a question about playing the acoustic guitar?

Question

how do i change full bar chords seamlessly without little short annoying breaks?

Answer 1

To some extent, other than when sliding between bar chords, there's no such thing as a completely seamless transition, between barred or even non-barred chords. There's always some transition time. It takes a lot of practice to make the transitions essentially inaudible to the listener. One thing that helps with bar chords is learning to use alternate fingerings, so that, for instance, when playing the barred "A"-shape chord, you learn to use either your ring or pinky finger to cover the D, G, and B strings two frets from the bar, rather than using your middle, ring, and pinky fingers together.

Perhaps more importantly, outside of some country and folk tunes, you actually don't end up playing full bar chords as often as you might expect. Rock and jazz music in particular frequently use only pieces of chords (in jazz this is known as "comping"), so you might, for, say, a C7 chord, simply play C-E-Bb, leaving out the fifth (G) entirely. And, as any electric guitar player will tell you, often, in rock music, one plays only the tonic and the fifth, or maybe the tonic, the fifth, and the octave (so an A chord would simply be A-E, or A-E-A, played on the fifth fret, rather than a full "E"-shaped chord barred on the fifth fret). This shape can by moved very quickly all around the guitar.

Good luck.

DJ

Answer 2

One way to perform smooth changes of barre chords is to run a lead-in to the next chord. Think of Johnny Cash's song, "I Walk the Line," by runs his lead guitarist did and that made the song famous.

Another way is to attack the bass, or the fundamental tone of the chord first, giving time for your fingers to grasp the remaining portion of the chord before strumming.

Answer 3

practice. I had to practice to get that one down