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Easy Barre Chord Exercises

 
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Now let's take a look at some exercises you can use to practice your barre chords chords with the metronome. There are 3 overall elements to this: the mechanics of fretting, the navigating and naming the barre chords, and finally switching between the different voicings.

Once again, the idea is to figure out which area you need to develop, then hone in on that. So I'm going to show you a bunch of different examples of exercises, and then you can come up with your own exercises that can help you improve something specific.

Because barre chords are physically demanding to play, we'll do a workout here where we press down the chord, then release, then press down again, and so on, using a minor barre chord shape.

We'll also call out the names of the chords, and shift between several combinations of barre chord voicings. Over time, you can increase the distance between chords, and shift at faster tempos.

Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Tutorial:
Rock Chords: Easy Practice Exercises
Styles:
Difficulty:
print notation download lesson open guitar tuner
Easy Barre Chord Exercises song notation

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Questions & Answers

1 year ago
Can you recommend any techniques when playing a barre minor chord using the E-minor barre shape so that the 1st finger efficiently barres the 3 high strings (G-B-E)? At best the 1st finger is correctly fretting the high E string but G and B are either completely muted or are open. I feel that the soft part of the 1st finger is not getting any barre action at all and is only working on the low E string when trying this.
Mike Olekshy 1 year ago

Hello - thanks so much for your question! Work on positioning your index fingers across all 6 strings first. Experiment with how much the tip of the finger is hanging over the top of the neck (by the low E string). You can move your index finger up more so that the top 3 strings are positioned more around the flesh under your middle knuckle. Try to keep your index finger as straight as possible when working on this. You might need to adjust the position of your thumb behind the neck to best facilitate this. The next step is to put the remaining 2 fingers on the A and D strings to make the chord. It will be easier at first to practice this up the neck where the frets are closer together --- around the 8th fret (Cm) or 10th fret (Dm). Once your fingers loosen up on the fretboard, it will be easier to move the shape down to the lower frets. Keep at it - you'll get it!!! Hope this helps!

2 years ago
For me the A shape barre chords are by far harder. I have really a hard time trying to press three string and make them sound decently with the ring finger. Should I try something else or stick with this excercise?
Josh Workman 2 years ago

Hi Alessandro, thank you for the question. Other than building up strength over time, you could also make sure that you are placing the fretting hand fingers as close to the actual metal fret as possible (less effort to press strings) and really supporting the grip with your thumb behind the neck, rather than wrapping around it. Try placing the thumb directly behind the index finger. This should give you the most support.