/uj This is the first time I've seen this advice given to a beginner. Did this work for any of you, when you were a beginner?

/uj thread

This has a lot of likes; is this how people are really learning?

Sometimes I notice very experienced players develop ways to do things that lend towards their advanced technique and not towards ease of learning.

Have any of you learned with this method of counter pressing the guitar while you barre and was it effective?

I'm literally the thumb squeeze juggernaut (bitch) and an instructor of last resort when players can't learn techniques. I teach people who can't do barre chords to do them pretty easily with a thumb squeeze technique and a 3 minute exercise done 1-3 times a day. When I keep my hands trained, I can barre chord with my pointer, middle, ring and pinky at the first fret on things like 6 string basses and 8 string guitars. Right now I feel weak as fuck and can only do it on the 2nd fret with all fretting digits.

Well anyways, was just curious if I should include as an option to teach beginners. I let my GF review that method of barre and she said it "is stupid" and did not elaborate.

edit;

From the current replies I'm getting "No I didn't use this to learn barre chords".

in guitarcirclejerkby try_altf4Green Cold Cucumber Plants

50%

19d

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seamachine

19d

You have to do both to play properly. You're probably doing his version too, just not mindfully. Also, you just need enough opposing force to fret the note properly.

That method he described is good when you're setting down, but is more difficult to do when you're standing up. To be fair, it's much easier with modern specs (giant frets). You could play even with your thumb not touching the back of the neck. Try it out: fingers on fretboard, body as anchor, right forearm/elbow preventing guitar from moving forward. Even without your thumb touching the neck, you're still giving enough force to fret notes properly (probably why some people just say you use the thumb simple as a "guide").

Some guitar players use this as a way to do vibrato on fixed bridge guitars.

try_altf4

Green Cold Cucumber Plants

18d

I'm aware of the counter balancing technique; I just don't categorize it as a beginner technique.

I also don't disagree that there's some very small percentage of it's usage in normal play, but.....

The whole point of "Press, Play, Release, Mute" barre training is to isolate your thumb and barre finger pairing in order to exercise it. It's designed to reduce the counter balance technique as much as possible, to exercise your muscle memory, strength and endurance progressively until you reach your goal. The counter balance technique doesn't do anything like that.

When a new player tries doing the counter-balance technique it's normally on accident. They tense their barre hand up, they tense their strumming hand causing them to push down on the guitar body and see-sawing the neck back and fourth.

That method he described is good when you're setting down, but is more difficult to do when you're standing up.

The student has to wear a short guitar strap enforcing a standing position, so they can't use their thighs to stabilize the guitar.
Don't let a student pull on the neck to barre. It also messes up bass string pressure if you pull and over emphasizes treble strings.
Instructor strums the strings for them initially to take the strumming hand out of the picture.
Emphasize the motion of squeezing the thumb and finger together, not pulling.