Trouble with B & F chords

I turned 54 today :oops:

And, this is relevent to guitar playing how... ? Seriously, happy birthday, and many, many more years of playing in good health. :wink: I took up guitar again @ age 50 after a 20 year hiatus of the crappiest 8 months of lessons. I got my first bass one month ago and can now play a few bass riffs that sound pretty darn good with the recordings. My goal: play in front of people (I'm a rhythm guitar guy), show them what I can do, and watch their eyes bug out when I switch between guitar and bass in a gig. Just the same way Leon Russell played mostly piano (another pipe dream of mine) @ The Concert for Bangladesh, then switched to bass during the Bob Dylan set.

I turned 54 today :oops:
Today? Happy Birthday! :D

+1 on Vic post.

Don't worry about you can not play, you will get with time and practice.

The most important is to have fun.

Oh those F n B Chords :lol:
I have been at the guitar for almost 3 years now & just turned 40 btw.

I have been struggling with B recently as well although I did finially get F shape pretty good but it took months. Anyway I went to my lesson last night and my instructor gave me the following advice for the B bar chord:

Place the Third finger prior to placing the index finger. It helps get it in the right place. Also move your elbow away from your body a little. I think that normally it should be kept pretty close but I find for this chord I get better hand position with it moved out a little.

I have been working on it since I found "A little Help From My Friends" on JustingGuitar.com It has a few Barr Chords and some open ones an it is a great song. I recommend it for practicing with.

B is very annoying though so rest assured that others are feeling the same pain.

How are you guys fingering the B barre?

This is what I would do:

Use the index finger to barre strings 5,4,3 2,1 at the 2nd fret.

Use the ring finger to barre the 4,3,2,(1) at the 4th fret. Technically you don't play that high E so if your finger is flexible you can bend it so the note sounds or just don't hit it but even if you do it's not going to matter.

I'm not sure what could be easier than that. Just two fingers laying flat against the strings hard to mess that up.

CNEV, yup that is what I am doing. I am trying to keep the ring finger off the high e string though. I think it sounds better that way. Also I am a bit muddy with it all round too

You'll get it, don't stress out about the high E whether it rings or you mute it or not. With time you'll get it cleanly and if you end up playing alot of classic or rock in general hitting it will make little difference especially in a band situation you'd never even hear it. Plus you'll find that it's not that important to hit all the strings all the time when strumming, most of the time you'll just be hitting partial chord shapes.