How to Tackle Barre Chords
By Shawn Leonhardt for Guitar Tricks and 30 Day Singer
Barre chords are an absolute pain in the fingers! When you are learning how to play guitar, barre can seem like an insurmountable challenge. However, if you approach them correctly and practice them often they will become easier. Here are some tips and techniques for tackling barre chords as a beginner guitarist.
What Is a Barre Chord?
A stringed instrument like the guitar is part of the chordophone family, that means you can play multiple note intervals at once. This creates chords and the goal is to make it as easy as possible to form and move these chords, one way we accomplish this is by using a barre chord.
A barre chord (not ‘bar’ chords) is when you place your finger (or sometimes more than one) across the fretboard to fret multiple strings. Your finger is essentially becoming a movable nut and allows you to change the tuning. This means each fret up the board moves by one semitone, it makes it easy to know which chords will come next! You can always take a look at a guitar chord chart to see all the different barre chord positions.
Factors That Affect Barre Chords
The concept of barre chords is simple, we use our fingers with a few memorable shapes and we soon have access to lots of guitar chords! However, the reality is that they are very hard to play for a few reasons.
Action
The hardest barre chord is the F major, which uses the E major shape (022100) one fret up at 133211. This barre chord is so hard because the string height off the fretboard is the longest right after the nut, making the tension incredibly high.
The height of the strings from the fretboard is the action, and the higher it is the harder it will be to barre a chord. An acoustic guitar is harder to barre than an electric because it has higher action. If you are just starting out with guitar lessons, or your guitar is cheap and not set up right it is going to be difficult or maybe impossible to barre chords.
Finger Strength
Your finger strength is another major factor, it may help to practice on an acoustic to build strength. The number one reason that people fail at barre chords is not putting in the proper time and practice to build the skill. It takes longer than you think, some seasoned players even try to avoid it, as it is painful.
To press all the strings down with your index finger is not a normal movement, so it will not come naturally. In fact, if you overdo your practice you can even injure a finger, just like with pinky practice, take it easy with barre chords as a beginner guitarist.
Tips for Tackling Barre Chords
- Start out with partial barre chords on the treble stings, just make sure to mute the top bass strings you are not playing. As your finger strength builds, begin to play more strings.
- Have the action adjusted and use lighter gauge strings if you are really struggling, move to the easiest electric guitar you can find. Just don’t make the strings too close or you will get dead sounds or buzzes.
- Stick to simple movable CAGED barre chords when you first start practicing, avoid the hard funk and metal barre chords that require muting intermittent strings. The muting brings a new level of difficulty so stick to easy barre shapes to begin with.
- Play near the middle of the guitar where the action is the best when you first learn barre chords. The 3rd to 8th frets will be the easiest positions to push down with your index finger.
- Try different positions for your finger across the fretboard. For some players they can lay it flat across and it works fine, or it may help to roll the finger to the side. Each finger has unique curves and shapes so you need to find the firmest grip possible.
- After placing your index and other fingers on the right spots first make sure to strum every string to be certain there are no dead or muted strings. If there are, look and see why. Are your finger creases in the way? Are the other fingers touching errant strings? Break down the mistakes you are making and adjust!
- While the thumb is used by some guitarists to pull off hard maneuvers, as a beginner make sure it stays back during barre chords. It should be at the middle of the back of the neck only for support against the pushing of your index finger.
- As far as hand placement goes your palm should rarely ever be touching the neck as you make a barre chord. We all have different shaped hands but usually we want our fingers stretched to the point of the palm angling outward.
- Sometimes it helps beginner guitarists if they fret the guitar chord with all the other fingers first and save the index placement for last. This isn’t the way it will happen when you play, but it can help you get a better idea of where you are making mistakes and changes the muscle memory up some.
- Ironically a high action cheap acoustic guitar can prepare you for barre chords better as it takes more strength to get all the strings pressed down. Practicing on a beater guitar is strangely a great way to build muscle. It’s just essential to have a proper guitar for real playing!
- Finger exercises can help, but the best ones are simply playing the guitar itself. If certain barre chords are too hard then simply keep looking for the easy ones. Play simple ones that help you build confidence and then work your way into the harder chords like the F majors!
At the end of the day there is no special trick that will help you overcome the difficulty of barre chords. Keep your guitar setup right and good action and that is about the best prep you can do. Otherwise, the main way to tackle barre chords as a beginner guitar player is to practice them as much as you possibly can in every way. Eventually, you will make it over that hill and they will become second nature.
