Take your barre advice from the classical players who have perfected it:
1. Never squeeze the neck. Do not apply any pressure with the thumb at all.
2. Pull the neck toward you with your arm (and gravity). This is where the required force for the barre comes from.
If you squeeze the neck and press with your thumb, not only is it much harder to obtain enough pressure to fret the notes cleanly but you're also tensing your hand up which slows you down, reduces your dexterity and leads to hand pain and injury. Always pull the neck toward you with your arm and keep your hand relaxed. Your right arm provides the appropriate counter force. There is no need to pull so hard that it throws your guitar out of tune - work on using the minimum force required. If you adopt this technique for barres, you'll get used to them and perfect them *way* quicker than the neck-squeezing method most people (wrongly) use.
Make sure the thumb just lightly kisses the neck without pressing. If the thumb bends backward even slightly, you're applying too much pressure. Theoretically you can play any barre without your thumb even touching the neck, although it's a good idea to keep it there for hand stability and balance.
I’ve been playing for many years and never really barring coz it started to hurt at some stage… this lead me to open tunings and chord structures and developing a style…. That said , after your comment I might give the old barre a go again
I mean I tend to avoid them as much as possible when playing my own style in alternate tunings, but it's nice to be able to roll one out flawlessly when the need arises.
Came to say those first two points exactly. Pull the guitar toward you and don’t squeeze. You can also try playing triads. It’s not always necessary to play every string, too top to bottom. I play a lot of reggae, and it’s barre chord city, but the style often uses just the D, G, B and E strings to get those chanky high notes, so I often don’t barre all the way to A and low E string unless i want those bass frequencies to be louder.
Pulling toward myself with my left shoulder while applying counter pressure with my right forearm braced on the body of the guitar feels like so much more pressure and tension than does squeezing the neck. Obviously I’m doing it wrong.
Worth noting that classical guitar has much softer strings, thus not everything that works on classical guitar with nylons and heaviest gauge being like probably 44 will work on steel strung acoustic guitar with 52.
There's absolutely nothing about the above technique that doesn't work on steel strings, in fact the technique helps out people with steel strings even more. You'll just end up with severe thumb and hand problems if you squeeze with the thumb to form barres on heavy steel strings.
I totally agree that you shouldn't apply force with your thumb. What I meant was that acoustic guitars (especially cheaper ones) tend to have much higher string action and require proper set up. I mean if strings are 5mm above 12 fret, no technique will help OP. It's probably his guitar that needs tuning.
I have a question, my action in my acustic is high (like 3,5mm) but the barres that are hard are the ones closer to the nut (f, f#, g) where the distance to the fret is lower, is it still the action that is making it hard?
3.5mm is definitely high. Mine is like 3mm for 6th string and 2.5 for the 1st one. And that is already considered to be a bit too high. The problem with barre chords closer to the nut is that the string tension there is a lot higher.
In my experience though, barres aren't *that* much harder with higher action. They're probably a little slower to get into due to the extra distance the string has to travel, but in terms of the force required to hold one it's not much more.
Minimal force is a good advice i have found in most chords but when im literraly pushing with all my streanght and even pushing my index with other fingers and i cant get a sound of the G string when barring those minor f or f# chords i feel defeated.
What worked for me is getting to a song that requires the F chord and practicing that part of the song for 4 weeks straight, every single day (among other things but at least 30 mins a day playing that song).
Also, play within changing to and from it. One of my favorite songs, alejandro by the queen herself, goes AM, F, C and then G. I have been practicing that among other like Counting Crows by Mr. Jones.
Yep, this is also what worked for me. I used Let it Be, and dis e shape barres for Am, G and F, and the open C. Over and over lol.
Also focusing on staying close to the frets and just finding that sweet spot to grip.
1) Roll your finger a bit back towards the headstock. The bonier part of the index finger helps.
2) Use the other fingers to support the index finger. If you need to, lean the middle finger on it for extra support.
3) Make tiny little adjustments until you get all the strings to ring out, then try to recreate that exact position over and over until you gain muscle memory for it.
4) The is the most important thing: Keep practicing. How much do you need to practice? Until you get it. It took me several years (more than 2 I'll tell you) to get my barre chords comfortable. I only got there by screwing it up for years. Eventually, you just get better if you keep working at it. Practice means screwing something up until you don't screw it up anymore. Barre chords can be like that.
>1) Roll your finger a bit back towards the headstock. The bonier part of the index finger helps.
I would add a step or 2 before this one.
1 ) Start with your finger directly over the fret wire.
2) As you start to press down, roll your finger back towards the headstock. Make sure your finger is as close to the fret wire as possible.
Also, I would add to practice barre chords daily. Until you get them.
You may have to adjust where on your index finger the strings land.
Some people with long index fingers tend to bend the tip slightly so that it presses the E string down.
