46. Fear Of The B Chord

Beginner players are usually intimidated by barre chords. The first barre chords learned are often F and Bm. Even when those become playable, B major (or any major chord based on the A chord bar form) can be tough. There are a number of options given to play a B chord. First we have the ‘beginner’ B chords such as this:




This chord voicing is useful for an experienced player, but as a “full chord” is mostly worthless. Although there is no bar, and it is relatively easy to play, the lack of a low bass note makes it sound thin and incomplete. In addition, strings 4, 5 and 6 are not to be played— unnecessarily challenging  for a beginner.

The other common ‘beginner’ B chord looks like this: 





Here, the bass note is F#, which makes the chord an inversion, meaning the bass note of the B chord is not B but F#, one of the other notes of the chord. Neither wonderful nor terrible, it still requires the beginner to avoid stings 5 and 6—not easy, and not a good sound if they are included.

Next we have the standard versions of B major:






On the guitar:

In this example, the 1st finger bar is at the 2nd fret, and fingers 2,3 and 4 play the rest of the chord.  The main issue with this fingering is the small space that the 2-3-4 fingers must fit into, especially in combination with the bar. This fingering works best for players with slender fingers!


Then we have this:






On the guitar:

Note that these are the same except the ‘3’ below the box instead of 234. This means the 3rd finger alone does the work of covering the strings that fingers 2-3-4 did in the first example. This is a very good way to develop a variation on what is sometimes known as a half bar, or hinge bar.  Its purpose is to bar some of the strings, while leaving those underneath the bar open. In this case, the only string under the bar not covered  is the 1st, but instead of it being open, it is covered by the first finger bar. In reality, though, the 1st string is almost always muted by the 3rd finger hinge bar:

 first string is muted by the lowest part of the half bar

A variation of this uses the pinky as the half bar, reinforced by the 3rd finger:


Then there is the 7th position B barre chord:







On the guitar:

This is often a good option, but not so much with lower position chords, since moving between them and the 7th position that this chord requires is too great a distance to execute gracefully, especially for beginners. Also, this voicing sometimes simply does not sound good in combination with the open position chords.

Finally, we have the B7 chord:







On the guitar:

While B7 is not B, it is often an acceptable substitute, since in many musical contexts they can be interchangeable. Plenty of players simply take up the B7 and forget about B entirely. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

However, there is one other option, one I  can recommend, the following:









 On the guitar:

This is B5, known as a ‘power chord’. A power chord is simply a 2 note chord, 1st and 5th of the major scale, instead of a major or minor chord, each of which has 3 notes.


The absence of the other note (3rd or minor 3rd, depending) changes the sound of the chord, but it often works well in context anyway.  In addition, the 2nd string B can be played (open) to create a slightly different sound:






The only real ‘trick’ here is to be sure to mute the 1st and 6th strings. For the 6th string, middle finger is best, while the 1st finger can mute the 1st string almost as if barring:




 Remember, just as B7 can often be played in place of B, so this B5 power chord can also. Even better, this particular power chord shape comes in very handy in other situations.

© 2012 Jim Greenfield