Open chord

In contrast, all of the strings are fingered for a barre chord, which requires greater technique to be allowed to ring freely.

To dampen a barre chord, a player simply needs to relax the fingers.

Guitarists use capos, which are devices that clamp down the strings to create a movable nut, to play open chords in different keys.

The strumming on the middle section of "Stairway to Heaven" is played using such chords.

[2] When composers instruct string section players (violin, viola, cello, double bass) to play double stops (two notes at once) or triple stops (three notes at once), they often include one or two open strings in the chord voicing, unless they are writing for a virtuoso soloist.