Talk:Barre chord

Naming: Barre or bar
So is it "Barre" or "Bar"? The name of the article should be the same as how they're named in article itself. -albrozdude 23:49, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * They are barre chords. Don't ask me why, they just are. Onsmelly 05:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

They are barre chords - they were invented by Martin Barre.192.100.124.219 08:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Personal attacks are a bad thing, but can I just say, that is an extremely stupid idea? That barre chords did not exist until the guitarist for a 1960s/1970s progressive art-rock band invented them?  You have to be severely ignorant to be able to believe that.  It's crazy.  Barre chords have been around for centuries.  I was just advising someone on the Talk page for "If I Fell" to become aware of musical history prior to rock/pop, and don't assume that everything The Beatles (or Jethro Tull) did was innovative genius.  Some of it is absolutely standard.  Such as barre chords.


 * Damn.
 * --63.25.4.206 (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It is Barre, but they are not named for Martin Barre.Kurasuke 02:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * To say the least. --63.25.4.206 (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

CLARIFYING: Barre is just an old spelling (from middle English) of bar and means just what you think. Use the dictionary people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Impapa22 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that it's not spelled "barré" at all, because that would change the pronunciation to "bar-AY," would it not? I'm going to remove it for now, but if anyone has some really compelling reason that it should be spelled that way, it can go back. DaddyTwoFoot (talk) 17:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It is pronounced "bar-AY" in the UK (among classical guitarists anyway), and it is indeed from the French; but as with all other things, the American pronunciation has taken over to a large extent (compounded by the usual difficulties of producing accented characters on typewriters and now PCs). Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:00, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Oddly, I've played guitar for a number of decades longer than wikis existed and going through my library of old guitar books and tabs, I can't find a single one that uses "barre" instead of "bar". From Arlen Roth to Hendrix to misc. Jazz and Classical books...All say "bar" not "barre".

Did somebody reinvent the language since the early 80s when I didn't need books anymore? I think there would be a compelling reason, based on general guitar literature (perhaps this is an English language thing) to not worry about the "é" and wonder why it isn't "Bar". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.29.81 (talk) 07:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Please cite any of these sources. Hyacinth (talk) 08:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

A google book search for "'bar chord'" shows 1,190 results, "'barr chord'" 5 results, and "'barre chord'" 1,800. If one adds "guitar" outside the quotes the search shows 518, 4, and 1,460 results. This indicates that "barre" is about as to 3 times more common than "barr". Hyacinth (talk) 08:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The book serach is useful for veryfing that the article is properly titled. As per WP:OR, it's not a proper reference for inclusion in the article. I have removed it. --Kvng (talk) 01:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Title on image
The image's title reads: "A barre chord (so-called "E Major shape"), with the index finger used to bar the strings." Is there any reason for that "so-called" there? (As far as I know, using "so-called" implies a negative context.)

I will change it for now. If it should actually have that "so-called" in there, then feel free to change it back for me.

amit ron-

192.116.116.238 (talk) 13:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "So-called" meant "colloquially" since the "shape" is named for the open position chord and this may be confusing since you end up with the actual chord played and the "chord shape" and as you can imagine this is "guitar-player speak" that classical theorists look down upon. Hyacinth (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Could use some work
The article seems to be centred perhaps on one style of teaching or playing guitar rather than a general view, and this leads to some misleading statements. This article implies that barre chords are just more advanced variations of open chords. For example, where it treats barre chords as transpositions of the "original" open chords (and indeed, says that shifting open chords is the "primary purpose" of barre chords), or where open chords are called "standard", implying that barre chords are somehow non-standard. But this is not true. Barre chords are just chords which happen to involve a barre -- there's nothing non-standard about them. A barre is a general technique which is not limited to being used for barre chords (Wikipedia doesn't seem to have an article for the barre itself -- not that I expect it to). Open chords are not in any way more "original" or "standard" than barre chords, even if some first learn about barre chords in this way. For example, some set of notes may merely be desired to be played, and when using a barre chord is the best way to do it, behold, a barre chord is used. The primary purpose of the chord in this case is not to shift an open chord, but the primary purpose is to play that set of notes in an efficient way. Indeed, these claims in the article appear to be unsourced.Atethnekos (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And eating is only for pleasure and not sustenance. Sure, your POV makes sense once you can play both open and barre chords, but you don't start out lifting hundreds of pounds, you start out light. Barre chords are "original" or "standard" in comparison to barre chords in a few ways, actually. Barre chords are named for their open forms. Barre chords take more strength to play than their open forms. They are harder on the skin of the index finger.
 * However, if you have a source or sources you can cite which show that transposing open chords is "not the 'primary' purpose" of barre chords, or provides an example of a barre chord which has no open equivalent, that would be great. Hyacinth (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

