The Guitarist's Many Titles

So, today I finally got back to playing. I texted my viola friend, Miguel, and said we should play together if he wasn't doing anything. We found a bunch of new songs to play. I found out he also plays the piano, so he helped me tab out one of my favorite songs-- from the piano app on his iPad. He's even been helping me with tuning by ear. I had to tune my guitar half a step down for a few songs, so we used his virtual piano for that, too.

Then in the middle of one of the songs, I was trying to show him why I couldn't play a certain chord. He was laughing at me, so of course I did the sensible thing and told him to try. Below is the chord we were trying to play:



If it's hard to see, the position for this is (320013). This one's difficult for me, since my fingers really aren't all that long. The chord also gets harder as you move down the fret board, as the neck of the guitar itself gets wider.

So, from his attempt at this chord, my friend declared that, "you must be a finger-contortionist to do this!"

And, I figure that's probably pretty appropriate. Below are a few more chords:

 



The first one is an F, which is a bar chord (133211). So far, it's the only bar chord I can comfortably hold, other than its cousins (F#, 244322 and F#m, 244222).

The second position is a G chord (320033), which is the first chord that really gave me any trouble. It's the first chord I tried that required all four fingers, and it proved to me that I really needed to work on the strength and flexibility in my hand. A quick testament to this: aside from the fact that holding the guitar with my hands reversed (literally flipping the guitar so your chord hand is now strumming), my left hand has absolutely no strength in it. I can barely hold an Em (022000) with that hand. So for any beginner guitarists who are struggling with holding the chords, keep at it. One day you will become a successful Finger Contortionist!

-Kal