B Minor Guitar Chord: Every Way to Play Bm

The B minor chord (Bm) is played by barring your index finger across all six strings at the 2nd fret, then adding your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the B string, your ring finger on the 4th fret of the D string, and your pinky on the 4th fret of the G string. Strum from the 5th string down, or mute the low E string and strum from the 5th string only. If the barre is too much right now, there is a three-finger version further down that skips it entirely.

That is the shape most players mean when they say "the B minor chord." It is also, for most beginners, the first barre chord they meet that they actually need, because unlike E minor or A minor, B minor has no open-string version. Every note in it has to be fretted. That is not a design flaw in the guitar. It is just where B minor happens to fall on the neck, and once you see why, the chord stops feeling like an arbitrary hurdle.

What Notes Make Up a B Minor Chord

B minor is built from three notes: B (the root), D (the minor third), and F# (the fifth). Play any combination of those three notes, in any octave, on any strings, and you have a B minor chord. Every shape in this post, the full barre, the easy version, the four-string version, the high inversions, is the same three notes rearranged across the fretboard.

Those three roles, root, third, and fifth, are worth knowing by name, not just by note letter, because the same naming applies to every chord you will ever learn. The root tells you which chord this is and gives it its name. The third is the note that decides whether a chord sounds major or minor, which is exactly what the next section covers. The fifth mostly reinforces the chord's stability without changing its character much, which is why it is the note most often doubled across multiple strings in a full six-string voicing, as it is in the barre shape above, where F# appears three separate times.

The reason it sounds minor rather than major comes down to that middle note. A B major chord uses B, D#, and F#, a half step higher on the third. Flatten that D# to a plain D and the chord goes from bright to somber. If you already know a B major shape, moving the note on the 2nd string down one fret is the fastest way to hear the difference between the two chords side by side.

B Minor vs B Major: What One Note Changes

It is worth seeing the two chords next to each other, because the difference on paper is smaller than the difference by ear.

On the full barre shape, that single semitone lives on the ring finger. In B major, the ring finger moves up one fret relative to where it sits in B minor, turning the D natural into D#. Every other finger in the barre shape stays exactly where it was. This is a useful shortcut if you ever get the two chords confused by ear: play the barre shape, and slide only your ring finger back one fret to hear it flip from major to minor.

This also explains why B minor feels harder to place on the neck than, say, C major or G major. Major chords in open position tend to have a friendly open-string shape because of how standard tuning happens to line up. Minor chords a step or two away from those friendly shapes, B minor among them, often do not, and end up needing a barre instead.

The Full Barre B Minor Chord, Step by Step

Here is the shape broken down one finger at a time, in the order most players find easiest to build it.

1. Lay your index finger flat across all six strings at the 2nd fret. This is the barre. Get it as close to the fret wire as you comfortably can, not centered in the middle of the fret space.
2. Place your ring finger on the 4th fret of the D string (4th string).
3. Place your pinky on the 4th fret of the G string (3rd string), right next to your ring finger.
4. Place your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the B string (2nd string).
5. Check the high E string (1st string) is still being caught cleanly by the barre. It is the string most players let slip.
6. Strum from the 5th string down, or mute the low E string with the side of your index finger and strum from the 5th string only.

Play it one string at a time before you strum the whole thing. Pick the low E, then A, D, G, B, and high E individually, and listen for any string that comes out muted or buzzing. That single-string check will tell you exactly which finger needs to adjust, instead of guessing from a strum that sounds vaguely wrong.

This shape is moveable. It is the same fingering as an open A minor chord with a capo-like barre replacing the nut, shifted up two frets. That relationship is worth remembering, because it means you already know this shape, you have just never had to supply your own "capo" with your index finger before.

An Easier B Minor Chord With No Barre

If the full barre is not happening yet, there is a genuine three-finger version of B minor that most players are never shown. It uses only the top three strings and needs no barre at all.

Play only the top three strings, or the top four if you leave the D string ringing open. With the D string open, you get a chord technically called Bm/D, a B minor chord with D in the bass, which still sounds correct in almost every context a plain Bm would. Without it, you get a clean three-note B minor triad. Either way, curl your fingers so each one only touches its own string, since the G, B, and high E strings are close together and it is easy for a flat finger to mute the one next to it.

This version is genuinely usable in a song, not just a practice crutch. It sits high in pitch compared to the full barre chord, so it works especially well paired with G and D, where you want the chords sitting close together on the neck instead of jumping around.

A Four-String No-Barre Version

Between the three-string shape above and the full barre sits a four-string version that adds a note without adding a barre.

