Effortless Barre Chords

[s0cks]

Those proficient at barres needn't read.

I've spend the last 8 months learning to play with very little tension. Otherwise I flare up the RSI in my left wrist. This has had a massively positive effect on my playing ability. But one thing that was always hard was barre chords. I wanted to play barre chords effortlessly, as easy as any open chord.

Well... it's taken time, but I finally got there. So I thought I would give some tips that worked for me. And believe me, this doesn't require strength. I'm a skinny dude, but you can also find plenty of dainty people playing effortless barre chords on YouTube, even very young kids. Forget the tips about building strength in those muscle groups. All you'll be doing is building tension and worsening any underlying condition like RSI if you have that.

1. Have the neck higher up. Not parallel to the floor. It needs to be above the elbow. You don't have to go full on classical position, but some height is very advantageous.

2. Relax the shoulder. Don't hunch.

3. Relax the arm so that the elbow falls to your side.

4. Relax the thumb. The thumb does not need to provide much pressure on the back of the neck. I think this is the #1 reason people struggle. It does require a little pressure, but not much at all. Think of the thumb as a stabilizer only. My thumb is always applying the same small amount of pressure regardless of what I play. Pressure from the thumb is the #1 instigator of my RSI.

5. Make sure the middle, ring and pinky are as close to the fret as possible. Learn to fret these notes before placing the barre so you can feel how little pressure is required for these strings to ring out clearly.

6. Let the weight of the arm apply the majority of the pressure to the strings. Be careful, you don't need to be pulling back with any real force, remember this is about being effortless. The weight of the arm alone should be enough in most, if not all, cases (unless your action is stupid high).

7. The barre! I believe a lot of people mistakenly push harder thinking this will help. Nah. This just locks in more tension. You need to really think about the placement of the barre. And remember it only needs to fret the remaining strings, so for an F barre your index doesn't even need to apply pressure to the 5th, 4th, and 3rd strings. Try raising the barre towards the ceiling, try rolling it anti-clockwise so the side of the finger is in contact with the strings more than the underside. Try curling the finger ever so slightly. Whatever works for you (our fingers are all different). And again, don't cheat and apply more pressure with the thumb. You can barre without that thumb, I promise.

8. Back to the thumb. Experiment with different positions. I was surprised to find that placing the my thumb in the centre of the neck behind the middle/ring finger (in that area) made for much more reliable barre chords, contrary to what most people recommend (which is normally behind the index finger). Whatever you do though, don't have your thumb behind no fingers (i.e. off to the side pointing at the headstock), it needs to be behind the fingers so the hand is balanced.

9. If you get buzz or muted notes play each string individually so you know exactly where the problem is. Often it's not the barre but one of the other fingers has strayed too far from the fret. If it is the barre, readjust.

10. Think relaxed. Always tell yourself to relax. Remember you're aiming to play this barre chord as if it were as easy as a G or Am open chord. It can be done. Keep that goal in mind. Pay close attention to the feeling of the fingers. If you feel like cement is starting to flow through them, relax! Your fingers need to be relaxed otherwise when it comes time to move them, they won't want to, and that will slow you down.

11. Practice! Start with a Gmaj or Amaj barre chord. F will be the hardest, so don't start there. Work in a comfortable area of the neck and then work your way down to the F. Learn to switch from an open chord to the barre chord. Once you've found that effortless barre chord you're gonna have to learn to recreate it reliably. The only way to do this is to play it over and over, moving your fingers from some other shape, into the shape of the effortless barre chord (it's good to switch from a chord you're very relaxed with to the barre, this will allow you to compare the level of tension between both - they should be about the same). This takes time. Spend 5-10min a day and work on it till you can form it as instantly and as effortlessly as any open chord.

12. Move on to barres on the 5th string. Practice major, minor, maj7's, dom7's, min7's, etc...

I hope this helps someone. Especially anyone suffering from RSI, CTS, etc... It is essential that we play with very little tension or we make our condition worse. And you know, this takes work. It will take potentially weeks to reliably form an effortless barre chord. Best of luck.

[rick-slo]

Congrats. Except 1 and 6 and a bit of another I am with you on the advice.

[s0cks]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Congrats. Except 1 and 6 and a bit of another I am with you on the advice.

Thanks Rick. It will depend from person to person. If you have healthy strong wrists then I imagine there is some leeway in in what approach you can take. So long as you keep very relaxed and strive to make barres feel effortless then you'll be in good shape.

S0cks, thanks for the advice, I'll certainly use it.
Derek, would you mind expanding on how your advice differs?
I'm not really struggling a whole lot with barre chords but anything that makes them easier will be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Ze.]

Your post rings true with me i have a definite grip and positioning dilemma going on with bar chords ...i grip way too hard and often my positioning of the thumb is way to high .I end up gripping the part of the bar chord that i'm playing mostly and the rest is a bit of a bunch up .Really holding me back with inversions

[jaylynch@yahoo.]

thanks. good advice.

