Seven Tips for Playing Better Barre Chords
Learning barre chords can be a pain for most beginner guitar players. Some students just give up and play open position chords or use a capo if there are barre chords in the song. Eventually, not learning to play barre chords properly limits your song choices and lessens your tonal palette — but I know and have played with professional musicians who still can’t play a Bm barre chord.
Hang in there. Here are a few tips that, combined with steady practice, will help you overcome this barrier.
Tip 1: Tilt your barre finger slightly to the left and very close or touching the fret (Ex. 1 – 2). Practice making the barres in exercise #1 until all the notes ring clearly. Move barre up and down the neck.
Tip 2: Lower your wrist and keep your barre finger in line with fret. Keep even pressure on all the stings.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2
Exercise #1: Make a barre with your 1st finger. Use finger 3 or 4 in measure 3.
Tip 3: Play each string separately and slowly until you can hear each note with a clear sound. Practice exercise 2 below.
Exercise #1: Make a barre with your 1st finger. Use finger 3 or 4 in measure 3.
Tip 4: Experiment with the position of your barre finger. Notice where the knuckle joints rest on the strings. Sometimes moving the barre finger up or down can help eliminate buzzing sounds (Ex.3).Â
Tip 5: Tilt the neck of the guitar up (30 to 45-degree angle). Wear a strap or use a footstool if sitting down. Keeping the neck on an angle will reduce the strain on your arm and wrist (Ex.4).
Ex. 3
Ex. 4
Tip 6: Keep your thumb approximately in the center of the neck behind the 1st and 2nd finger (Ex.5). If your notes are still unclear, you may have to press harder or change the position of your fingers.
Tip 7: Continually change the position of your fingers, wrist, thumb, and elbow until you find the “sweet spot.” Often a slight repositioning rather than pressing harder can improve the clarity of the chord (Ex.6).
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
I hope these tips for playing guitar barre chords help. Vote in the poll below. For more tips check out my book: Improve Your Guitar Chord Playing.
Improve Your Guitar Chord Playing
In Improve Your Guitar Chord Playing – Chord Switching Tips, Tricks & Exercises, you will learn the essential skills required to master the most frequently used chords. Discover valuable lessons and exercises to play faster, precise sounding chords and an improved 3-way visual chord learning system with tests to help remember chords.
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Thanks for these tips. They are really helpful, especially the one about tilting the neck of the guitar.
I keep my index finger straight with the neck on an incline. It takes a while but worth the effort. Good luck!