How to Play Barre Chords on a Guitar

Barre chords offer guitar players a lot of flexibility:

• They can be played at any fret.
• They enable you to play chords that can’t be played as open-position chords.
• They make it easier to play chord progressions, series of chords in a row (see Chord Progressions).

Barre chords require you to press down your left index finger across five or six strings all at once. This can be difficult at first: to create this barre and fret all the notes without causing lots of string buzz, you’ll need to develop some significant hand and finger strength.

Barre Chord Practice

Before you begin practicing barre chords, its helpful to practice playing just the barre to build up your finger strength.

1. Place the index finger of your left hand directly across all six strings at the 1st fret, parallel and as close to the 1st fret as possible.
2. Press down the six strings all at once to create a “barre” across the fretboard.
3. Keep your index finger as flat as possible to prevent the strings from buzzing when played.
4. Pick the six strings one by one to test your barre. Each note should sound clearly, without buzzing (though the notes shouldn’t yet sound like a harmonious chord, since you’re just playing the barre, not a real chord).

The Two Forms of Barre Chords

All barre chords are either E-form or A-form chords:

• E-form barre chords: Based on the fingering of the open-position E chord. E-form barre chords are played by sounding all six strings.
• A-form barre chords: Based on the fingering of the open-position A chord. A-form barre chords are played by sounding five strings: the 5th through 1st.

Once you’ve gotten all six barred strings to sound clearly without buzzing, you’re ready to try a full barre chord.

How to Play E-form Barre Chords

There are four types of E-form barre chords: major, minor, 7th, and minor 7th. To play them, do as follows:

1. At the 1st fret, lay the 1st finger of your left hand across all six strings to form a barre.
2. Form the open-position E chord with fingers 2, 3, and 4, at the 2nd fret, immediately to the right (from the player’s perspective) of your barre at the 1st fret. This may feel wrong at first, since you’re used to playing open-position E with fingers 1, 2, and 3.

How to Play A-form Barre Chords

There are five types of A-form barre chords: major, minor, 7th, minor 7th, and major 7th (E-form barre chords don’t include this last type). A-form barre chords work just like E-form barre chords, with two big exceptions:

1. Fingering is based on an open-position A-major chord.
2. You always play just strings 1-5.

How to Play Barre Chords at Any Fret

Whenever you play a barre chord, the 1st finger of your left hand acts as a replacement for the guitar’s nut (see Parts of a Guitar). When you play a barre chord at the 1st fret, your finger effectively shifts the nut up by one fret, which also shifts every note in the chord you play up by one half-step. An E-form chord barred at the 1st fret, for instance, becomes an F chord. This means that you can move your barre to any fret between the 1st and the 12th to play an entirely different chord. (Playing barre chords beyond the 12th fret is impractical because the frets become too narrow.)

Why Does an E Become an F?

Like open-position chords, the first component of a barre chord’s name is its root note, while the second is either major, minor, 7th, minor 7th, or major 7th. The root note of every barre chord is the lowest note played in the chord:

• For E-form barre chords: The root is the note you play on the 6th string.
• For A-form barre chords: The root is the note you play on the 5th string.

If you play an E-form barre chord at the 1st fret, the root note is an F (the 6th string played at the 1st fret). So all E-form barre chords played at the 1st fret are F chords.

Which Root Notes Occur at Which Frets?

The following charts indicate which root notes occur at each of the first 12 frets on the 6th string (for E-form barre chords) and the 5th string (for A-form barre chords).

Root Notes on the 6th String (for E-Form Barre Chords)

Fret		Chord
1		F
2		F#
3		G
4		G#
5		A
6		A#
7		B
8		C
9		C#
10		D
11		D#
12		E

Root Notes on the 5th String (for A-Form Barre Chords)

Fret		Chord
1		A#
2		B
3		C
4		C#
5		D
6		D#
7		E
8		F
9		F#
10		G
11		G#
12		A

How to Play 108 Different Barre Chords

Once you’ve learned to play the four types of E-form barre chords and the five types of A-form barre chords, you’ll instantly know how to play all 108 barre chords that exist between the 1st and 12th frets. A chord such as A#m7 might sound difficult to play, but you actually now know two ways to play it:

• For the E-form barre chord version: Barre at the 6th fret and use the minor 7th fingering.
• For the A-form barre chord version: Barre at the 1st fret and use the minor 7th fingering.

Combining E- and A-Form Barre Chords

Knowing how to play any barre chord in two places is helpful because it allows you to play a series of chords in a row without jumping all around the neck of the guitar.

• Example 1: Shows where to play the chords C, A#, D#, and F using just the E-form barre chords. This requires several leaps across the neck, making it almost impossible to move seamlessly from chord to chord.
• Example 2: Shows where to play those chords using just the A-form barre chords. Better, but still requires moving around a lot.
  
• Example 3: Shows why it’s easier to use a combination of E- and A-form barre chords: now all the chords are close to one another on the neck, which makes them easy to play in quick succession.
  

The hard part about this technique is switching from E-form barre chord fingerings to A-form barre chord fingerings on the fly. It may seem impossible to do smoothly at first, but with practice you’ll find that it allows you to switch between certain chords far more easily than you could otherwise.

Practice Combining E-Form and A-Form Barre Chords

One effective way to practice combining barre chords is to alternate between playing the two chord types at the same fret:

1. Play the E-form barre chord at the 3rd fret (a G major chord).
2. Switch to the A-form chord at the 3rd fret (a C major chord) without moving your barred index finger.
3. Remember to strum just the first five strings when playing the A-form barre chord.

As you practice, switch more and more quickly until the transition becomes completely natural.