two very basic barre forms are the e-shape and a-shapetake an e chord played with your2, 3, 4 fingers and slide it up a fret. bar the strings behind it on the first fret and you have an f chord. move it up two more and you have a g chord......you can do the same with the baisc a chord position at the headstock and slide it up just the same........

I've been playing for one year myself and find barre chords very challenging. What I try to do is to fret the single chords first and lay down the bar immediately thereafter. It seems to work for me, if I am explaining it corectly. I have just recently mastered the F and B. Good luck! It's a lot of fun and a lot of work. I wish I took this up 25 years ago!!!

I've been playing for around 8 years... with bar chords i usually have my finger sort of rotate so it's not flat but somewhat on it's side.. I find it easier to do it this way because it's easier to fret the bar and you don't have to push down as hard

I would just play them untill your hand hurts and then do it again as soon as the ache stops. You will slowly build up endurance and be able to play about 85% of any rock music you have ever heard.My real advise is to slap your first finger across the whole fret board(like a capo), flat and start that way, then add the other fingers, arching them.

Learn a song that has one or two in it. For me it was Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. I wanted to learn it and it had a Bm in it. Then I learned Hotel California, it had a Bm and a F#m. Play that part of the song until the change is smooth, in and out of the bar chord.

Check it! Work through the videos lower down the page. There is no substitute for LOTS of practice to build strength, callouses and and technique. Find at least 15 minutes EVERY day. Also have a look at the finger gymnastics section of the same site.

Also, I'm a big proponent of playing songs rather than just noodling. It's WAY more fun, both for you and those around you.

So find a good simple barre chord song to play so as to build the required strength. Good Lovin' would be a great start. It's basically just moving the E chord form up and down the neck. That is; open E (2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers), E-form barre A and E-form barre B and then back down, through barre A to the open E. Repeat ad nauseam. Up and down, up and down, up and down. Start slowly and gradually work it up to speed.

By the time you can do that, you will have sufficient strength. Having said that, once you start to get a bit of comfort, focus on doing the fretting with as light a touch as you can while still keeping the notes clear. Avoid the death grip that will freeze you into place. The lighter your touch, the easier it is to move the chords fluidly and, eventually, the better your tone will become.

Once you are there, a good song to slip in a minor barre chord form is All Along the Watchtower. Basically, that just involves lifting the second finger off the E-form barre chord to get the minor chord form. So . . . Am (E-form barre A with second finger lifted), down to E-form barre G and down again to E-form barre F). Up and down, up and down . . . you get it. If you go with the Dave Matthews version, it's about as good a natural high as you can get. Let 'er WAIL!

Also, By the time you can do that, you will have sufficient strength. Having said that, once you start to get a bit of comfort, focus on doing the fretting with as light a touch as you can while still keeping the notes clear. Avoid the death grip that will freeze you into place. The lighter your touch, the easier it is to move the chords fluidly and, eventually, the better your tone will become.

First, learn to make the cowboy chords (first position chords) with not only the 1,2,3 fingers, but also with the 2,3,4 fingers FROM THE BEGINNING. This sort of flexibility makes the switch to barre chords much easier when the fingers are already programmed to form the chord correctly.....eliminates a the learning curve associated with switching to the 2,3,4 fingers.

Second, base the determination on whether to use barre chords on the chords immediately preceeding and following the chord in question. At times during the same song I will play the same chord both in open form and in barre form, it really depends on how easy it is to get to the barre chord from the preceeding chord as well as how easy it is to get from the barre chord to the following chord. A splendid example of this is the G chord....many of my songs seem to use this (G and D are my favorite keys).....I'll play with an open G and a barred G (using the E formation with fingers 2,3,4 barred at the 3rd fret) in the same song....

Barre chords are an intermediate issue....if you're a beginning player, don't feel bad if you have trouble with barre chords (particularly if you've made the 1st position chords with only the 1,2,3 fingers, as do most beginners).

Learn the caged template then you can begin to understand the various ways chords are played up the neck with different shapes and voicings Desi Serna explains this beautifully in his fret board theory series I highly reccomend it as did rolling stone mag.good luck