# Guitar/Barre Chords

Barre chords are chords that involve using one finger, usually your
first finger, to press all the strings down at once on a single fret.
Barring turns your first finger into a movable
capo. You can then use your
remaining three fingers to play open chord shapes, but in any position
on the fretboard. Not all open chord shapes are easy to play with a
barre, but once you have learned barring techniques, your chord
vocabulary will increase and you will be able to play all along the
fretboard.

Initially, barre chords are much more difficult to play than open
chords. Before being able to play a barre chord, you first must train
your hand be able to barre the fretboard. To do this, you take your
first finger and press it lightly against the strings (applying no
pressure) so that the finger covers all the strings along the same fret.
Keep increasing the pressure until all the strings can be heard to sound
clearly. A common mistake for beginners is to barre with full pressure
which leads to hand fatigue. By lightly touching the strings and
increasing the pressure in small increments, you will find that the
pressure you need to apply to make the strings sound is much less than
you imagine. Your thumb should be directly behind your first finger on
the neck for full support. To illustrate the concept of a barre, compare
the difference between the open strings (where the nut acts like a
\"zero\" barre) and the full barre at the third fret.

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File: Open Strings.png\|**The nut acts as the barre** File: Full bar at
3rd Fret.png\|**Full barre at the third fret**

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### Six String Barre Chord

A six string barre chord is a chord in which all the strings are being
played. It can be compared to E chords, because, since the guitar is
tuned to E, it effectively is an open barre chord. (you can view all
open chords as a form of barre chords, which do not require you to press
all the 6 strings somewhere \[ because you use the open strings - 0 -
hence their name \]. Let us examine the form of a major six string barre
chord, in this case G, along with the major E chord:

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File: E major chord for guitar (open).png\|**E major** File: G major
chord for guitar (3rd fret full bar).png\|**G major**

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In both of these chords, the relationship between the individual notes
is identical, which is why the G chord is still a major chord. The
difference is the root note, which determines the keys of the respective
chords. By looking at the root note, we can see that the difference
between all the notes of the E major and G major are three frets. But so
long as the relationship remains the same, the major barre chord form
can be played on any fret neck. For example, it could be played as an A
major or a B major by putting it in these two positions:

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File: A major chord for guitar (5th fret full bar).png\|**A major**
File: B major chord for guitar (7th fret full bar).png\|**B major**

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The usefulness of barre chords comes from this ability to be played
anywhere on the neck. Sliding the chord shape up and down the neck
allows you to play many different chords relatively easily, and barre
chords are a fundamental tool for rhythm guitarists since they can
easily be used to create syncopated chord progressions.

As we saw earlier, the difference between a major and a minor chord is a
flattened third. Using a barre chord, the transition between a major and
a minor chord is relatively simple. The difference between an E major
chord and E minor chord is the lifting of a single finger, thereby
lowering the note by a semitone. With any barre chord that is formed
using the E major shape, you can lift a single finger and play the
corresponding minor chord. The minor barre chord form, shown beside the
major barre chord form:

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File: E major chord for guitar (open).png\|**E major** File: E minor
chord for guitar (open).png\|**E minor** File: G major chord for guitar
(3rd fret full bar).png\|**G major** File: G minor chord for guitar (3rd
fret full bar).png\|**G minor**

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The same idea can be applied to seventh chords, or any other chord you
can think of.

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File: E7 chord for guitar (open D).png\|**E7** File: G7 chord for guitar
(3rd fret full bar).png\|**G7**

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### Five String Barre Chords

The same principles hold for five string barre chords, except instead of
using the E chord shape, the A chord is used. Additionally, it should be
emphasised that only five strings are played, which means that the low E
string should not be allowed to sound.

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File: A major chord for guitar (open).png\|**A major** File: C major
chord for guitar (3rd fret bar).png\|**C major**

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</div>
```
