Barre chords, my archnemesis

with your hand around the 7th fret practice barring 2 strings till you can always, every time, without exception get both strings to ring out crystal clear.

Then extend to 3 strings.

Then 4.

Then 5.

Then 6.

Now you can play any bar chord and it will sound great because you can bar 6 strings every time.

There's no magic here. Just put in the time doing it and it'll happen.

Just a further comment to add to what kingpatzer said. Don't knock yourself out trying to barre all the strings just the ones you don't have other fingers on. It is a good practice to get all strings ringing with the barre but that will come in time.

Also try tilting you index finger on it's side a little towards the nut which may help a little.

Excellent advice from Nils and Kingpatzer....always remember, you don't need to hit every string....

:D :D :D

Vic

Here's a good site someone here posted once on barring http://www.maildogmanager.com/page.html?p=0000015Fu8vmrrtTsp1AOBjOcsbNudZTs=

Learning barre chords is easy, getting them to sound right takes lots of practice. Hard on an electric, harder on a steel string acoustic, and most difficult on a nylon string classical.

You'll get better with practice. Although you might think about getting a different guitar. I have nothing against clasical guitar, I think some of the most beautiful music comes from them. I just think that unless you are headed down that path of music they are a b*tch to learn on.

If you need some motivation on barre chords though remember that 96 different chords can be made with barre chords with the root on the 6th and 5th string. That's what motivated me.

Michael

Also, don't forget that barring requires muscles in your hand/fingers that you may have never used before. Therefore, they may simply be too weak to hold all of the strings down across the fretboard. This is what I encountered when I started on barre chords. As I continued to practice, though, the muscles became stronger and the barring became easier.

Though not for the classical guitar that you are describing, when using steel or bronze strings, try a lighter guage or if you're new to guitar or have a new guitar, examine the action as some people prefer and play better with lower action. This places the strings ever-so-slightly closer to the fretboard making lighter touches necessarry for barring strings.

It's trial-and-error, experimentation, and practice.

Also, don't forget that barring requires muscles in your hand/fingers that you may have never used before. Therefore, they may simply be too weak to hold all of the strings down across the fretboard. This is what I encountered when I started on barre chords. As I continued to practice, though, the muscles became stronger and the barring became easier.

I found this to be very true. I started spending 10-15 minutes a day on practicing those for several weeks, and after a while sure enough they started sounding much better.

The best advice is probably to practice them slowly, but I just played a lot of songs where I had to use barre chords. Never noticed any progress but my barre chords are no problem at all now.

there is a post in the easy song data base...or at least there used to be that had hotel california on it. there was a barre chord version and i personally believe if you want to learn barre chords, this is a good song to learn. easy strumming, everyone knows the song and you get barre's up the yin yang. and if you play it like me, you barre all chords except the E and Em, i like 'em open. which gives you good practice at switching from barre's to oen chords. good luck and keep practicing. the more you play the better you will get. we all have gone through this. just keep on strumming