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Today I worked for quite a while on trying to get at least one barre chord working. The full F is still out of reach but I’m having a bit of success with the “mini” F. What I had trouble with was that so called “rolling of the pointer finger. It just didn’t want to roll that way and at the same time allow me to place my middle and ring fingers in the second and third frets. But I’ve been heeding various peoples instructions about tucking the elbow tight into my side and looking for the sweet spot. Now I’ve got that mini F in about the same place I had the G chord in May this year (able to play it cleanly on occasion rather than never).
Spacing of the fingers definitely has a lot to do with it also because it really helps to get your fingers up against the frets so you don’t have to push down as hard. That’s an area that’s hard for beginners because you haven’t yet trained your fingers to be spread apart in that way (to reach across those big frets near the nut).