Every finger plays exactly one note, no barre, no finger doubling up on two strings. This is the shape worth practicing right after the three-string version, because the fingering is almost identical to the full barre chord minus the index finger's job, so your hand is already learning the target shape without the added demand of flattening a finger across six strings at once.

Strum only the four strings you are fretting. If your pick catches the A string or low E string, you will hear an open A or open E note that does not belong in the chord, and it will sound off in a way that is hard to place if you do not know to listen for it.

The Capo Trick: Playing B Minor With No Barre At All

There is one more way to get a full, six-string B minor chord with no barre whatsoever, and it does not involve a different fingering at all: a capo.

Clip a capo onto the 2nd fret and play an open A minor chord, the ordinary open shape you likely already know, index finger 1st fret B string, middle finger 2nd fret D string, ring finger 2nd fret G string. Play it exactly as you would without the capo. The capo raises the pitch of every open string by two semitones, and A minor raised two semitones is B minor. The chord that comes out is a full, six-string B minor, open strings included, with none of the four fretting fingers doing anything different from the open Am shape you already know.

This works because the barre chord version of Bm at the 2nd fret is, mechanically, the exact same thing: your index finger is standing in for a capo, replacing the nut for the strings it barres, while your other three fingers play the same relative shape as open Am. A real capo does exactly what your index finger is doing in the barre version, just without asking your hand to supply the pressure.

The tradeoff is honest: you need to own a capo, and you need to change it every time the song shifts to a different key. For a song that sits in B minor throughout, or where you have a moment to move a capo during a pause, it is a completely legitimate way to play the chord, not a cheat that lesser players fall back on. Plenty of working guitarists use a capo for exactly this reason on exactly this kind of chord.

The same trick generalizes to any minor chord, since moving the capo simply shifts which minor chord the open Am shape produces.

Once you know this relationship, a capo and one open shape can stand in for most of the barre chords on the low end of the neck, which is a genuinely useful option to have even after the barre itself stops being difficult.

Why B Minor Doesn't Have an Open-String Shape

New players often assume every chord has an easy open-string version somewhere, the way E minor, A minor, and D minor do. B minor genuinely does not, and the reason is about which notes the six open strings actually are.

That is standard tuning, low to high: E-A-D-G-B-E. Look at that list against the three notes in B minor: B, D, and F#. The open B string gives you the root for free, and the open D string gives you the third for free, which is why both appear in the easier shapes above. But there is no open string anywhere on the guitar that plays F#, the fifth of the chord, without fretting something. Every practical B minor voicing has to fret the F# somewhere: on the full barre shape it comes from the low E and high E strings at the 2nd fret and the D string at the 4th fret, and on the higher inversions it comes from wherever that particular shape lands on the neck.

This is also why B minor is one of the chords that pushes players toward learning barre technique in the first place. C, G, D, Em, Am, and D all have friendly open shapes. Bm and F#m, right next to it in most common keys, do not, so if you are working through a songbook that includes either, the barre eventually becomes non-optional.

Why Your B Minor Chord Isn't Ringing Clearly

If you have the shape right and it still sounds muted, buzzy, or half-dead, the cause is almost always one of these, and it is worth checking them in order rather than all at once.

Your barre finger is flat instead of curled

Laying the index finger completely flat spreads its pressure thin and lets the fleshy part of the finger dip into the gaps between strings, muting them. Angle the finger slightly, so you are pressing with more of the side and less of the flat pad. The bony edge of the finger applies more even pressure across all six strings than the soft center does.

Your thumb is in the wrong spot behind the neck

The thumb should sit roughly behind your first or second finger, low on the back of the neck, acting as the opposing pressure to your barre finger. A thumb that has crept up over the top of the fretboard, or one that is too far down toward the middle of the neck, gives your hand nothing to squeeze against, so the barre finger has to work much harder for the same pressure.

Your fingers are too far from the fret

Every finger, not just the barre, should land as close to the fret wire as possible without being on top of it. A finger sitting in the middle of the fret space needs noticeably more pressure to stop the string cleanly, and on a chord that already asks four fingers to work together, that extra pressure is exactly what runs out first.

Your wrist is locked straight

A wrist held flat and straight forces your fingers to approach the strings at an awkward angle, which flattens them against the fretboard. Dropping your wrist slightly, so your hand approaches the neck more from underneath, lets your fingers arch and land on their tips and edges instead of collapsing flat.

The guitar's action is genuinely high

If every barre chord buzzes and cleans up only with extreme effort, the issue may not be your technique at all. Guitars with high action, meaning the strings sit unusually far from the fretboard, make every fretted note harder to press cleanly, and a barre chord asking for four simultaneous fretted notes will expose that faster than a single open chord will. A guitar tech can check and adjust action in a short setup; it is not something you fix by pressing harder indefinitely.

