Beyond songs and guitars

At first glance, my previous blog entry, “Concerning songs and guitars”, would only seem relevant to someone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to play a guitar. Slightly deeper examination, however, of the blog entry -- which was itself a reply to another person’s blog entry -- and the associated “comments”, reveal several more general concepts. (Note: The "comments" are visible only by following the above link to the alternate version of this blog.)

First, there is the overwhelming importance of how each person defines individual words. In this case, my entire disagreement with the original blog post was based upon using a different definition of the word “song” than the blogger, Wheat Williams, had in mind. If I accept and use HIS definition, then we no longer have a disagreement, except perhaps over the definition, which is a completely different disagreement. I suspect wars have begun over disagreements that were actually just cases of differing definitions.

Then there are cases of personal taste and differing priorities. For example, I very much enjoy the SOUND of standard “open” chords -- what Wheat Williams refers to as “the ‘cliches’ of open chord voicings” -- while he specifically tunes his guitar in such a way that they cannot be played. Even if you do not know what an "open" guitar chord IS, you can understand the conflict between one person LIKING a particular sound, and another person avoiding it. There is no particular “right” or “wrong” here, regardless of how much someone likes or dislikes some particular aspect of guitar playing.

Finally, there is my spelling of “bar” chords, which Wheat Williams corrects to “barre”. I freely admit that I do not possess the expertise to debate anyone on this point. My focus has always been on PLAYING the guitar, and not so much on SPEAKING about it, and almost no focus at all on WRITING/SPELLING about it. It may be that “barre” is absolutely correct and “bar” is absolutely incorrect. Still, for those who may not even know what a barre/bar chord IS, I quote a few sources from the World Wide Web:

From YourDictionary.com, at http://www.yourdictionary.com/barre, there is:
barre (bär) also sp. bar; and
barre also bar (bär); which, incidentally, they define as “A fingering technique used with fretted stringed instruments in which a finger is laid across the fretboard to stop all or several strings at once.”

From Answers.com, at http://www.answers.com/topic/barre-chord, there is:
Barre chords (also known as bar chords, but more commonly spelled as "barre")

Timothy Woods, in a Suite101 article at
http://guitar.suite101.com/article.cfm/learn-how-to-play-bar-chords-on-guitar
“The bar chord (or barre chord, as it is also spelled)”

Harvey Reeves, in an ezine article at http://ezinearticles.com/?Guitar-Bar-Chords---The-Secret-of-How-to-Play-E---Shape-Bar-Chord&id=1814115
“I've been looking at a lot of advice on how to play bar chords, or barre chords (they're the same thing)”

Chip Evans, in the Acoustic Guitar Forum at http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-59043.html
“during my 35 years of teaching I have never heard the term "barre" used as much as it is on this forum. If english is your language the term "bar chord" is ok to use, in fact, they are easier to play :)”

But my favorite online barre/bar comment comes from Guitar for Beginners, at http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/barre.html
“Barre chords, or to use the less pretentious spelling, bar chords, are the reason the guitar is so cool.”

My POINT in listing these six online sources is NOT to debate the issue of which spelling is correct. Anyone can put anything on the Internet, and “barre” may still be absolutely correct and “bar” may still be absolutely incorrect. On an intellectual/philosophical level, the thing I enjoy most about the barre/bar “debate” is that it is NOT a debate between those who believe “barre” is correct and those who believe “bar” is correct. It is a debate between those who believe it MATTERS which spelling you use, and those who believe the two spellings are pretty much interchangeable. Such debates are tricky. It is usually easier to debate which of two positions is correct, rather than to debate whether the issue is significant -- and sometimes these two separate debates get confused with each other.

Still, I do not know enough about “barre” chords to know even whether the issue is significant. At this point, I am torn between just trusting Wheat Williams, who seems like a knowledgeable fellow, and sticking with my initial uneducated opinion that “barre” seems a bit pretentious.

I want to thank Wheat Williams for his original post, and his excellent blog, and for graciously contributing to THIS blog.

Truth is complicated.