I practiced my f barre for a few months and it was so difficult that I took a break from guitar for a while. Then I played it on someone else’s guitar and it was easy.

That’s how I learned the action on my guitar was too high. A setup by a luthier fixed that.

I’m a couple years into my acoustic guitar journey and it’s still very much a stickler for me.

Something that massively helped was a friend mentioning I should make sure my guitar was “set up”. I took it into a guitar shop and asked and it turns out that on brand new guitars there are often some small adjustments to the neck, bridges and frets that can really improve how hard you have to press for the note. Guitars may warp slightly over time as well depending on their storage, climate etc… so sometimes tweaking can be needed later in it’s life. And some people prefer certain tweaks, lower versus higher action. So even if you guitar isn’t new it might still need some tweaking for you.

I’d never heard anyone mention it before my friend did (and not much since) and it made a big difference in my case. I went from slightly dreading my practice sessions to feeling much more enthusiastic. It was just that much easier to play. Might be worth asking about. No idea if it really applies on electric if that’s what you’re playing.

Best of luck, I’ve had a fun ride so far and I hope yours is too!

Gets a little easier, but I still have to concentrate to make it sound clear to this day (20+ years later), but its much easier on the electric than on the classical guitar I learned on.

I wish I knew at the time that a good amount of pressure should come from pulling back at the shoulder of the fretting arm, bracing the guitar body with your strumming arm chicken wing. You can practice this by fretting the F without your thumb on the back.

Also, you could try to play the A barre chord at the 5th fret with the same shape as the F barre on the first fret. Will help build some strength

i avoided playing songs with it but then i saw taylor swift play the ““cheater”” version (x33210) and now enjoy playing the chord

It’s a pain in the ass for sure. I got a lot better by playing F# or G cleanly and easily then transitioning down to F. I did a few strums on each back and forth while watching TV. After doing that for a few weeks I was able to play F much better.

I still flub it if I haven’t played it for too long but it comes back fairly quickly.

It gets easier. For me the correct positioning of the thumb on (back of) the neck reduced the needed force drastically.

Found it much easier than B minor, once I cracked that I would say I was able to play guitar. Good luck!

Still struggling =)

It’s different for everyone (different hand shapes and sizes), but what worked for me was rolling my wrist towards my thumb so that the side of my index finger is what was pressing down on the fretboard instead of the bottom of my finger. It’s not roatated that much. Like, if your fingernail is 12 o’clock and the pad of your finger tip is 6 o’clock, I rotate my hand enough to press down on the fretboard with with about the 7:30 part of my finger.

Also remember you only need to make contact with the fretboard where those strings play. So just 1, 2, and 6. You don’t need the middle 3rd of your finger to press down. So arcing your finger helps a lot. You need a strong press with the bottom 3rd of the finger, and strong press with the top 3rd / tip.

You’ll be surprised how little force you’ll be using later on versus what you’re using now. Things will get more and more efficient as your technique improves. But until then, someone else here suggested rolling your barre finger back a bit so you’re fretting the barre more with the side of your finger. That’s good advice as the side of your finger is a bit bonier, and the strings can’t get lost in the creases at your finger joints as easily. Another thing that helps is instead of squeezing so much with your hand, pull back on the neck with your whole arm and use some of those larger muscle groups to apply pressure to the fretboard. Some people use a sort of downward version of that where you use the weight of your arm to add pressure in a down and back direction.

One thing to keep in mind which may help is that you don’t need to hold your barre across all six strings. Your other fingers are covering the A, D, and G strings, so you only need to focus your barre on the E, B, and e strings. And when all else fails you can consult Uncle Ben .

It’s still pain to do it sometimes, specially on a classical guitar, but it’s easier than Bb/A# for me