Barre Chord Chart

How to use this barre chord chart

1. Pick the root, then the chord type. Any of the 12 roots, any of the 5 types — 60 chords in all, each with two ways to play it.
2. Read the fret number before the shape. A barre chord is one shape moved, so the only thing that changes between F and B is where your index finger goes. The number under each diagram is that fret. Finger 1 is always your index, and it is always the bar.
3. Take the one marked as the pick. Both positions sound the same chord, but they rarely cost the same. The chart rates each and names one, and it tells you why.
4. If it will not ring, open the panel underneath. Every chord here has at least one honest way out: the same chord with no bar where one exists, a version with fewer strings, a capo position, or a substitute one note away.
5. Tick the ones you are working on and print them. The PDF has your chords, both positions, and the easier routes printed alongside. Left-handed if you set it that way.

Why this chart is different

Search for a barre chord chart and you get pictures. Some of them are good pictures, and a couple of them cost five dollars, but they are all the same thing: a fixed grid someone else chose, which cannot answer a single question about your hand.

• It tells you which position to play. Most charts show the 6th-string and 5th-string shapes side by side and leave it there. This one rates both and picks. B major goes to fret 7, not the fret-2 shape beginners get handed. F goes to fret 8.
• It has an answer for "I cannot play this." That is the actual reason people search for barre chords, and no chart on the first page of results addresses it. Every chord here carries up to four computed alternatives.
• The capo advice cannot hand you another barre. A capo suggestion worked out from the key alone will cheerfully move a progression into one with an F♯m in it. Here the shape you land on is checked, every time, and only offered if the index can hold it with two strings or fewer.
• Every shape plays. Tap Hear on any position, any route, any capo suggestion. On a phone, too.
• It is left-handed with one toggle, finger numbers still the right way up. Roughly one player in ten needs this and almost nobody offers it.
• You choose what gets printed, free, no email. The chart everyone else sells as a poster.

How it works (the fretboard math)

Nothing on this chart is a stored picture. Give it a root and a chord type and it works the whole thing out, which is why it can do 60 chords and 120 positions from 10 shapes without a single one being typed in by hand.

A barre chord is an open chord with your index finger standing in for the nut. So the only question is which fret puts the root under your finger. In standard tuning the open strings are E A D G B E, and each fret is one half-step:

open strings = E A D G B E = 4, 9, 2, 7, 11, 4   (C = 0)

bar fret for root r on string s = ( r - open(s) ) mod 12

  F on string 6:  ( 5 - 4 ) mod 12 = fret 1
  B on string 5:  ( 11 - 9 ) mod 12 = fret 2

note sounded by string i = ( open(i) + bar + offset(i) ) mod 12

A shape is correct when the notes it actually sounds are exactly the notes the chord is made of — no extras, nothing missing. That is a test a computer can run, and it runs on all 120 positions on every build. None of the ten barre shapes leaves a note out; they have six strings to work with and no need to.

Note names are spelled the way a musician writes them. The chart picks the root name per chord rather than fixing one per pitch: A♭ major spells A♭ C E♭, while the same pitch as a minor chord is written G♯m and spells G♯ B D♯. Written the other way round, each would need an accidental on a note that does not want one. One chord in 60 still does — C♯7 has an E♯ in it, because the third of a C♯ chord has to be an E of some kind — and that is the only one.

How the effort rating is worked out

This one is a judgement, not a measurement, and it is worth being straight about that. It exists to rank two positions against each other, and it weighs three things:

• Strings under the bar. A six-string bar is harder than a five-string bar, always, at any fret.
• Where on the neck the bar sits. Fret 1 is the worst place on the guitar to bar: the string is at its longest and stiffest behind the nut, and the fret is at its widest. It eases through frets 3 and 4, is at its best around 5 to 7, and gets worse again past 9 as the body starts getting in the way of your wrist.
• Fingers doing anything other than the bar. The minor 7th shapes ask for one; the major and major 7th shapes ask for three.

Two positions within a quarter of a point are a wash in the hand, so the lower fret wins — a chord you can reach without leaving the part of the neck the rest of the song lives in is the one you will actually play. That rule is why Gm stays at fret 3 rather than being sent to fret 10 for a rating difference nobody could feel.

Three ways players actually use this

The F problem

F is where most people stop. Look it up here and the chart does not recommend fret 1 at all — it sends you to the A shape at fret 8, where the strings are slacker and the bar only has to cover five. Under it sit three more answers: the four-string mini-F, where your index covers two strings instead of six; a five-string version at fret 1 that drops only the low E; and a capo at fret 1 with an open E shape. One of those four will work today. The full fret-1 barre can wait until your hand has been doing the others for a month.

The song in B

B and Bm are the other wall, and they are the reason so many people stall between beginner and intermediate. The chart's pick is fret 7 for both, which surprises people, but the maths is simple: seven frets up the neck the strings give way far more easily than they do at fret 2, and that outweighs the trip. If it still will not ring, the four-string versions underneath are the shapes most working guitarists quietly use anyway. Pair them with the open chords on our beginner guitar chord chart and a whole set of songs opens up without a full bar anywhere.

Deciding whether to reach for the capo

Every chord here shows a capo position that turns it into an open shape. What the chart will not do is pretend that is free: a capo moves the entire song, so the fret it names is only useful if the rest of the progression survives the move. Work that out on the chord transposer, which does the same check across a whole chord sheet rather than one chord. And if a barre keeps buzzing on an acoustic no matter what you do, the problem is often tension rather than technique — a lighter set from our roundup of the best acoustic guitar strings changes the odds more than another week of practice will.