One finger is nudging its neighbor out of place

On the full barre shape, the ring, pinky, and middle fingers sit close together on adjacent strings. It is common for the ring finger to lean into the pinky's space, muting the G string even though the pinky is technically in the right spot. Check each finger is making contact only with its own string, and that no finger's knuckle or side is resting against the string next to it.

The guitar itself is out of tune

It is easy to spend ten minutes adjusting finger position on a chord that was never going to sound right, because one string was out of tune before you started. A B minor chord built from a flat or sharp string will sound wrong in a way that can feel identical to a fretting mistake, especially to a beginner's ear, which has not yet learned to separate "wrong note" from "wrong pitch." Tune up before troubleshooting a chord, not after, so you know any remaining problem is genuinely about the shape.

Beyond Buzzing: Other Common Mistakes

Buzzing is the loudest problem, but it is not the only one that shows up when players first learn B minor.

Resetting the whole hand for every chord change

A common habit is lifting the entire hand off the neck between every chord and rebuilding the shape from scratch each time, including for chords that share fingers or positions with Bm. This is slow and it is also unnecessary. Where a finger can stay in roughly the same place between two chords, as with the ring and pinky fingers moving from the four-string Bm shape into a D chord, leaving that finger in place and moving only what has to move is both faster and more reliable.

Strumming before the shape is set

Strumming and fretting at the same time, rather than fretting first and strumming a beat later, is a habit that feels efficient but actually causes more mistakes, not fewer, because it gives your fretting hand no chance to correct a slightly wrong finger before the sound happens. Slow practice deliberately separates the two: form the shape completely, check it, then strum.

Gripping harder instead of adjusting position

When a chord does not ring clearly, the instinctive response is to squeeze harder. That works occasionally, but far more often the actual fix is a small positional adjustment, moving a finger closer to the fret, angling the wrist, or shifting the thumb, and squeezing harder on a poorly positioned hand mostly just adds fatigue without fixing the sound.

Ignoring the low E string

On the full barre shape, some players leave the low E string ringing without meaning to, adding an F# bass note that is not wrong exactly, since F# is the fifth of the chord, but changes the chord's weight and can clash with whatever bass note the rest of a band or backing track is playing. Decide deliberately whether you want that string ringing or muted, rather than leaving it to chance.

Getting the Barre to Not Hurt: Building Strength Gradually

Barre chords are a strength and technique skill, not a talent you either have or do not. The finger pressure that feels impossible in week one is ordinary by week six for almost everyone who keeps practicing it a little at a time.

Start with the three-string and four-string versions above and spend real time there before forcing the full barre. Those shapes build the same hand position and the same left-hand strength without the added demand of flattening one finger across six strings simultaneously. When you do practice the full barre, aim for short, frequent attempts rather than long ones: press it, strum once, release, rest a few seconds, repeat. Holding a barre chord for a sustained minute while your hand shakes teaches your hand to tense up, not to relax into the shape.

A useful checkpoint: if you can fret the barre and pluck each of the six strings individually, getting a clean note from every one, you have the strength. If you can do that but the sound falls apart the instant you strum all six together, the issue is usually timing and simultaneous pressure across fingers rather than raw strength, and that comes from repetition, not harder squeezing.

Some soreness on the index finger's edge during the first couple of weeks is normal, since that finger is doing new work it has not done before. Genuine pain that lingers well after you put the guitar down, or numbness, is different and is a sign to stop for the day rather than push through. Calluses on the fingertips of the fretting hand build up naturally over the first month or two of regular playing and make this kind of pressure noticeably more comfortable, but that only happens with consistent short sessions, not one long punishing one.

Give it real time before deciding it is not working. Most players who stick with barre chords report the breakthrough arriving somewhere between two and six weeks of regular short practice, not in a single sitting.

Keeping the Barre Steady While You Strum

A barre chord that rings cleanly when you strum it gently can fall apart the moment you strum it with any real energy, and that is a separate problem from the ones already covered, because the shape and the pressure were fine before the strumming hand got involved.

The usual cause is the strumming arm's motion pulling the fretting hand along with it. A big, loose strum from the shoulder or elbow tends to rock the whole guitar slightly with each stroke, and if your fretting hand is not anchored independently of that motion, the barre finger's pressure shifts a fraction with every downstroke, just enough to let a string buzz on some strums and not others. Keep the strumming motion coming from the wrist rather than the whole arm, and keep the guitar's body braced against yours so the strumming hand's energy does not transfer into the neck.

It also helps to strum with a lighter touch than feels natural at first, particularly while the barre is still new. A hard strum does not make a chord sound more confident if the shape underneath it is not fully stable yet; it just makes the buzzing louder and more obvious. Build up strumming intensity gradually as the barre itself gets more reliable, rather than strumming at full volume from the first attempt and trying to force the shape to keep up.