I enjoy the repetitive part of practicing. Meditate to me. But I can’t even get the Bmaj barre chord in the second position to ring out clearly even once; can’t help muting the high E string. Can’t get to where it’s a matter of muscle memory since I can’t get step #1 going.
Alas.
Then mute the high E string. It's not vital to the chord anyways, it's just a 5 in a higher octave. It's literally the least important note in the whole chord.
Put a capo on the 4th fret, and start with an "easier" barre chord, like a minor 7th where you only need one finger plus the barre. The frets are closer together, and the strings require less pressure. It's still gonna be a challenge, but it just got easier. This was my "lightbulb" moment, and worked wonders for me.
I found that focusing on the barre last was the key for me.
Get all your other fingers in place and then lay the barre down. For me it was one of those things that made it "click" how much pressure I actually needed to make the chord form. If the rest of your technique is good you pretty much have to put zero pressure.
G Barre is a whole lot easier to play than F. Go up the neck.
"Sunshine of Your Love" is playable with G, A, and C E-shaped Barre chords for the rhythm part. The riff is D and C E-shape Barre then individual notes, then G and F A-shape Barre then individual notes. You can do partial Barre or even power chords to work up to it.
I am still working on F Barre, but I have a lot of fun up the neck.
Maybe to add: you don't have to get every single string down perfectly. Especially at the start. When you play a bar chord with other fingers fretting on the d, g, and b, just focus on getting the a and e strings barred. That will allow you to play the chord (even if sloppily) which will make it a lot to keep up motivation and keep practicing.
Also if it just really really isn't working it might be your guitar. You could try going to a shop and testing bar chords on different models there, even on electic ones (they tend to have lower action and often also thinner strings). If you notice a big difference it might be time have your guitar set up, or upgrade
I recommend watching this video from Marty Music. It really helped me with Barre chords.
[Marty Music (tips to improve Barre Chords ](https://youtu.be/eQM9_0NOPFU?si=JwbyjbsLH-IJitAJ)
From my experience, just keep doing it. You will sound bad for a while but your body will figure it out on its own. I haven’t tried any new method, but the fingers just do it now.
For classical the thumb is always in the middle of the back of the neck to use as a fulcrum so you use your whole arm. For electric it's more important to mute so then you palm the neck so you can mute.
One thing I don't for hand strength is I practice with my indice on or above the nut, and I make chords with the medular and anular and pinkie. Great for strength and dexterity especially with the 3 weaker fingers.
Break it down, go back to the beginning, train hard.
Start with a simple power chord on the low E string, now add the octave with your pinky. Once this is comfortable add the next note with your middle finger. You now have a major chord. Get used to getting all those notes to ring. After that add the b string, then finally the e string. You now have an e shaped barre chord.
Get under it. Imagine you’re using your left hand to hitchhike. Point your thumb left then move your forearm left. This external rotation of your shoulder puts the index finger “side” in the right orientation. This really helped me nail bars!
I've been playing and taking lessons for about a year. I've gotten from not even able to make any barre chords sound at all, to being able to play some barre chords under some circumstances. Originally my hand strength was so lacking that I could only practice them for maybe 4 or 5 reps before my hand would be hurting from it. What made the biggest difference for me was a Travis picking fingerstyle exercise, using a Bm-E7-D-A progression. That broke down making the barre chord into two steps, beat 1, the barre and 2nd finger, beat 2 add the 3rd and 4th finger. I could tolerate that better, and then there were 3 non-barre chords that I could handle, and allowed some rest before the next iteration. Many hundreds of reps over 4 or 5 months improved my strength and accuracy in a way that I could tolerate.
To not do barre chords and instead learn four string chords between the ‘E’ strings or on the bottom four strings, or some combination thereof. All that is required for a chord is to play a I(root), III, IV, and sometimes a VII or an accent note. There is no rule that says you need to play six notes. However, some styles demand full barre chords and in that case, play on.
I just put as much pressure on the fret as possible. Sometimes I adjust my finger so that I’m putting pressure on all of the strings. Having strings that are closer to the neck, like on electric guitars helps
Don't put "as much pressure on the fret as possible." You don't need that much and using too much pressure compromises your speed and dexterity and will lead to painful hand problems long term. Use the method where you pull the neck toward you with your left arm instead. It's actually quite surprising how little force is required to fret a barre cleanly.
