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Hi @Cadgirl , remember that the (Am) shape you used to make the Em barre chord (root at the 7th fret A string), when moving it to the 5th fret (root on the loE string), to “shoot the bird” (lift the middle finger – lol) to make the Am & Bm barre chords because they’re made from an Em shape, not the full E shape. The full E shape would result in those chords being major, not minor.
Did you notice that 2 of the chords were barred along the same fret (7th fret) and 1 of the chords was 2 frets towards the head stock?
These 3 chords are the minor chords in the key of G major (occupying the 6-2-3 positions), where Em is the “relative” minor (the minor chord that occupies the 6th position of a major scale). In terms of the key of Em, the chords we played are the 1 minor, 4 & 5 minors respectively where Em is the 1(minor), Am is the 4(minor) and Bm is the 5(minor).
So we used an Am shape barred at the 7th fret to play the Em barre chord (the 1 minor). Then we used an Em shape, also barred at the 7th fret to play the Bm barre chord (the 5 minor). Then we moved that Em shape toward the headstock 2 frets and barred along the 5th fret to play the Am barre chord.
This is the same pattern that was happening when we played the Major 1-4-5 barre chords using an A shape as the 1 chord and the E shape to play the 5 and 4 chords.
I hope you can follow what I’m saying Cadgirl, take a close look at our conversations from your post last week and maybe this will make a little more sense.