Barre chords are a great way to build up a chord vocabulary in double quick time. They are all movable and so if you learn one shape, you have, by default learned another eleven chords at the same time.
Learning to play barre chords correctly will take a little time, but the effort will be well worth it. Just remember that anyone who has ever learnt guitar has been through exactly the same thing as you. Clapton, Hendrix, Knopfler, they will all have struggled to start with, and thought they would never be able to do it.
If possible, take note of the shapes that your favourite guitarists use when playing on the TV or DVD, and you'll see that a lot of the time they are playing using a movable shape.
Take a look at the three shapes below.
When you first try to play them you may find that your fingers just dont want to form the shape. It just doesn't seem right to get your fingers into those strange shapes. Its perfectly natural though. It takes a bit of time to loosen up your muscles and to gain suppleness. Dont try to rush, and remember its not a race and there isn't any time limit on this. I always try to instill into my pupils that when learning any new skill be it guitar or anything else, it helps if you can try to clear your mind of any desire for results. By this I dont mean give up trying altogether. I mean to try and forget about how long its going to take to be able to form the chord properly, without the buzzes and rattles. Just keep diligently trying to make as clean a shape as you can. Just decide on one shape to learn for the day, and do it. Dont jump forward and think "if I could just get that one right all my worries will be over" just be positive, that today, you are going to try and form that shape. Nothing else, dont go any deeper into it than that. One day you will find that you can just do it, and you'll be able to look back and think, Crikey what was all the fuss about.
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