Barre Chords

Barre chords unlock the whole neck: learn a couple of shapes and you can play any major or minor chord in any key. This chapter shows you how to play barre chords without wearing out your hand, starting with the one every guitarist dreads, F major.

You begin with the E-shape barre, an open E chord with your index finger acting as a movable nut, and use it for a classic A-G-F-G rock progression. Then you learn the A-shape barre with its root on the A string, and combine both shapes so G, C and D sit within a few frets of each other. The last lesson turns both into minor barre chords and drills the changes in A minor, mixing major and minor shapes in one loop. Along the way you learn where the barre really needs pressure, how to use arm weight instead of a squeezing thumb, and how to find and fix dead strings.

Every exercise plays in the browser with a click, and the tempo ladder and checkpoint at the end of each lesson keep your progress steady. By the end, full barre chords will ring clearly and change in time.