[SunnyDee]

This is great, s0cks. Anything that can help people stay relaxed is a plus. I'd add 2 things that I found helpful in case they might be useful to others.

To help you release tension, instead of focusing on "doing" a barre, focus on the feel of the strings under your finger. As you're learning, take a few seconds to feel each string pressing up on your finger. If you hear a buzz, you can feel where the finger is not straight enough to touch the string, rather than just clamping down harder on all the strings.

The second is consider the idea that you may not have to move the barre between 6 string and 5 string barres. Once I got a good barre, I worked on finger independence more and found it worked better most of the time not to move the barre. That way I also was able to work on all the other finger shapes for different chords at the same time. Now I'm focusing on the transitions up and down the neck when the finger shape changes, such as going from a Am at fret 5 to a Cmaj7 at fret 3 but keeping the same barre.

Best of luck, everyone!

[JonPR]

I agree fully with all this, with the exception of 6 - and that's probably just the way it's worded.

The "weight of the arm" will tend to fall towards the floor. I.e, off the guitar! Maybe if you're laying back on a sofa, the guitar facing upwards, then the weight of the arm will assist the barre .
Otherwise most of us play - sitting or standing - with the guitar facing forwards (if we don't, we should). The weight of the arm then has no impact on the barre. If anything (if the fingers are holding the strings), it will pull the strings downwards, not on to the fretboard.

I suspect what you meant to say - - is that you pull back a little on the arm, while bracing the guitar with the right arm against your body. IOW, the barre is achieved with a combination of pulling the arm back, and pressing with the thumb. Both forces are quite gentle. (some claim the whole force comes from the arm, none from the thumb, but I wouldn't go that far. IMO it's mainly the thumb, but assisted by the arm.)

There is a slight caveat with #1 (the one rick also disagreed with). In a seated position, with the guitar on the right leg, the neck can be pretty much horizontal, although angled up slightly is better.
"Above the elbow" is right, but I think better advice is to keep the elbow at 90 degrees or less. It means you keep the neck back as well as up. When seated, it's easy to let the neck drift forward, straightening the arm, which puts the wrist in a more awkward position (even when the guitar neck is above the elbow).
Whatever position you are in - right leg, left leg (classical), crossed legs, standing with a strap - the left elbow should be at the same angle. That's what governs the ideal wrist angle and approach to the neck.

There is one essential point you could have mentioned right at the beginning: make sure the guitar is properly set up! Many people struggle with a guitar where the nut is too high. That makes barres (especially at 1st fret) way harder than they need to be.
A good way of checking the height of your nut is to place a capo on 1st fret. Now try fretting the strings. If it feels noticeably easier, then your nut is too high, and you should get it fixed (and a full set-up will check other stuff too). If you can't tell much difference (or it's negligible), your nut is fine. On to the other advice!

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by JonPR

I agree fully with all this, with the exception of 6 - and that's probably just the way it's worded.

The "weight of the arm" will tend to fall towards the floor. I.e, off the guitar! ...

I suspect what you meant to say - - is that you pull back a little on the arm, while bracing the guitar with the right arm against your body. IOW, the barre is achieved with a combination of pulling the arm back, and pressing with the thumb. Both forces are quite gentle. (some claim the whole force comes from the arm, none from the thumb, but I wouldn't go that far. IMO it's mainly the thumb, but assisted by the arm.)

JonPR - Great advice as always. I'm a big fan of your posts.



There's a LOT of discussion on this weight of the arm issue. Like most of these discussions in guitar, I think what works is so dependent on so many variables, but there's also some communication issues...

I, personally, feel these are two totally different movements. When I play nearer the nut, I am definitely relaxing my arm from the shoulder and letting the weight help me. It's true, in general, the weight would fall down, but the fingers and thumb do have a hold on the neck that prevents that. Iow, if I relax my fingers, my arm will free fall straight down. As far as the hold that the fingers have, I am not using the muscles in my fingers to press down at all, the fingers are relaxed, but I'm using the larger muscles of the hand to keep them curled (this is a very easy movement). Naturally, between chords, enough contraction in the arm is necessary to move from one chord to the next, but, between those slight motions, for the most part, when others might be pressing the strings, I am, instead, relaxing my arm this way. For me, this gives far better tone with much less strength required to play so most everything is played this way that can be.

Oth, if I play barres far up the neck in the close frets, by the time the barre is on the 9th fret, I can't relax from the shoulder, the angle is wrong (at least on my current guitar). In that case, I have to pull slightly with the bicep. The two are quite different for me. Both are needed. I think that people who can play "without the thumb" must be doing more of this.

Originally Posted by s0cks

6. Let the weight of the arm apply the majority of the pressure to the strings. Be careful, you don't need to be pulling back with any real force, remember this is about being effortless. The weight of the arm alone should be enough in most, if not all, cases (unless your action is stupid high).