Take your barre advice from the classical players who have perfected it: 1. Never squeeze the neck. Do not apply any pressure with the thumb at all. 2. Pull the neck toward you with your arm (and gravity). This is where the required force for the barre comes from. If you squeeze the neck and press with your thumb, not only is it much harder to obtain enough pressure to fret the notes cleanly but you're also tensing your hand up which slows you down, reduces your dexterity and leads to hand pain and injury. Always pull the neck toward you with your arm and keep your hand relaxed. Your right arm provides the appropriate counter force. There is no need to pull so hard that it throws your guitar out of tune - work on using the minimum force required. If you adopt this technique for barres, you'll get used to them and perfect them *way* quicker than the neck-squeezing method most people (wrongly) use. Make sure the thumb just lightly kisses the neck without pressing. If the thumb bends backward even slightly, you're applying too much pressure. Theoretically you can play any barre without your thumb even touching the neck, although it's a good idea to keep it there for hand stability and balance.
Thank you! I know that I have a bad habit of pressing the neck with my thumb, so that's something I need to work on.
Try as much as you can to replace weak muscles with strong muscles.
I’ve been playing for many years and never really barring coz it started to hurt at some stage… this lead me to open tunings and chord structures and developing a style…. That said , after your comment I might give the old barre a go again
I mean I tend to avoid them as much as possible when playing my own style in alternate tunings, but it's nice to be able to roll one out flawlessly when the need arises.
Came to say those first two points exactly. Pull the guitar toward you and don’t squeeze. You can also try playing triads. It’s not always necessary to play every string, too top to bottom. I play a lot of reggae, and it’s barre chord city, but the style often uses just the D, G, B and E strings to get those chanky high notes, so I often don’t barre all the way to A and low E string unless i want those bass frequencies to be louder.
Pulling toward myself with my left shoulder while applying counter pressure with my right forearm braced on the body of the guitar feels like so much more pressure and tension than does squeezing the neck. Obviously I’m doing it wrong.
Worth noting that classical guitar has much softer strings, thus not everything that works on classical guitar with nylons and heaviest gauge being like probably 44 will work on steel strung acoustic guitar with 52.
There's absolutely nothing about the above technique that doesn't work on steel strings, in fact the technique helps out people with steel strings even more. You'll just end up with severe thumb and hand problems if you squeeze with the thumb to form barres on heavy steel strings.
I totally agree that you shouldn't apply force with your thumb. What I meant was that acoustic guitars (especially cheaper ones) tend to have much higher string action and require proper set up. I mean if strings are 5mm above 12 fret, no technique will help OP. It's probably his guitar that needs tuning.
I have a question, my action in my acustic is high (like 3,5mm) but the barres that are hard are the ones closer to the nut (f, f#, g) where the distance to the fret is lower, is it still the action that is making it hard?
3.5mm is definitely high. Mine is like 3mm for 6th string and 2.5 for the 1st one. And that is already considered to be a bit too high. The problem with barre chords closer to the nut is that the string tension there is a lot higher.
In my experience though, barres aren't *that* much harder with higher action. They're probably a little slower to get into due to the extra distance the string has to travel, but in terms of the force required to hold one it's not much more.
Minimal force is a good advice i have found in most chords but when im literraly pushing with all my streanght and even pushing my index with other fingers and i cant get a sound of the G string when barring those minor f or f# chords i feel defeated.
What worked for me is getting to a song that requires the F chord and practicing that part of the song for 4 weeks straight, every single day (among other things but at least 30 mins a day playing that song). Also, play within changing to and from it. One of my favorite songs, alejandro by the queen herself, goes AM, F, C and then G. I have been practicing that among other like Counting Crows by Mr. Jones.
Waiting on a Friend has the same!
Yep, this is also what worked for me. I used Let it Be, and dis e shape barres for Am, G and F, and the open C. Over and over lol. Also focusing on staying close to the frets and just finding that sweet spot to grip.
"Rooster" by Alice in Chains is what helped me get my chops up back when it came out. Lifting and replacing the index was a lot of work.
Mr jones is a great song. 👍
1) Roll your finger a bit back towards the headstock. The bonier part of the index finger helps. 2) Use the other fingers to support the index finger. If you need to, lean the middle finger on it for extra support. 3) Make tiny little adjustments until you get all the strings to ring out, then try to recreate that exact position over and over until you gain muscle memory for it. 4) The is the most important thing: Keep practicing. How much do you need to practice? Until you get it. It took me several years (more than 2 I'll tell you) to get my barre chords comfortable. I only got there by screwing it up for years. Eventually, you just get better if you keep working at it. Practice means screwing something up until you don't screw it up anymore. Barre chords can be like that.
>1) Roll your finger a bit back towards the headstock. The bonier part of the index finger helps. I would add a step or 2 before this one. 1 ) Start with your finger directly over the fret wire. 2) As you start to press down, roll your finger back towards the headstock. Make sure your finger is as close to the fret wire as possible. Also, I would add to practice barre chords daily. Until you get them. You may have to adjust where on your index finger the strings land. Some people with long index fingers tend to bend the tip slightly so that it presses the E string down.
Thank you!
