At 57 now, I am full of wisdom now. If only it actually applied to real life…
I am with Brian. If you are playing and encountering things like barre cords that are ahead of where you are in the course, go find all the lessons you can and learn about barre cords now. Justin has several good lessons, go figure.
Then you can practice and play them correctly rather than having to relearn later.
Once again, thank you all for your input!
I’m sorry this topic sparked such controversy, but everyone learns differently, so I’ll consider everything mentioned here and figure out a way that supports my own unique learning path.
Whish that every single one of you continues to be inspired and develop their unique musicianship!
@brianlarsen …are you going to say it or do I have to explain that this is exactly what I said,what he thinks you said 
…“just look at those lessons and don’t mess around,…feel free to look further but do it with a lesson from justin and don’t just try something” … Oh sorry now I explained it again … there are now 3 of you and … the next commentator please read carefully who says what 
…
And Brian…STOP laughing now
Hi Helen,
It doesn’t matter, I’m still waiting to go out and bored without a guitar around my neck, but this forum has 2 mantras … learn something with songs and learn something with techniques / fingering perfect because… … and now one is just thrown overboard,…I’m almost going to tell Justin if they continue bullying 
Bottom line Helen. Learn to play the chords you need for the songs you like. 
I agree with Roger too!
Absolutely nothing wrong in using barre chords if you’re comfortable wherever you are in your learning. I thought your interesting comment when you said “other barre chords”. Perhaps it’s worth looking up the basics of E shaped barre chords and A shaped barre chords (associated minor shapes at least) then you’ll see how they work.
Basically whatever fret you place your barre finger on for an E shaped barre chord the chord your playing is the equivalent of the note on the sixth string of where your barre is. So when your barre is on the 1st fret then the note on the sixth string is an F. If you barred at the 5th fret then the note on the sixth string is an A so that would be an A barre chord.
It works for the same for an A shaped barre chord except you look at the note on the 5th string where you place your barre. A Bm (note on 5th string 2nd fret is a B) is just a minor A shaped barre chord. You move it up a fret and it a Cm A shaped barre chord.
So as you’ll see you use the same shape at different frets to play different barre chords. Nothing really to learn once you know your notes on the 6th and 5th string and can move your barre chords up and down the fret board cleanly.
How the Bm chord has been learned throughout history:
1982: 1) subscribe to a guitar magazine and look it up; 2) refer to the book of chords that you bought at a music store; 3) ask somebody who knows how to play guitar
1999: Any of the 1982 methods plus: type “how to play Bm chord” into google
2022: Any of the 1999 and 1982 methods (do magazines still exist?), plus: 1) type “how to play Bm chord” into youtube; 2) look up Bm lesson on justinguitar.com
Any of these will work. I would suggest checking out Justin’s lesson at some point, just to make sure you’re not doing something really wrong.
It’s really not that hard (not the chord, Bm is pretty hard. I mean deciding how/when to learn it), no use overthinking it.
If you can play the dreaded F chord confidently then you can play any barré chord, it’s just the matter of learning where your fingers go and getting into muscle memory. All you really need is a good chord chart showing what you want.
Go for it, especially if it gives you the incentive to play more songs 
Hold on, never mind all the to-ing and fro-ing over the Bm barre chord and let’s just appreciate this for a moment …
BRAVO.
How completely fab.
What a great step you’ve taken, and I hope it is the start of a great period of musical fun.
Okay.
First, you can just learn to play the barre chords and do the business… That may take you ahead of your current place, in which case, I would say that playing in the context of songs, to help you in joining in with a ‘band setting’ is about the best reason there is to skip around a little and not stick rigidly to the one step at a time approach.
Second, are you sure that you absolutely must play barre chords? Do you know how to figure the chords in that same key played using different shapes and a capo? If not then you can learn it here: Using a capo to stay in the same key
If the songs you are playing have chords that are only in one key (diatonic progressions, no out-of-key chords) then you should be able to find a capo position at which you can match the actual chords with chord shapes that need no barres. That would happen when you came to a place where the tonic chord of the songs key could be played using a C-shape chord.
Examples:
B minor can be either:
If this all sounds new and a little beyond your knowledge level, please read the topic I linked. It does not get too deep into theory and it is more of a practical hands-on guide.
I hope that helps.
Richard 
That’s extremely helpful and, indeed, a bit beyond my current level of theory, but I’ll check it out, thanks!
One question, though: most of the times we use a capo just to match with the singer’s tone (the singer is an amateur musician as well). Do the capo tricks still work in that case?
It works in both directions, not just up.
If the concepts are a little beyond you then let me help,
Can you write the chords (progressions not needed, just the chords) for at least one of the songs you are playing? I will demo for you.
Gordon gets the award for the most succinct answer to the Helen’s question. 
Should that be the iii chord in the key of G Richard?
Awesome, thank you!
One song needs the following chords:
G, Am, D, C, Gsus4, Em, Bm
So the only problematic chord in terms of playing is the Bm
Oh, yes, thanks. Typo fixed now.
Sounds like you could manage this in the key of C, i.e. C, Dm, G, F, Csus4, Am, Em. If you capo on fret 7 and play these chords, the actual sounding chords will be the ones you wrote out above.
