An "A" shape barre chords

[Birdbrain]

I feel your pain. I'll flatten my finger to make a quick "a" triplet above a barre, but it's never as clean it I want. A buddy I jam with has no problem with this. He's double-jointed, so his last finger joint bends back beyond straight, letting him lift the rest of the finger to clear the "E." I'll never be able to do that...

[Mandobart]

What if I told you.....

You don't have to play all 6 strings! Say you want to play a B barre chord using an "A" shape on the 2nd fret. You don't even need to strum the low E or A strings. Middle finger on the D string 4th fret, ring finger on the G string 4th fret, pinky finger on the B string 4th fret, and index finger on the high E string 2nd fret.

[Sonics]

I've looked at the physics involved and a lot depends on the neck profile. On a flat fingerboard a ring finger barre would be difficult without muting the high e string. However on a guitar with say a 7.5 or 9.5" radius it's easy. The curvature of the board pushes the ADG and B strings into your finger, while the two outer E strings are lower giving you enough clearance to not mute them. You mainly find those kind of fingerboard radii in the lower positions of an electric guitars. Acoustics neck radii are typically flatter at 16", or in the case of classical guitars, flat.



You may find the below useful, and answers the question why Ovations are so easy to play (...10" radius).

https://www.thaliacapos.com/pages/fr...tar-make-model

As others have stated, you don't have to play all the notes in a chord. You can imply chords by playing the important notes....actually if you're working with a bass player you don't even have to play the root note of the chord. That's their job!

[Pitar]

The index for the full barre and the ring finger for the half barre. I don't mute the hi-e string. After years of playing this shape the ring finger's back bend increases and becomes naturally accustomed to playing the half barre.

[perttime]

Index and ring fingers. Actually my ring fingers have a bit too much flexibility in that direction - and too little in the regular direction, which makes some other chords hard. For example, the "open string" G chord with middle, ring and pinky is almost impossible without muting the A string.