Frequently asked questions

What are the four basic barre chords?

The four shape families every barre chord comes from: E, Em, A and Am. Learn those four open chords properly, then move them up the neck with your index where the nut was. The E and Em shapes put the root on the 6th string; the A and Am shapes put it on the 5th. Everything else on this chart — the sevenths, the minor sevenths, the major sevenths — is one of those four with a finger added or taken away.

What is the most used barre chord?

F major, by a distance, because it is the IV chord in the key of C and the ♭VI in E, and because there is no open F on the guitar. After it come Bm (the vi in D, which is why so many acoustic songs in D stop beginners dead) and B (the V in E, which every blues in E needs). Those three are the ones worth having a backup shape for, and all three have one on this page.

Is there a trick to barre chords?

There are three, and none of them is pressing harder. Move the bar away from the nut — the same chord is meaningfully easier at fret 7 than at fret 1, which is what the pick on this chart is telling you. Roll your index onto its bony outside edge rather than flattening the soft pad, so the string sits on bone and the creases between your joints stop landing under a string. Pull back with your arm instead of squeezing with your thumb; the grip should come from your elbow, not your hand. And if the chord still buzzes, drop a string or two rather than fighting it — the four-string versions on this page are real chords, not compromises.

What is the most difficult barre chord to play?

On this chart's rating, F major at fret 1 — six strings under the bar, at the stiffest fret on the guitar, with all four fingers committed. F♯ at fret 2 is barely easier, and B major is the one people struggle with longest because the fret-2 A shape they are usually taught scores worse than the fret-7 version nobody mentions. Minor 7th shapes are the easiest of the lot: one finger besides the bar, which makes them the right place to practise the bar itself.

Can I get this barre chord chart as a printable PDF?

Yes, free, no email. Tick the chords you want and press the PDF button, or leave everything unticked and you get the full 12-chord chart for whichever type you are looking at. Each chord prints with both positions, the recommended one marked, and the easier routes written underneath — the part a poster leaves out. It respects the left-handed setting, and because the diagrams are drawn as vectors rather than pixels it prints crisp at any size.

Related tools

• Beginner Guitar Chord Chart — the companion to this one: 26 open chords with no barre anywhere.
• Chord Transposer — paste a whole song and move it to a key that needs fewer barres, capo position included.
• Chord Identifier — tap a shape onto a fretboard and find out what you just played.
• Interactive Circle of Fifths — why the keys with the most barre chords are the ones singers keep choosing.
• Guitar Fretboard Chart — every note on the neck, which is how you work out a bar position without a chart at all.
• Browse all free musician's tools by Julian →

Gear that makes barre chords easier

The suggestions beside the chart change with how hard the chord you are looking at scores, because a player wrestling with F at fret 1 needs something different from one working on an A♭m7. Three things genuinely help. A clip-on tuner, because a bar that sounds wrong is very often a guitar that is out of tune, and beginners blame their fingers for it every time. Lighter strings, because a cheap acoustic usually ships with a heavier set than it needs and a bar is where you feel every extra pound — the best acoustic guitar strings roundup covers what to move to, and silk-and-steel sets are slacker still. And a capo, which turns the route this chart suggests into something you can act on. If barre chords are the reason you are thinking about a second guitar, an electric is honestly the easier instrument for them — lower action, lighter strings, see the best beginner electric guitars. Sticking with acoustic, start at the best beginner acoustic guitars, where setup quality matters more than the label on the headstock. A spread of picks is worth having too, since a thinner pick forgives a bar that is not ringing perfectly yet.

Sources & methodology

• Tuning and pitch. Standard tuning E–A–D–G–B–E, A4 = 440 Hz. A string sounds (open string + fret) mod 12; playback frequency is 440 · 2^((m−69)/12).
• Shapes. 10 standard movable shapes — the E, Em, E7, Em7 and Emaj7 families with the root on the 6th string, and A, Am, A7, Am7 and Amaj7 with the root on the 5th — as taught in mainstream method books. Fret positions cross-checked against guitar-chord.org, the one published chart that gives both positions for every chord.
• Chord construction and spelling. Interval formulas and diatonic spelling per musictheory.net. The root name is chosen per chord to avoid double accidentals, and the alternative spelling is shown beside it.
• Effort rating. Editorial, by Julian, using the rubric above. It ranks positions against each other; it is not a measurement of force, and a different pair of hands may disagree with it.
• Verification. Every build runs a fixture suite of more than 6,000 assertions over this chart. All 120 positions must sound exactly their chord and carry their own root; every bar must genuinely be a bar; the finger numbers must be consistent with the frets; no chord may spell a double accidental; the effort ordering and every recommendation are pinned; and every capo suggestion is re-derived from the capo fret and rejected if it lands on another barre chord. If any of that drifts, the site does not build.

Chord shapes are conventions, not laws. These are the standard movable shapes, and the effort rating is my judgement about what is hard, not a measurement. If your teacher fingers one differently, both of you can be right. Reviewed by Julian Reyes, MM (Berklee). About Julian · Last reviewed September 14, 2026.

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  Barre chord chart by
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  &middot; Reviewed by Julian Reyes, MM (Berklee)
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