Now that I know how to play that barre chord I was having trouble with, I've run into another small problem. I've let my scale studies lapse.
There's another chord in the measure following the barre, and I'm having trouble finding a good fingering for it. When I tried doing a quick scale run, starting at the 5th position (A major), to try and find a position to play the chord in, I had trouble remembering not only the pattern for the major scale, but what notes are in the A major scale.
Looks like I need to re-incorporate regular scale work into my practice regime.
One thing I'm reminded of with each lesson is just how complicated translating standard music notation can be when applying it to guitar. Good observation skills are very important in helping make learning a new piece of music as easy on yourself as possible.
I had no lesson last week, due to Halloween, so I got to spend the last couple of weeks working on the latest arpeggio study my teacher assigned and struggling with a barre chord contained in that study. The chord basically involves barring the first two strings on the first fret, fretting the third string on the second fret, and then arpeggiating the chord by playing the open A (the 5th string) and those first three strings.
Sounds relatively simple, right? Well, ok, maybe. Until last night's lesson, however, instead of barring just those first two strings and taking advantage of the open position of the 5fth string, I was barring every string at the 5th fret to get that root A note. I could not find a position to fret the rest of the notes in the barre that didn't want to put my fingers in positions nature wasn't meant for them to be in. As a result, I wound up saving that particular hurdle for last night's lesson.
My teacher was very understanding, and very happy to help me overcome it. As it turns out, my problem was purely "player error". You see, there's a horizontal line on the sheet music I'm working with that stretches across the notes I'm supposed to barre, with a roman numeral 1 at one end. That roman numeral is an indicator that says the barre is to be played at the first position on the fretboard (the 1st fret).
I have to tell ya... as a student, it's an incredible rush overcoming those kinds of challenges. Not only can I finally resume work on the rest of the study, but I can apply the lessons I'm learning with it to any other piece of music I might want to play.
Learn a little, use it a lot!
Note to self: Don't just read the notes on the staff, read the markings around the notes, too!