12 Ways How to Play the Bb Chord on Guitar (Plus Tips and Ways to Avoid) in Chords Technique by Dan Thorpe with 4 comments
The Bb chord on guitar is definitely one of the hardest barre chords around and it is the one that gives a lot of beginners and intermediate guitarists a lot of bother. Today, I’ll show you some ways to simplify this, play it with better technique (which no one really teaches), how NOT to play it and even ways to “invert” it for a sophisticated take on the chord.
This series continues where we left off with the how to play the F chord and getting started with the B minor chord series so you may want to check those posts out once you have read this.
Ways To Play A Bb Chord On Guitar
My technique was awful, and my then claw-like hand had no idea how to play it on an acoustic. Trying to play it sounded like an X-factor or American Idol audition gone wrong. Typical nail on the chalkboard sound!
Anyway, it’s a really useful chord and if you have your main CAGED chords sorted and some of the variations in my 32 useful chords, chart, then it’s definitely up there as one of the next bunch to learn.
There are four ways to play this one shape and instead of treating them like different shapes we will treat them like variations of the exact same shape.
Bb Guitar Chord Guide: 8 Variations & How To Play (2023)
The first two you can treat as a pair. Notice they are the same except in the first one we don’t bother trying to play the high E string note cleanly and then in the second one we do.
The reason is that trying to play this high E string cleanly like in the second example is very tough and requires you to bend back your ring finger to “clear” the high E string. This is very tough for most beginner to early intermediate players.
Unless you need to hear the sound of the high E string for a piece (e.g. you are picking this note on its own) then the first version will work just fine – and it sounds great for strumming (as long as the notes are clear of course).
Bb Guitar Chord (b Flat Major) For Beginners
Now, to actually play the ring finger barre like this deserves a lesson on its own but here are some tips. These are useful because the above two variations of the same shape are the most useful and probably most practical way to play the Bb chord.
This can be hard to get into and your chord changes can be slow when playing this way. You may also struggle with getting a clear sound on each string with this shape, particularly higher up the fretboard where the frets get close together.
It takes a lot of precision to cram three fingers into one fret on adjacent strings – even more so up at fret 5 and upwards for most.
Bb Guitar Chord (open D Tuning)
By all means, try this way and stick with it if it works for you. Guitar playing is not a one size fits all solution but if you have tried this way and struggled, try switching to the first method
Keep in mind, the first method (versions 1 and 2) require more practice and better technique but can be far easier to change in and out of quickly once you can play it.
Now we have the E shape version of the chord. One with the big full barre which is good when you need the B and high E strings to be clear and one where we use the index finger to mute these strings.
Guitar Chord Vocab: B Flat Major
The second version can be very useful when strumming as it gives us all the bass we need but means we are actually doing NO barring at all.
Instead, to play the second version, simply fret the four notes as shown above (version 2), get them clear, and then rest the lower part of your index finger across the strings so it lightly touches the B and high E string.
It’s not an easy skill but the ability to purposely mute strings like this is a good one to develop as there will be times you will want to use this shape (e.g. often if a song uses all barre chords, you will want to save your energy or if there are lots of fast changes in and out of this shape).
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Now that we have looked at the main and most useful ways to play the Bb chord on guitar, I want to give you some useful ways you might not have thought about before.
Yep, this one is for any rockers out there and is simply a power chord. This can be substituted for a full Bb chord at any point as a power chord is essentially a barre chord minus a few notes. It will not sound as full but often will do the job – especially when rocking out with an overdriven electric!
This is a bit like the power chord version above but instead, we lighten the sound a little by adding the 3rd note of the chord on the B string. This gives us more of an acoustic sound and can be useful in some situations. It’s a bit like an earlier A shape version but without the cramming of the fingers in a small space!
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Here, we have a very light sounding Bb that will work if you are accompanying another guitarist and picking out the notes. If they are playing acoustic, you could try this one with an electric with some reverb and get a little triad picking pattern going. Doing this reminds me of some cool stuff by The Smiths or The Byrds.
Inversions are great and can sound real sweet when used well. They are generally used more in a band setting but if you like to jam along to backing tracks, you can use them here too.
An inversion basically means to make the bass note or lowest note in the chord any note other than the root note.
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A Bb chord also contains the notes of F and D and if we decide to make the F note or the D note the lowest in the chord, we have just made the chord an “inversion”.
Have a look at these three B flat inversions below and see if you can spot which of the notes of Bb, D or F is the new bass note for each?
The following are a bunch of ways that I have seen taught over the years and a quick Google search will show lots of images similar to the following.
Bb Guitar Chord
Now that we have gone into detail on how to play this chord, it’s time to find out exactly where you can use the chord, in what songs and a little bit of the useful theory behind why it is so important.
Well, apart from Johnny B. Goode which is in Bb (but geek alert, in Back to the Future, Marty McFly says it is in the key of B even though he plays in B flat. (Bad filmmakers not picking up on this, yes this is geeky knowledge of mine I know!)
Of B flat (apart from Johnny B. Goode), but there are some common keys that like to use the B flat chord.
Bb Chord Guitar Finger Position Diagram: How To Play B Flat
Now, the B flat major chord is NOT in this key as I talk about in my music theory for guitarists book, but one of the common “outside” chords is the Bb chord.
All are standard chords except for, yep, the dog turd sounding B diminished (not really, I quite like the chord, especially when it’s a diminished 7, but it takes some skill to use well).
Most songwriters are great at their art but apart from jazz, classical and some blues guitarists, many don’t know how to use this diminished chord.
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They, therefore, often “flatten” it (move it down one fret) and turn it into a Major chord, and what does that leave us with?
Basically, at various points, all the more popular keys on guitar – C G D and F have the B flat chord as a useful extra to liven things up and add interest and/or pleasant tension.
Here is a list of classic and not so classic songs (cough, Nickleback, kidding, the whole Nickleback hatred thing is boring now and this is a pretty decent pop tune) have a dreaded B flat in it at various points.
How To Play Bb Major
There are obviously a lot more songs than the above but these give you an idea how much this chord can crop up.
Note, you can play some of the above songs without a Bb Major chord by using the chords from a different key with a capo (but doing so doesn’t always sound good though).
For anyone looking to get a bit deeper into understanding the guitar, music theory and the fretboard, and how they relate, it’s a good idea to see the parent chords of all of the above shapes.
Guitar Chord Analyzer (chord Namer/identifier)
All of the above chord shapes (and in essence, every chord you learn is the same) are derived from these five parent chords in some form, some obvious and
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