That First F Barr Chord - Ohh the pain

The barre chords were impossible for me until a few months ago. I'm still pretty slow at 'em, but it's getting better.

Hi

I only started playing bar chords about a week ago , could never play them ( Im only a beginner 12 months experience ) lol ... but my teacher showed me not to put so... much tension on the strings I was trying to murder the little sods my wrist aches after about 1/2 hour of practicing bar chords , so I have a smoke and a little break then back into it I have found I'm having fewer breaks with almost every day ..

But yes it is painful....

The barre chords were impossible for me until a few months ago. I'm still pretty slow at 'em, but it's getting better.

Then I must be doing okay. Been at it only a few months before my first serious confrontation with the barre. You doing it by yourself rparker or are you with a teacher?

Hi

I only started playing bar chords about a week ago , could never play them ( Im only a beginner 12 months experience ) lol ... but my teacher showed me not to put so... much tension on the strings I was trying to murder the little sods my wrist aches after about 1/2 hour of practicing bar chords , so I have a smoke and a little break then back into it I have found I'm having fewer breaks with almost every day ..

But yes it is painful....

Like rparker you've sort of stayed away from the barre for a while. Was that a choice or avoidance? There is a bunch of stuff to do without doing barre chords and by myself I wasn't going over to try them very often. For me, the sensei goes, 'ok after this G chord do a F chord' - I say alright, show me that one please. :-) I think a eraser end of a pencil was involved moving those creaky fingers in the right places. But that sounds right, - the harder you press down the more painful it is. Must relax.

I've been playing since Feb and while my teacher has only touched on barre chords a bit, he hasnt really hounded me about them.

But I do play a few songs with a barre chord or two. One song I play "Thief" by Third Day is kind of tough because all the chords are barres. But the ones where there is just an occasional barre chord in it isnt too bad one I get the little piglets (fingers) to hit right. Seems like its another one of those "As long as I dont think about it" things.

Geoo

I've been playing since Feb and while my teacher has only touched on barre chords a bit, he hasnt really hounded me about them.

But I do play a few songs with a barre chord or two. One song I play "Thief" by Third Day is kind of tough because all the chords are barres. But the ones where there is just an occasional barre chord in it isnt too bad one I get the little piglets (fingers) to hit right. Seems like its another one of those "As long as I dont think about it" things.

Geoo

Hiya Geoo,

Seems like everything else. Challenges, not to big of a worry as long as you don't think about them too long. The whole journey of learning guitar is full of challenges and difficulties to overcome. I"m glad to hear other people who have been there, are there now or coming up to the same things I'm experiencing. - Thanks for the input.

I started barre chords about a month ago and the F chord (E shapped chords) is fairly easy for me...it's funny....I have (and STILL have!) a heck of a time with the open D chord yet the barres have been MUCH easier for me...

I practice barres every day as part of my warmup. I hold the "E Shape" barre at the 3rd fret and just slide it up and down the neck strumming each chord. After a few days I could do simple strumming patterns slowly with this method. Then I pick one open chord along with the E shapped barre and switch between them. It's taken some time but on a good day I can switch between them at about 50-60 bpm....Yes I still hear that "thud" of a muted string every now and then (usually the ring finger) but for the most part not too bad...

For me the secret was that I EXPECTED barres to be hard. Just about EVERYONE has problems with them. This kept my frustration level down and made learning them easier...

Now the double barre is still challenging but getting there. ON the electric guitar its fairly easy to fret all the strings...on the acoustic.... :twisted: !!

I've been playing since Jan and can now play a mini-barre F-chord, although changing to it is slow. I'm still working on the full barre and I have a capo now so I can practice at the 3rd fret, which allegedley(!) makes it easier.

The two things that seemed to help me with this were (in addition to trying it every other time I practiced):

1) Try playing other chords without having your thumb touching the guitar - it'll teach you how to hold the guitar and use your fingers to get clean shords. They won't be as good as when you use your thumb, but I found it helpful.

and

2) Place your 'non-barre' fingers first, and then barre the others.

Hope this helps.

Rich.

P.S. Is it Bar or Barre or bars or barres?

when playing the dreaded F chord I'm ot sure how your playing it but the easiest way is form your E chord with your

pinky on the D string 3rd from top
ring finger on the A string 2nd from top
middle finger on the G string 4th from top

now move fingers down one fret

index finger barres the first fret all strings

that is the E shape for barre chords

If you look into another thread Wes Inman explained all barre chords to Hilch about a week ago

hope that helps

https://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19315

I hope I got it right I have never done this before ??? hopefully the link where Wes typed all barre chords out shows up

Here is the secret to barre chords: use your arm instead of your thumb. You want to have very little tension on your thumb when you play them.

Also as rich says it is very helpful to put the barre on last.

I had the same experience as Mike, I found barre chords easier than open chords for the most part. After awhile you'll find that you really don't need alot of pressure to hold a barre chord. It's just a matter of getting used to them.

I was pretty lucky with barre chords. I took to them pretty easy and could play them OK. Where I ran into trouble was switching from open to barre chords. Back to open was fine since I was already use to that. Took a lot of practice and I am still not as fast as I would like plus I still have to think about it.

Part of my daily practice is just going from open to barre and back on any mixture of chords.

I started barre chords about a month ago and the F chord (E shapped chords) is fairly easy for me...it's funny....I have (and STILL have!) a heck of a time with the open D chord yet the barres have been MUCH easier for me...

I practice barres every day as part of my warmup. I hold the "E Shape" barre at the 3rd fret and just slide it up and down the neck strumming each chord. After a few days I could do simple strumming patterns slowly with this method. Then I pick one open chord along with the E shapped barre and switch between them. It's taken some time but on a good day I can switch between them at about 50-60 bpm....Yes I still hear that "thud" of a muted string every now and then (usually the ring finger) but for the most part not too bad...

For me the secret was that I EXPECTED barres to be hard. Just about EVERYONE has problems with them. This kept my frustration level down and made learning them easier...

Now the double barre is still challenging but getting there. ON the electric guitar its fairly easy to fret all the strings...on the acoustic.... :twisted: !!

Just picked up the guitar, made my F chord and all the notes sounded clean. By the third time I hit it it's starting to thud. Funny how that seems to work. I'll do something, finger exercises or whatnot and when my fingers get tired or whatever it is then a few notes start sounding not as clean as they could be.

I'm certainly going to follow the advice of putting it in my warmup regardless of whatever else I'm going to do every day.