Well guys, there's an absolutely vast amount here for me to experiment with.

To all of you, my very sincere thanks.

Being entirely self taught I was beginning to run out of ideas, but now I've realised just how much there is available on a guitar, if you can only 'think outside of the box a bit. Or to put it another way, a lot of what has been said here is a blinding flash of the obvious that I missed due to being stuck in a rut for about 15 years.

When I first put this thread up , I thought I'd get enough back to keep me busy over the coming weekend. Now I know, I'm gonna be busy for months to come....

Poppagator, you and I must have progressed our thinking and playing along very similar lines. I too tried the D shape moved up 3 (Pinky on 4th, or thumb hooked over on 6th, but couldn't get both to work together!) to get a F chord with A, but struggled to get smooth transitions from previous chords, and was at a loss without my alternating bass notes! Have also been trying to get G chord with B on 1st string similarly... or other chords that I can pick out a melody asit progressed up a scale from say a D on 2nd string up to a high D on 1st string, still leaving me with a nice full bass, instead of losing that lovely 'rounded' bass that my guitar produces, if I capo at say 5th.

It wasn't long after I first started fingerpicking (a vast amount of moons ago) that I discovered walking bass runs, and that seems to have been the foundation of a lot of my playing. I reckon I must play at least 40%, if not more, of chord changes using a bass run... I have to say I'm suprised at how many guitarists sit and watch and listen intently as I run from D chord using open 4th, via open 6th, 6th at 2nd fret (using thumb hooked over) to open G etc etc. For easy bass runs you can't beat the keys of C and G.

Have just recently been starting to play about with F chord shape, using all 4 finger plus thumb hooked over onto 6th sliding up 2 to give alternate voicing G chord.

But as I said, to suit my vocal range, I play a lot of songs in key of C shapes capo'd up 2 to give D, and a few others in G capo'd up to 2 give A, with a few in C or G keys. All tend to make use of quite a lot of minors.

My problem with bar chords seems to be one of making the transition from open chord to bar chord smooth and fast enough. Probably not helped by several tens of years of playing open shapes with the palm area of my hand on the back of the neck, not the thumb on the back of the neck, but old habits are the devil to get rid of....

I have however, for many years been playing open G chord with middle ring and pinky, to get G7 or C note on 2nd, or moving pinky to 2nd to put D into it. Sometimes using pinky 1st str 3rd fr, ring 2nd str 3rd fr, and 1st on 5th 2nd fr, middle on 6th 3rd fr, to give alternative voicing.

A musician friend of mine once said the world would be a sadder place without music. Mudcat and all you guys are a truly awesome resource, that will undoubtedly improve my playing, and hence hopefully make the world just that tiny bit happier!

Once again very sincere thanks to all contributors.

Rgds

OF