One of the greatest challenges of playing the guitar is learning to play clean-sounding chords--chords where all the notes are sounding, with no fret buzz or accidentally-muted strings. It's always a challenge, especially for newer players and those working on barre chords, but it is also a challenge that can be overcome with time and practice!
Here are a few tips that I can offer for helping produce these clean chords:
1) Remember that your thumb is a balance/fulcrum point for playing chords; at times, you will be using it as a "counter-force" to help your other fingers press the strings down, and at other times, you will be positioning it out of the way of your other fingers.
Everyone's hand is a little different in terms of size and finger length, so it's important to spend the time figuring out how to use YOUR thumb to help make clean chords. If your strings are buzzing because you're not completely pressing the string against the fret, re-positioning your thumb is a good place to start the chord-cleanup process.
2) In the same way, the wrist on your chording hand is able to flex up and down as well; people with longer fingers sometimes find that they have to flex their wrist out a bit away from the guitar neck in order for their fingers to be more perpendicular to the fretboard.
3) I should also mention that when playing chords, you do not want to use the pad of your fingertips--rather, you should always be using the tip of the finger just below the nail. You will eventually get calluses there--wear them as a badge of honor!
4) Finally, when fingering chords, you want to make sure that you are as close to the fret as possible without being on top of it. It takes a little work, but the closer you can get to the fret you are trying to finger, the cleaner the note will be.
In the video below, I show a little bit of the thumb and wrist positioning.
Enjoy, and Happy Pickin!
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