While I can transition nicely between open chords, and I can play barre chords, including F, my transitioning from open chords to barre chords is still too slow. My concern is that I have been working on this for well over a year with very little progress. MUCH slower progress than any open chords I learned. Got so bored with 1 minute changes that now I just play songs with barre chords to try to improve and keep interested. Is this discrepancy between transitioning to open and barre chords normal? Anything specific I can do other than one minute changes to help? Iām focused on wanting to learn this before moving on.
Thanks,
David
Hi David, Iām struggling with the same, currently stuck changing from D to Bm. Practicing this change for 6 months and is still clunky. Have no problems with open chords. I guess thatās no help 
but hey, a problem sharedā¦
Hi David,
I canāt speak for others but this to me was also normal. I practiced the one minute changes for a while and that got me so far , however it was using barre chords in songs that eventually made it click for me. I donāt use barre chords as much as open chords but I can now switch seamlessly between both when I want to. It did take me a couple of years to get there though. Personally I would just keep chipping away at it and not wait until you have nailed this before moving on.
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Thanks for that, I guessed there would be no short cut. So Iāll keep plugging away. I kinda like that itās hard, makes it all the more rewarding in the long run.
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Hey Dsvid,
As others have said here, it can take a while. Its a complex skill set.
You are right to perhaps ditch the āone minute changesā for a while though, and load em up in songs and chord progression. The more context, the faster the progress I reckon.
And now that youāve posted your struggle, you watch; itāll suddenly all come togetherā¦
Cheers Shane
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I struggled with transitioning between open & barre chords and between E-shape & A-shape barre chords for quite awhile. The thing that helped me the most was training myself to fret the barre chords with as little finger pressure as possible. The squeezing force you use, especially when barring, creates alot of tension in your fingers. This made it so hard to release my grip, get the blood flowing in my fingers, and change to the new grip smoothly.
I practiced chord changes between barre and open & barre and barre as I needed them for a song I was learning. I made this a 5-minute practice item. My focus was first to get the chords to ring out cleanly, then I focused on minimizing the finger pressure. All this practice built up the strength in my hand and fingers, but it also eliminated the tension that caused my changes to be slow and inaccurate.
Now, Iām amazed on how little pressure I use, even for E-shape minor barre chords.
YMMV
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Yes, 100%. I remember in the early days it took some months for that full F barre to sound good. And it took a lot longer to be able to just hop between F barre and Bm barre. Well down the road Iām so glad I endured the long game as itās nice now to play songs that have a mixture of full barre chords and open chords.
I do wish I could do the easy / cheat F as well as there are some songs where it works well / better than a full barre
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Hello David,
this is not right and best adviceā¦
But when I am āhuntingā something like this I just watch Netflix and drill it again and againā¦ not giving it full focus. This gets out of my mind that boring part. But of course it is necessary first to learn it slow and feel frets and sound before doing it on autopilot.
Just strumming it with side of thumbā¦
I am acoustic guy, but when there is something like this I can always pick unplugged electric and drill it more due to lower string gauge or late in night so I dont wake up anyone.
David & David 
Yes, absolutely I can relate to this. I struggled for ages with basic barre chords. More recently I got so frustrated with it that I would sit and just repeat the open to barre chords that I wanted for the songs I was trying to play. I would repeat them over and over, then do something else then go back to them (making sure that the changes were pretty clean). This helped me a lot, and although not perfect 100% of the time it really helped me get ahead. In particular D to Bm still trips me up much of the time but progress is being madeā¦ slowly 
Ah, barre chordsā¦ I remember my days learning the dreaded F-chord as wellā¦
It all comes down to practice, practice practiceā¦ and then some more practiceā¦
Build up slow, tell your fingers (if you need to) where they need to go. Only when they fall where theyāre supposed to fall, can you speed up the progress by little steps.
Again, practice practice practieā¦
But donāt get hung up on this thing. Itās not the only thing in your journey you can have fun with. Cycle through some excercises, let it rest for a day or two if you feel youāre going nuts. 
In time (and this is different for everybody) it will be easier to do this and with even more time, your fingers will āknowā what theyāre supposed to do when you see you have to hit a barre chord. (or any barre chord, for that matter).
Remember, itās not a sprint, itās a marathon. Just donāt give up. Never give up.
I canāt recall ever struggling with the fretting of the E-shape barre and moving to open chords ā¦ apart from changing to an open āCā! This still sees quite a bit of fumbling and misaligned fingers on the strings.
This and A-shape barres in general (I just find them awkward) are where I still need to put some effort in ā¦
What a good thread. It shows we all must paddle upstream against the barre chord current for a long time. My take is a bit different in that I am left handed playing right. My left hand strength and dexterity made it not so challenging to learn to fret barre chords. Now I use them a lot. The hardest part was getting the proper index finger pressure in the right place on the barre to avoid muffled strings without my other fingers pressing so hard the notes go sharp. My greater challenge is fast, accurate strumming with my non-dominant hand, which is getting better.
Ditto. I wonder if us āleftiesā may have a bit of an advantage here with the strength/dexterity required for barres.
I think so, but we lefties are unlikely to become āshredders.ā Iām way too old to shred anyway.
Agreed. The context makes all the difference. Playing random omcās is less useful.
THANK YOU all for your advice! For the transition to barre cords, any specific practice recommendations? Place the barre finger first, or place the E or A shape fingers first, etc? Iāve tried doing it both ways (alternating). I also tried lifting my fingers slightly, then placing them again, gradually lifting further from the strings.
thanks again everyone. Very encouraging.
we re all different but here is what I did for learning the F barre chord
first I did just like you , the one minute changes
but I used a chord trainer ( on yousician )
At first I was very slow , then after weeks of training I started gaining a little speed
thats when I started to try to incorporate the barre chord into a song !
I used Losing my religion by REM
first at a very slow speed ā¦ I practiced it once everyday for weeks
( at the beginning it was horrible )
then when it got better , I increased the speed gradually
when I finally played the whole song correctly , I played it once everyday to keep practicing !
it took me something like 4 or 5 months on just 1 song , its a very slow process
after that I changed the song and practiced again !
on several songs !
I did the same for Bm after using Whatās up by the 4 non Blondes
Dont be discouraged !
the thumb must be low behind the neck and you do not need much pressure
I always put my middle finger first and rotate everything around it
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I like āPuff the Magic Dragonā for Bm barre, and āHallelujahā for F barre. I also like āSweet Baby Jamesā for Bm and F# barre, but it has some other weird chords in there as well.