B major chord....

Can you barre an F? If so the B will come in time, I found it easier than the F. I know it sucks now but keep practicing, you'll soon wonder what the fuss is about. For me the Am shape was the hardest to do till I fretted my open Am the same way w/o my index finger.

The B major chord is often played without the F# on the high E string.

The F# (the V of the chord) is already taken care of on the D string.

That's true the low E isn't needed so just mute it.

I never can get the "E" string to ring either...so as the other guys say don't worry it still sounds acceptable..

Yes, don't worry about letting the high e sound out. But you do want to mute it so that it doesn't ring out at all.

By the way, a friendly reminder to everyone: if you have to use asterisks to defeat the cyber-censor, please don't. Choose another word instead. Remember, we're a family-friendly site. Thanks!

I have the same problem, I can hardly ever get the high e string to sound, so I just....don't....play it :P

In this way, you can play the Bmaj as a 2-finger barre, making life easier still! :D
i hate whoever invented barre chords are they even used often in modern rock?

Pretty much anything rock-ish played on an electric guitar is played with barre chords, as open chords + distortion = noise, not music lol

I don't think just letting the high E string mute itself is a good habit to get into. The same thing happened to me some time ago and it drove me insane. Eventualy I figured out that all I had to do was raise the e string, because it kept getting mutted by the fret in front of it when I held the second and third fret down.

You can raise it at the bottom with a tiny torque thingy. Someone else can tell you what their called.

i hate whoever invented barre chords are they even used often in modern rock?

Pretty much anything rock-ish played on an electric guitar is played with barre chords, as open chords + distortion = noise, not music lol

Very true, but don't let that fool you since not all of rock is solely overdriven electric. A lot of rhythm work on the acoutic in rock uses it's fair share of barre chords. Just off the top of my head is 'Piece of Mind' by Boston. One of my favorite rock songs of all time and the whole acoustic intro part is barre chords all the way :smile: They're hard, but they're helpful, so it's worth it to learn them correctly.

Oh common now, they're not that hard. Just takes some practice. Keep at it, you'll get the hang of it.

Saber,
I think you'll find it's fairly common practice among guitarists to mute that high e string on the A shape barre chords. In fact, many of us frequenlty mute it when playing the A chord as well. It only take three notes to form the B. You'll have all three even with the high e muted. The advantage is, of course, that you can then form the barre with two fingers. You'll need more if you plan to fret the high e string at the second fret while fretting strings 2, 3 and 4 at the the fourth fret and string five at the second fret. Myself, I find it much easier to change chords using the two finger approach. But if you're dexterous enough to do it, that's great.

I play the A-shape barre with two fingers, without muting the 1st string. I use my pinky, besides my index, and my 'bending' it you can fret the 2nd/3rd/4th strings while staying clear of the 1st string. Personal opinion: there is nothing wrong with muting the 1st string, but do so because it sounds better, not because you can't play the alternatives. The top note of a chord is mightily important, more so then the bass note IMHO. You don't want to have the top note decided on what you can play instead of what you prefer.

Just my two cents... :)

thanks guys for the help

*lol* i love how all of my cuss words were edited out :wink:

Hey blueEyez6489, can you shrink that photo down a bit, it blows the thread size out of proportion.

sure