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You are invited to practise these exercises in parallel to the other lessons, practising on average one exercise per week.

DEFINITION: To “bar” means to press several strings, on a single fret, with only one finger. In these exercises, barre chords will always be indicated by the letter C followed by a Roman numeral to indicate the fret where the “bar” occurs (example: C III represents a bar on the 3^rd fret). Please note that all “bars” will be done by the forefinger of the left hand.

If after your first attempts, the sonority of your barre chord is not clear, or is even non-existent, try to correct it as follows:

• play as close as possible to the fret
• use other fingers of the left hand to strengthen your thumb-forefinger grip (for instance, by pressing the middle finger on top of the forefinger)
• move your forefinger, from top to bottom, in the fret where you press it to obtain a clearer sound.

These exercises are graded by order of difficulty. Start with the first exercise and do not pass onto the next one until you play it correctly (sound, rhythm, etc.). The mastering of the barre chord requires a little perseverance: practise well, but don’t giving up!

EXERCISE 1: Link the barre chord on the 2^nd fret with the open string arpeggio. The sequence must be played in a steady beat! This exercise, like the others, must be practiced for one week. It is only at the end of this period that it will start to yield results.

EXERCISES 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7: these exercises are available only in the complete version. If you want to purchase “How to play the guitar – Volume II”, please click on Online Store or go to www.guitar-online.com.