Edit: Oops, I wrote capo at 5, but it should be 7, as @Richard_close2u explains below. Fixed here.
Okay Helen, let’s give this a whirl.
Demonstration 1 - assuming these are all open chords with no capo
First, we take a look at this diagram.
It shows all seven diatonic chords (chords in the key) for the keys of C, A, G, E and D plus their Roman numeric labels.
The chords you give are all diatonic to (within) the key of G major. Gsus4 is a simple variation on a G major chord.
This next diagram shows the key of G with a red box around and the six chords highlighted yellow.
To anticipate moving positions by using a capo, all matching chords in the other CAGED keys are also highlighted yellow.
We can skip several steps here. Our task is not to try all possible capo positions. Our task is more specific. We want to find one result only, how to play these exact same chords with a capo in a position that does not require any barre chords.
Moving clockwise from the key of G.
The key of E has barre chords: F#m, G#m, B, C#m
The key of D has barre chords F#m, Bm
The key of C has no barre chords (if you except F mini barre and / or use Fmaj7)
The key of A has barre chords Bm, C#m, F#m
We have only one option here. We need to place a capo so that our tonic chord, the I chord, the chord that is (and will remain) G major, can be played using a C shape chord. This will mean that the chord shapes can all be viewed ‘as though’ we were playing in the key of C.
From an open position, to find the capo position we need to count +3 then +2 then +2. That totals +7. We need to put the capo at fret 7. A C-shape chord is now an actual G major chord with its root on the 5th string at fret 10.
Here are the actual shapes we need to play for all chords in the song.
G → C shape
Gsus4 → Csus4 shape
Am → Dm shape
Bm → Em shape
C → F shape
D → G shape
Em → Am shape
Demonstration 2 - assuming these are chord shapes (not chord names) with capo at fret 6 to suit the singer
NOTE
The original chord names that we are working with are no longer going to be the actual chords - because we are viewing them as shapes. With a capo at fret 6, a G shape chord is not actually G major, it is something else. An Am chord is not actually Am, it is something else. Our task is not necessarily to figure out the true, the actual, chord names. Our task is to figure out if we can play exactly those same chords somewhere else on the neck by shifting a capo. All chords move relative to each other so their true chord names do not really matter. It is the shapes that matter. We will consider their names later, but it is not a main focus for this demonstration.
We need to look at this diagram again.
We have already established that we want to be able to use the chord shapes from the key of C major as this allows us to play the actual chords in the actual key without needing barres.
By counting clockwise, that entails moving 7 frets higher along the neck. When the capo is already at fret 6 that means we need to move the capo to fret 6 + 7 = fret 13. On an acoustic that is wholly impractical. Even on an electric it might not give the sound you want and the fret spacings might make it a squeeze to play the actual chords.
We need to rethink. Instead of moving clockwise and counting a total of +7 we can aim to reach the key of C major by reversing the direction of the arrows, moving anti-clockwise and counting -2 then -3. That totals -5. The capo started at fret 6. From there (6 - 5 = 1) we need to place the capo lower on the neck at fret 1. The C-shape chord is now an exact match for the chord previously played with a G shape with its root on the 5th string at fret 4.
Here are the actual shapes we need to play for all chords in the song, with their original shapes given first.
G shape → C shape
Gsus4 shape → Csus4 shape
Am shape → Dm shape
Bm shape → Em shape
C shape → F shape
D shape → G shape
Em shape → Am shape
Luckily, because the capo’s starting position was fret 6, we had enough space below it move move back down a full 5 frets and find a position for the capo that required no barre chords. If it had initially been at fret 5, our final position would have been open chords with no capo needed. If it had initially been at fret 4 or lower we would not have been able to achieve our aim of finding a way to play the song without barre chords by moving down the neck, only by moving up to much higher frets on the neck, which can become cramped and awkward due to narrow fret spacings.
To finish, a little side step. If the capo had been at fret 6 originally, moving to fret 1 as seen, and the chord shapes had originally been G, Am, B, C, D, Em, what are the true, the actual, chords called? All we need to do is find the actual name of the tonic chord made using the G shape.
Its root note would be 3 frets above the capo (just using the knowledge that a regular open chord G major has its root at fret 3). That places its root at fret 9 on the neck. The note at fret 9 on the 6th string is the note C#. Therefore that chord is a C# major. And that makes total sense when thinking about playing it as a C shape chord with capo at fret 1 also. A C shape chord played 1 fret higher than actual C major must be C# major.
The notes in the C# major scale are:
C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, B#
So the actual chords of this particular demonstration are:
G shape → C shape = C# major
Gsus4 shape → Csus4 shape = C#sus4
Am shape → Dm shape = D#m
Bm shape → Em shape = E#m
C shape → F shape = F# major
D shape → G shape = G# major
Em shape → Am shape = A#m
I hope that all makes sense. Please ask if anything is not clear.
Cheers
Richard
This has been sooo enlightening and sooo helpful! I’ll need to read it some more times to be able to figure it out on my own😂, but it makes perfect sense. Thank you very much!
