Over the last few years, I’ve tried (here and there) to teach myself guitar. I would find chords to a song online and try to figure out what I could and go from there. As soon as I saw a bar chord, I wanted to run as far away from that version as possible! Surely someone out there has sympathy for beginners and created an easier version! Maybe something with G, D, and C đŸ™‚ Needless to say, bar chords scared me.
I love Adele’s versoin of “To Make You Feel My Love” and desparately wanted to learn it. But guess what? IT HAS A BAR CHORD! Now I guess I have to start learning them. So I strummed away as much as I could, very bluntly going from C to Cm. Oh, it sounded awful, but I kept trying. Finally, last week I took the song to my guitar teacher and told her I was having trouble and needed help. Naturally, it just takes constant practice going from one to the other. She had me practice 10 times in a row while I was there to get used to the transition. This week, I used that approach, and found myself getting better.
Today, I brought another song to practice. Low and behold, it too had a bar chord. Guess I’m going to be getting some more practice with these! The good thing was, I was feeling better about it this time since I have been working on it a little, and they don’t seem so scary to me anymore!
When you want to learn something new, it’s easy to get discouraged when you come across an obstacle. but if you just keep jumping, and trying to get over it, sooner or later you will!
The Culver Project 