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Barre Chords Explained

September 4, 2008 By Lee 6 Comments

Barre chords (or bar chords or whatever way you prefer to spell them) should be mastered by all guitarists. If you know how to find the notes on the fifth and sixth strings then you’ll have instant ability to play any major, minor, major seventh, minor seventh and dominant seventh chord, in any key and two positions of the guitar fretboard with just a few shapes to learn.,,,

Bar chords can extend beyond those listed above but these are the most important and they give you enough variety to play most rock and blues songs. Barre (bar) chords are also called moveable chords and this is what makes them so handy to learn. The fact they are moveable chords means you simply learn one shape for each chord type and move it along the fretboard to change it’s starting note.

For instance, you already know the common ‘E major’ shape chord as shown in the diagram below.

E major chord

The sixth, open E string is the ‘root’ or ‘starting note’ for this chord. If we now move this entire shape up by one fret and use our finger to act as a barre, effectively moving the nut or mimicking a capo, then the chord is now an F major. This shape then becomes the full moveable fingering pattern for a six string major chord.

f major chords

The same method is used to create five string bar chords. The diagram below shows how you move the common ‘A minor’ shape along the fretboard to create a ‘D minor’ chord.

minor chords

That summarises the basics of barre chords. Practice the common five and six string shapes shown below and you’ll have most every chord you ever need to play many styles of music. The five and six string notes on the fretboard are shown for reference if you don’t know them and a few examples should help clarify things if you are new to bar chords..

Notes on the fifth ( A ) and sixth ( E ) string

fifth and sixth string notes

Five string barre chord diagrams

five string major chord
five string major seventh chord

seventh chord five string minor chord

minor seventh chord

Five string bar chords example 1

C major and F minor seventh

Five string bar chords example 2

bar chord examples

Six string barre chord diagrams

major major seventh

seventh minor

minor seventh

Six string bar chords example 1

bar chord example 1

Six string bar chords example 2

bar chord example 2

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: chords

Comments

  1. Lahiru says

    July 18, 2010 at 3:52 pm

    thnX a lot.

    Reply
  2. Paul says

    November 21, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    This is really helpful!!!! thanx :o)

    Reply
  3. Antonio says

    March 14, 2013 at 4:44 am

    This is so useful ! its has saved me a lot of time ! Thanks.

    Reply
  4. Mac says

    November 27, 2013 at 4:10 pm

    Just brilliant. So easy, why did I take so long before to understand this? Thank you so much.

    Reply
  5. DAN says

    January 27, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    Very good and helpful

    Reply
  6. George says

    March 15, 2018 at 7:40 pm

    Great info, simple to understand and cleared up the Barre mystic.
    Thanks

    Reply

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