BARRE CHORD The Barre chord is obviously the use of the index finger across the entire set of strings. The reason this is difficult is due to the tension of the string from the nut to the first fret... it's the hardest place of the fretboard. Play the E CHORD with your bottom three fingers of your fretting hand.
Although the other answers are already brilliant and did help me overcome this big beginner problem, I still want to share my experience about how I finally managed to get a decent grip (no pun intended) on bar chords.
To let you have an idea regarding how bad I sucked at bar chords, I was about to write a book about how bad bar chords are for health, about that they are a big lie invented by doctors in order to have more hand-injured patients. I was doing pretty well with open chords, but not a single decent sound came from bar ones. Was I condemned to live a life in C major? Hell no!
Following points did work for me. Perhaps you already have all of them covered, and you struggle with other things: in case
Have a goal
You don't have to play bar chords for the sake of it, just because you read somewhere that is important or so. Don't get me wrong, of course they are! They will open you the full world of tonalities up all the neck, and make you play things that are otherwise impossible in standard tuning, not to mention all tecniques revolving around (funky sliding anyone?).
But you need a concrete goal now, i.e. you need to play that song very bad. Usually the big boss is the B minor chord, because most of the time a Fmaj7 instead of a full F will do.
Then play the song that needs the B minor. Don't stop to position the fingers when it comes the time to play it: just do on time, even if it sounds awful, even if you just do a mute strum. This way you won't lose the flow of the song, and your enthusiasm will do the rest. Of course you need to do proper slower and focused exercises alongside that, but what drove me was a specific song, or better a triplet of them with the same passage: aforementioned Space Oddity, Don't Look Back in Anger and Creep, as they all feature the dreaded F -> Fm passage.
Play a lot
Even though I found a lot of advice regarding preliminary technical exercises, the best way to improve was...to play guitar. To play anything. Because everything helps you to build strength in you fretting hand and to get confident in moving it around. You will soon realise that you don't need to put the insane effort you used the first time you fretted all strings at once, with your virgin pointer!
Play different guitars
I loved my first guitar, and I will always do. But heaven knows how bad it sounded, how cutting its strings were, how high was its action! These are all things I realised once I played different guitars (and eventually got a new, better one). By changing instrument you shift the perspective from "I suck" to "I still suck, but I do less with this guitar". Learning bar chords on a cheap steel string guitar is the hardest way, but man you will thank me when you'll run fast on the electric later on!
Get a break
This applies for every step of the learning process. If something doesn't really work now, leave it before frustration runs over the joy of playing. Go back to it a couple of weeks later, even a month: you'll be amazed how better you became at playing that once impossible passage.
Eat well and work out
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I thought that art was something that could be achieved by the mere focus of mind: nothing more distant from truth my friend. Guitar is a lover that wants to be held gently yet firmly. You don't need strength in your left hand fingers only, but in your whole body. I would call it control better, and it helps in all life activities.
Since I started applying control on my body and regulating how energy comes in and goes out (food exercise, for simplicity's sake), my guitar skills improved drastically. And you do want to look fit after you pick up that cute girl by nailing that song, after all!
And now some concrete piece of advice, besides all general considerations above:
Master the E major position with the last three fingers
I assume you know how to play an E major (001220) with fingers 1-2-3. That's the most common fingering. Well, learn to play it with fingers 2-3-4 until you feel no difference between positions. Yes that means that pointer is doing nothing. Ring and pinky should stick together like a sole thing. Your pinky will ache a bit, but you'll develop strengh (and the callus) soon. You will need this for a lot of other things (power chords anyone?).
Play it over and over, alternate strums with hammer-ons over both all three chord strings, or just the bottom two (the B and the E ).
Once you master it, you are ready to slide up one fret and play an Fmaj7/C * (by fretting a C on the second string with your pointer). Great, you can now play all the chords of C major scale (ahem - sorry Bdim , you are a cumbersome one and we never invite you to our jams)!
(* - ok, you may want to mute the bottom E string with your thumb, even though it belongs to the chord.)
Once you are there, slide the Fmaj7 position over the neck by two steps. Anything familiar? Yes, that's a G major ! Almost, there is a ringing E on top, that would make it a G6 . But if you strum just the middle four strings, you have a regular G. And guess what? Slide two up again, you have an A major ! Yes, the pesky one that needs you to pack three fingers in that tiny space, or to go all in with your squeezed pointer.
Cool, once you are able to slide this position all over the neck with confidence, you are almost done. Lift your pointer from the second string, and place it gently across all strings, with its side slighlty turned towards the fretboard if you can (it will hurt less).
Strum. You should hear a beautiful, major chord sound. You don't? Play the strings one at once, and check where the problem is. Rinse and repeat. Consider doing this not on the first fret (that would give you an F ), but rather on the fifth or seventh (respectively an A and a B ), because you'll require much less effort there. Yes it will sound like an ukelele if you are just used to open chords.
It will take time, but at least we broke the problem in two main parts - the 2-3-4 fingers role, and the one of the pointer.
Sorry, you wanted to play a B minor (on the 2nd fret), not a B major (on the 7th)! Well, repeat all this training starting from the A minor canonical position (012200), slide up and fret all over with the pointer. If you still can't but want to invite it to the party, fret the first string only and strum/arpeggiate over the top four.
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Sorry again, you wanted to play an F minor, not major! Slide up the Em position (000220) one step up, and lay your pointer across all strings over fret 1. Or if you haven't already forgot how to play the full F , just do and lift your medium finger to get the missing minor third. Slide up the fretboard to get all missing minor chords ( F#m , I am looking at you!).
What comes next?
(Basic) Open chords rely on first three frets only, so you don't need much eye on the longitudinal axis. But once you unleash granted you by bar chords, you need to know where your dervishing left hand is landing! It's just a matter of practice, it's not hard to figure out by yourself either. Plus usually you will be playing in a known scale, and you know where the needed chords are located.
After major and minor bar chords, you'll realise that you can easily move dominant 7th and major 7th position for instance. And minor 7th too. I call them marr chords. How I hate and love you every day, Johnny.
Good exercises to improve/keep tecnique are for instance:
to play a single bar chord (e.g. Bm ) and to hammer on fingers 2-3-4 at once, like in the exercise above. You have to focus on landing and keeping the pointer stead;
) and to hammer on fingers 2-3-4 at once, like in the exercise above. You have to focus on landing and keeping the pointer stead; to play any E -shaped major bar chord, to lift fingers 2-3-4 and to land one string down on the according Am position - for instance if your bar starting from the third fret, you'll be switching between G and Cm . You'll learn how the two "lanes" are related all over the fretboard;
-shaped major bar chord, to lift fingers 2-3-4 and to land one string down on the according position - for instance if your bar starting from the third fret, you'll be switching between and . You'll learn how the two "lanes" are related all over the fretboard; to play a simple E - A - B progression using different rhythms, and by sliding (especially between A and B ). Yes it sounds like C - F - G . Yes, you are playing grades I , IV and IV of the major scale.
The A (major) shaped bar chords are the biggest beast for me. I still cheat with a sus2 surrogate most of the time, I am sorry. But as soon as I'll find a song that cannot be played without a proper E up the neck...;))
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