How to play barre chords high up on the neck

Question

I'm trying to learn the song Under The Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'm running into some problems with some of the chords though. There are sections where a barre chord on the 12th fret is necessary, and my hand is hitting the body of my guitar (there is no cutaway). I'm unable to play the chord without the sound being off because I can't physically get my finger into the right place. The only way I've been able to do it is if I lift my hand up really high, but then it interrupts the flow of the song.

The chord in question

----12-12  
----12-12  
13--13-13  
14-------  
14-------  
12-------

Taken from Ultimate Guitar Tabs.

How can this chord be played without buying a new guitar or interrupting the song?

To be clear - while I certainly want to know how to best play this particular chord, I also want to know how to play barre chords like this in general. So while I appreciate answers saying "don't bother, play these instead" I won't be accepting those.

Answer 1

On an electric or cutaway-acoustic this can actually be done in the obvious way. Without a cutaway, there's two things you can do, if you actually want to preserve that specific chord's sound, rather than just its harmonic function as the other answers instruct:

• Omit some notes. Crucial is to know which ones are really needed urgently. In your case:

  • The high e'' in 12th fret. It defines the chord's high-pitched character and the root.
  • The g♯' on 13th. It gives the chord major gender.
  • If you're playing alone, then you need some kind of bass, so you want the low E. In this special case, you're quite lucky indeed: instead of 12th fret, you can also just use the empty E-string.
  • Some midrange is necessary to balance the thin high e'' and g♯', and though the fifth is generally a chord's least important note I'd go for the lower b.

  This would mean, the chord's "minimal configuration" is 12 X 13 X 14 0, which should be quite doable. Note that all the omitted notes are actually included as harmonics of the lower string, and the treble sharpness is preserved because you have the e''. You can voice the same notes (actually one more!) IMO even easier with 12 9 9 9 X 0.

• Stick to the specified pitches on each string, but use a different technique for fingering.

  • Grab the low e with the thumb around the neck. Shuffle the other fingers around till you find a way to get the remaining notes. I don't like this kind of chord a lot, but many guitarists use them all the time.
  • Instead of one big barre, you can "double stop" only two adjacent strings with one finger. You can thus fret the high b' and e'' with 2, the g♯' with 3, the mid b and e' with 4 and the low e with 1.
  • Highly unusual on guitar, but sometimes really useful (though impossible in a low playing position) is to add the thumb from the lower side of the neck. This is best known as a cello technique.

Answer 2

Don't bother playing this chord because John Frusciante doesn't play it either. In this part he sometimes plays

x
9
9
9
7
x

and other times he plays

 x
 9
 9
 9
11
 x

Answer 3

The chord you are trying to play is an E major and can be played barred on the 7th fret as follows:

7
9
9
9
7
7

Answer 4

You could also try just playing the e power chord at the 12th fret. It has all the notes of an E Major chord (Except for the third.)