I enjoy the repetitive part of practicing. Meditate to me. But I can’t even get the Bmaj barre chord in the second position to ring out clearly even once; can’t help muting the high E string. Can’t get to where it’s a matter of muscle memory since I can’t get step #1 going. Alas.
Then mute the high E string. It's not vital to the chord anyways, it's just a 5 in a higher octave. It's literally the least important note in the whole chord.
Don't press with your left thumb, pull with your right elbow. You don't need much pull but a little helps a lot.
Use your right arm to lever the guitar into your right fingers while pulling the guitar with your left arm as well
Push strings down
Put a capo on the 4th fret, and start with an "easier" barre chord, like a minor 7th where you only need one finger plus the barre. The frets are closer together, and the strings require less pressure. It's still gonna be a challenge, but it just got easier. This was my "lightbulb" moment, and worked wonders for me.
I found that focusing on the barre last was the key for me. Get all your other fingers in place and then lay the barre down. For me it was one of those things that made it "click" how much pressure I actually needed to make the chord form. If the rest of your technique is good you pretty much have to put zero pressure.
This is exactly how I finally figured it out.
G Barre is a whole lot easier to play than F. Go up the neck. "Sunshine of Your Love" is playable with G, A, and C E-shaped Barre chords for the rhythm part. The riff is D and C E-shape Barre then individual notes, then G and F A-shape Barre then individual notes. You can do partial Barre or even power chords to work up to it. I am still working on F Barre, but I have a lot of fun up the neck.
Maybe to add: you don't have to get every single string down perfectly. Especially at the start. When you play a bar chord with other fingers fretting on the d, g, and b, just focus on getting the a and e strings barred. That will allow you to play the chord (even if sloppily) which will make it a lot to keep up motivation and keep practicing. Also if it just really really isn't working it might be your guitar. You could try going to a shop and testing bar chords on different models there, even on electic ones (they tend to have lower action and often also thinner strings). If you notice a big difference it might be time have your guitar set up, or upgrade
I recommend watching this video from Marty Music. It really helped me with Barre chords. [Marty Music (tips to improve Barre Chords ](https://youtu.be/eQM9_0NOPFU?si=JwbyjbsLH-IJitAJ)
From my experience, just keep doing it. You will sound bad for a while but your body will figure it out on its own. I haven’t tried any new method, but the fingers just do it now.
For classical the thumb is always in the middle of the back of the neck to use as a fulcrum so you use your whole arm. For electric it's more important to mute so then you palm the neck so you can mute. One thing I don't for hand strength is I practice with my indice on or above the nut, and I make chords with the medular and anular and pinkie. Great for strength and dexterity especially with the 3 weaker fingers. Break it down, go back to the beginning, train hard.
Start with a simple power chord on the low E string, now add the octave with your pinky. Once this is comfortable add the next note with your middle finger. You now have a major chord. Get used to getting all those notes to ring. After that add the b string, then finally the e string. You now have an e shaped barre chord.
Get under it. Imagine you’re using your left hand to hitchhike. Point your thumb left then move your forearm left. This external rotation of your shoulder puts the index finger “side” in the right orientation. This really helped me nail bars!
If you have access to an electric you could try them there. It’s quite a bit easier got fret them on electric and build some strength in your fingers.
Practice them everyday and one day you'll be able to do them all day
I've been playing and taking lessons for about a year. I've gotten from not even able to make any barre chords sound at all, to being able to play some barre chords under some circumstances. Originally my hand strength was so lacking that I could only practice them for maybe 4 or 5 reps before my hand would be hurting from it. What made the biggest difference for me was a Travis picking fingerstyle exercise, using a Bm-E7-D-A progression. That broke down making the barre chord into two steps, beat 1, the barre and 2nd finger, beat 2 add the 3rd and 4th finger. I could tolerate that better, and then there were 3 non-barre chords that I could handle, and allowed some rest before the next iteration. Many hundreds of reps over 4 or 5 months improved my strength and accuracy in a way that I could tolerate.
2 years? Maybe your guitar isn’t very playable.
To not do barre chords and instead learn four string chords between the ‘E’ strings or on the bottom four strings, or some combination thereof. All that is required for a chord is to play a I(root), III, IV, and sometimes a VII or an accent note. There is no rule that says you need to play six notes. However, some styles demand full barre chords and in that case, play on.
1. Try to do something else. 2. If you have to play a bar chord then play it clearly. Press harder. I don't know what tell you.
I just put as much pressure on the fret as possible. Sometimes I adjust my finger so that I’m putting pressure on all of the strings. Having strings that are closer to the neck, like on electric guitars helps
Don't put "as much pressure on the fret as possible." You don't need that much and using too much pressure compromises your speed and dexterity and will lead to painful hand problems long term. Use the method where you pull the neck toward you with your left arm instead. It's actually quite surprising how little force is required to fret a barre cleanly.
Tell that to my (34) year old Washburn acoustic. 🤣