quiltingshirley
Well-known member
I am taking lessons from Craig Chee and Sarah Maisel on Artist Works and Craig gave a wonderful tip for barring chords. He shows it on a video, but I will take a stab at putting it in writing.
With your right fore arm, where you hold the ukulele to your chest, squeeze it tighter to your body (obviously not hard enough to damage the ukulele). When you do this, you will notice that the neck of your ukulele will naturally move away from your body. Use this pressure coming from the neck to help make a clean barre. It takes a lot of strain off the fingers. I am actually able to barre chords so easily using this method that I can take my thumb off the back of the neck and still get a clean sound (I don't while I am playing, it just shows how little thumb pressure I need to use when I use the strength of my right fore arm). I hope I described it well enough to help. If not, let me know and I can try to clarify.
Now, your specific request is for a barre higher up the next, so physics will tell us the force will be less, but it still does help that far up the neck.
Great hint. Wonder if it will work with a guitar? (I wear both my ukes and guitars high)
