Barre chords are a more advanced way of playing guitar chords. At first, you'll want to master all the open chords. When you feel comfortable, the next step is to learn barre chords.  Barre Chords are how we move open chords up the fretboard. Think of the your index finger as a bar. In order to move upward on the fretboard using the open chord shapes you just learned, you need to bar the strings with your index finger.