Hey Friend,

It's Wednesday, and I'm hoping for forward motion. I feel like I've had two Mondays in a row, so here's to getting past that and moving on...

The F# minor barre chord in the root 6 position is barred at the second fret. Take your index finger and lay it across all six strings. Place your ring finger on the fourth fret of the fifth string and your pinky on the fourth fret of the fourth string. Strum.

If you strum all six strings, you hear the minor third note of the chord on the third string, which your index finger is barred across. If you don't strum all six and instead only hit the first lower three strings (6 5 4), you'll have a power chord.

Again, the power chord can be used in place of a minor chord when the guitar is distorted - you won't really lose the intent of the minor inflection. That's because distortion tends to favor the lower frequencies and fatten them up while drowning out the higher frequency notes in a chord.

The root 5 barre chord is located at the ninth fret, barred across the first five strings (A D G B e). That gives you a root note F# on the fifth string. Add to that an E major shape on the fourth, third and second strings.

Middle finger goes on the tenth fret, second string. Then add your ring and pinky fingers on the fourth and third strings at the eleventh fret, respectively. You can safely strum through the first string as that gives us a C# note, so it fits.

Here are the exercise files for you to play around with.

I'll be late tomorrow with the lesson - I get to go have fun at the dentist's office again. Yay me! At least I'm taking the day off from the job...

Peace~

Dave