[perttime]

Originally Posted by JonPR

I agree fully with all this, with the exception of 6 - and that's probably just the way it's worded.

The "weight of the arm" will tend to fall towards the floor. I.e, off the guitar! Maybe if you're laying back on a sofa, the guitar facing upwards, then the weight of the arm will assist the barre .
Otherwise most of us play - sitting or standing - with the guitar facing forwards (if we don't, we should). The weight of the arm then has no impact on the barre. If anything (if the fingers are holding the strings), it will pull the strings downwards, not on to the fretboard.
.....

But wait....
You have the index finger on the guitar, gently holding the low E string down. It is not moving downwards. So the tip of the index finger is a pivot point.

Have you tried doing a barre without using the thumb at all? It may be a bit awkward, but not actually hard.

[Pitar]

I guess you can say I'm proficient at barre chord but I read your post anyway to see what I did wrong/right on my way there.

Probably my most poignant moment came when I realized that barre chords are relative little beasties. The index finger use being the focus, it soon occurred to me each of those chords required selective shaping and pressure from the index finger and not a rigid capo-like pressure across all six strings. After that, placing them became more of a nuanced shaping of the hand rather than a gripping of the chord, and hand fatigue became a thing of the past.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by perttime

But wait....
You have the index finger on the guitar, gently holding the low E string down. It is not moving downwards. So the tip of the index finger is a pivot point.

Have you tried doing a barre without using the thumb at all? It may be a bit awkward, but not actually hard.

Don't follow pivot point point. Force is directed down towards the floor. If you consider the index finger a hook on the string the force will pull it downward, the string sideways (not in towards the fretboard). In any case that is tangent to the more important issues which are: Barre force required is low enough (on a set up guitar and with proper finger position) that a thumb pinch can easily handle it. Using the arm is much less precise (subtle) than the thumb in making the desirable small moment to moment pressure adjustments while playing, and also slower.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Pitar

I guess you can say I'm proficient at barre chord but I read your post anyway to see what I did wrong/right on my way there.

Probably my most poignant moment came when I realized that barre chords are relative little beasties. The index finger use being the focus, it soon occurred to me each of those chords required selective shaping and pressure from the index finger and not a rigid capo-like pressure across all six strings. After that, placing them became more of a nuanced shaping of the hand rather than a gripping of the chord, and hand fatigue became a thing of the past.

Pitar, thanks for posting this. I'm interested in how this has worked for you because I started that way, but changed after a bit. There are still only a couple of chords in context that I adjust. If you don't mind, can you tell me, if you are playing with a barre on the 3rd fret, and you were to play a progression like G, Cm, Csus2, G7, Cmaj7, G, what would happen with your barre?

[1neeto]

The hardest F is at the 13th fret. [emoji23]

I'm ok with barre chords, 5 string barres are a bit of a struggle (took me over a year to feel confident landing a Bm) and some major 5 string shapes are still a struggle to land clean. I'll keep this list handy next time I try. Thanks!

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by perttime

But wait....
You have the index finger on the guitar, gently holding the low E string down. It is not moving downwards. So the tip of the index finger is a pivot point.

Well, yes, but the arm action is still backward.
Any "weight" issue is going to pull that 6th string down, seeing as there is nothing to prevent it; other than friction against the fretboard caused by ... pressing the finger on the string!
And the only way to press the string against the neck, in order for the fingertip to act as a fixed pivot, is to counter the pressure with the thumb - or, to pull the arm back, while bracing the body of the guitar with the other arm.
In any case, if the index fingertip were a truly fixed pivot (imagine it nailed to the guitar!), the weight of the arm is almost entirely behind the neck - meaning if it was free to fall, it would move forward: pivoting on the fixed fingertip, and lifting the rest of the index away from the neck.
Again, the action in question (pivoting on that fingertip) is pulling the arm back. Nothing to do with its weight.

Originally Posted by perttime

Have you tried doing a barre without using the thumb at all? It may be a bit awkward, but not actually hard.

Agreed.
I did try that last time I read this theory about the arm action versus thumb action. It works, but I found it a little awkward, as you say. It involves a conscious pulling back on the body of the guitar with the right arm, to balance the pulling back of the left arm.
I then experimented with my own (intuitive) technique, and found - to my surprise - that I did use the arm along with the thumb.
IOW, I had believed up to that point it was all down to the thumb. But trying a thumb-only barre (thumb-index pinch, not supporting the guitar body) made me realise that when I play a barre normally I use both: the thumb pinch and arm pull-back together. The thumb-pinch alone is roughly as awkward as the arm pull-back alone, but that's mainly because the weight of the right arm naturally braces the guitar anyway - to actually barre with thumb pressure alone, you have to lift the right arm away from the guitar (to be sure it's having no effect).