A barre chord is a feature of many fretted instruments, not just the guitar. No mention of this anywhere in the article. 2.24.27.155 (talk) 18:59, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I too have noticed that. Why is guitar the the only chordal instrument mentioned in the article? Theoretically, it seems as if barre chords could be formed on almost any multi-string (i.e., chordal) instrument that can be fingered by hand, including mandolins, violins and banjos. I don't understand this article's emphasis on guitar, unless it is due to its common usage in the amplified era of pop/rock/country, post-1950s, etc. For example, barre chords were used extensively by tenor banjoists in the 1920s for Dixieland jazz accompaniment. Why is there so much focus on guitar, or a complete lack of anything that was before the era of rock 'n roll? S. Jenkins (talk) 20:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 08:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 09:49, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Lead
Per WP:LEAD, this article's lead should probably be rewritten since it is pretty much as long as the body of the article. Hyacinth (talk) 09:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Hyacinth (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Barré is French not Spanish
In the article it says > The specific spelling "barre" comes from Spanish, as the guitar historically originated in Spain. Barré in Spanish is cejilla. The word barré is French as far as I know and doesn't exist in the Spanish vocabulary. There might be the word "barra" for bar, but that's not barré either. If you have other sources proof me wrong. 92.204.54.143 (talk) 15:11, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Etymology
The citation that I have deleted asserted that the term barre is used "because of the Spanish origins of the instrument". It is a vague claim at best, and more likely, a dubious correlation.

As the user in above talk section and a previous editor both correctly write, barre (spelled with acute accent) is a French word. It does not exist in Spanish nor in Latin. Recourse to any dictionary will confirm.

The citation used to assert a Spanish origin also inclused its author's POV (opinion) that the term helps to prevent confusion with the term used to describe the musical measure, "bar". Again, a dubious assertion as there would be few contexts in which such confusion would arise.

Anybody can write a guitar method or a treatise on the instrument. I've read many that contain errors, ranging from gross misinformation to trivial errors. The citation used is simply not of scholarly standard. RichardJ Christie (talk)

Article rationale
"Barre technique" is distinct from "barre chord". In my view, this article would be better rewritten under the title "Barre technique" or perhaps simply, "Barre". It should first describe the technique and then matters arising from its application.

As a "Barre chord" is simply a chord resulting from the application of barre technique it can have its own subsection. This will remove the ambiguities and shortcomings described in some of the previous sections above. RichardJ Christie (talk)

Define Barre chord
In the top of the page it describes a barre chord as "using one or more fingers to press down multiple strings across a single fret of the fingerboard" and then shortly after that it says "to play a chord that is not restricted by the tones of the guitar's open strings" and "the player can move the whole chord shape up and down the neck" but those two things have nothing to do with each other. For example:

Fsus2 (I'm not smart enough to figure out why it makes the chord boxes sideways, sorry)
 * -1-|
 * -1-|
 * -0-|
 * -3-|

This is holding down multiple stings with one finger but is not movable because of the open string.

Cmaj7
 * -5-|
 * -4-|
 * -5-|
 * -3-|
 * -3-|

This is a movable shape but no finger is holding down multiple stings.

There are more flaws to the article but this is the biggest one in my opinion.Brian Earl Haines (talk) 03:29, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll tweak it to add qualifiers like "most" and "many" and "usually". Finding the odd exception doesn't invalidate the fact that the statements are mostly true for how most people use barre chords.  -- Jayron 32 13:37, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Barre chord forms and CAGED fingering
Since CAGED points to this page, I have to talk about it here. The two should be separate, but they are often confused. On Youtube, you'll see many guitarists describing CAGED as a method for playing chords up the neck based on open string forms. This will work, but my understanding of CAGED is that it is a system for fingering single note lines, not chords. The fingering forms are called C, A, G, E and D because they overlap with the positions of the arpeggios as played by the chord forms. This is true by definition - if you're going to play a major scale in one position, you have to play the notes of the arpeggios of those chord forms - it's the same damn notes, after all. Obviously, this page does not cover single note fingering, so there's a problem here. However, a note links to a 'why you should not used CAGED' web page that does refer to single note fingering, and not chords. It seems to me that CAGED needs its own page. A link could send chord forms to this page, and take care of single note fingering on its own.

MarkinBoston (talk) 16:44, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Another title on image
In the image with small Gm, it is described as E-shaped. I believe this should be Em shaped..? 2A00:23C7:821F:BF01:9DCE:EB4C:7BC5:4928 (talk) 06:56, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I think E-shaped is fine, in terms of how chords are referred to using the CAGED system? JezGrove (talk) 07:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)