 4- The Eighth Note 5- The Triplet 6- Notes on the Fourth String 7- Sixteenth Notes 8- Playing Two Strings Together 9- The Minor Pentatonic Scale 10- Chords 11- INTRODUCTION 12- The Half Bar 13- Rests 14- Ties And Syncopation 15- Using the Guitar Pickups 16- Minor Chords 17- The Major Scale 18- Arpeggios 19- Learning All the Notes 20- Using Guitar Effects 21- Vibrato 22- How to Read Music 23- Scale Degrees 24- Moving to Different Keys 25- Slurs 26- The Trail Off 27- Five Forms of the Pentatonic 28- The Release Bend 29- Moving Between Forms 30- Getting Your Hands Moving 31- Bending Notes 32- The Slide 33- The Trill 34- Analyzing What You Play 35- Reverb 36- C Major Scale in Open Position 37- Sliding Pattern 2 38- Electric Guitars 39- Identifying Scale Patterns 40- The Lead-in 41- The Full Bar 42- Notes on the Sixth String 43- Vibrato With Bent Notes 44- Sixteenth Note Groupings 45- Slight Bends 46- Swing Rhythms 47- Chords I IV and V in all Keys 48- Tones and Semitones 49- Right Hand Technique 50- Overdrive and Distortion 51- Alternate Picking 52- Notes on the Fifth String 53- Power Chords 54- Chord Symbols 55- Tablature 56- Rests With Chord Playing 57- Playing Two Strings With the First Finger 58- Pickup Selector Switches 59- Visualizing 60- The G Major Scale 61- Picking the Open Strings 62- Pentatonic Blues Solo 63- Notes on the Second String 64- The Shuffle 65- The Chromatic Scale 66- Delay 67- Notes on the Sixth String 68- The Symbols 8va and loco 69- Music Notation 70- Harmonizing Scales With Power Chords 71- Movable Power Chords 72- Left Hand Technique 73- Rhythm Notation 74- Riffs 75- Electric Guitar Pickups 76- Learning the Notes on the Staff 77- Jam Along Progressions 78- Amplifiers 79- Notes on the Third String 80- Left Hand Technique 81- Chorus 82- Learning the Whole Fretboard 83- Strumming 84- Keys and Key Signatures 85- The Open Position 86- Listening 87- The Open Strings of the Guitar 88- Notes on the Guitar Fretboard 89- Flanger 90- Types of Amplifiers 91- Major Chord Formations 92- More titles by LearnToPlayMusic.com 93- Understanding the Control Knobs 94- Bar Lines 95- Strings 96- Time Signatures 97- Chord Symbols

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Left Hand Technique