The E-Shape Barre Version at the 7th Fret

There is a second full barre shape for B minor, built on the open E minor chord instead of A minor, and it lives at the 7th fret.

Barre your index finger across all six strings at the 7th fret, then add your ring finger on the 9th fret of the A string and your pinky on the 9th fret of the D string. This is the same relationship as the open Em shape, moved up seven frets with a barre standing in for the nut.

This shape sits higher up the neck, where the frets are closer together and the strings sit lower, which some players find genuinely easier on the fretting hand than the 2nd-fret version, even though it looks more advanced. It is also the shape to reach for when a song needs Bm right after or before another chord that is already in E-shape territory further up the neck, since staying in one region avoids a big jump.

Like the 2nd-fret version, this shape is moveable. Slide the whole thing down one fret and you get B♭ minor; slide it up two and you get C# minor. Learning it as a shape and a starting fret, rather than as a fixed chord, is what makes barre chords worth the initial effort.

B Minor Higher Up the Neck: Jangly Inversions

Further up the neck, past the 7th fret, B minor can be played as a compact three or four-note shape that does not need a full barre at all, just a few fingers clustered together around the 9th to 14th frets depending on the exact voicing. These higher shapes tend to sound bright and jangly rather than full and low, because you are playing the same three notes, B, D, and F#, but in a higher octave with the low, weighty strings left out entirely.

These are not usually a beginner's first B minor chord, but they are worth knowing exist, because they solve a real problem: playing a full barre chord that high up the neck is genuinely awkward on most acoustic guitars, where the body gets in the way of the fretting hand past the 12th fret or so. A compact three-note voicing sidesteps that entirely and is common in recordings that want a lighter, more chiming texture rather than a strummed wall of sound.

There is no urgency to learn these before the lower-position shapes. They are worth returning to once the 2nd-fret barre and its easier variations feel settled, at which point they add color and variety rather than solving a difficulty problem. A song that already uses Bm low on the neck can sound noticeably more interesting if the same chord reappears later in a higher voicing instead of repeating the identical shape every time it comes around.

Bm/D: The Open-String Inversion for Fingerpicking

Earlier, the easy no-barre version mentioned leaving the D string open for a Bm/D voicing. It deserves its own explanation, because it is one of the most useful shapes in this whole post for fingerpicking specifically.

With D as the lowest note instead of B, this is technically a chord inversion, a B minor chord with its third in the bass rather than its root. It reads as fully consonant with a B minor chord progression because D is already one of the three notes in the chord, just not usually the lowest one. Fingerpicked, plucking the open D string as your thumb note while your other fingers pick out the G, B, and high E strings, this shape has a ringing, open quality a strummed barre chord cannot produce, because the open string keeps vibrating freely while the fretted notes above it are damped by your fingers.

It is a poor choice for a hard-strummed section, since strumming brings in the muted or unplayed low E and A strings unless you are careful, but for a quiet verse, an intro, or any fingerstyle passage, it is often the more musical option, not just the easier one.

The Moveable Shape: Getting Other Minor Chords From Bm

Both full barre shapes in this post, the A-shape at the 2nd fret and the E-shape at the 7th fret, are moveable. The finger pattern stays identical; only the fret you start on changes, because a barre chord's root note moves up one semitone for every fret you slide it.

This is the real payoff of learning the barre version rather than only the easier open-adjacent shapes: once your hand knows the A-shape and E-shape minor patterns, you already know every minor chord on the neck, not just B minor. Moving a shape you already know two frets in either direction to reach a new chord is a much smaller task than learning an entirely new fingering from scratch.

Where B Minor Lives: The Keys of D Major and G Major

B minor is not an unusual or exotic chord. It is the relative minor of D major, meaning it shares the same key signature and the same set of notes, and it also appears as a chord within the key of G major. That makes it one of the more commonly needed minor chords for anyone playing folk, pop, or rock songs written in either key.

In the key of D major, the chords are D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, and C#dim, with Bm sitting as the vi chord, the one that naturally sounds a little more wistful or unresolved than the major chords around it. In the key of G major, the chords are G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em, and F#dim, with Bm as the iii chord. If you already play in either key and have avoided B minor by sticking to major-only progressions, this is the chord that has likely been missing.

Chord Progressions That Use B Minor

Because Bm sits inside both D major and G major, it shows up in progressions built from either key. Two shapes come up often enough to be worth practicing on their own, outside of any specific song.

Roman numerals describe the chord's position in the key rather than a specific song, which is why the same four numbers turn up across a lot of unrelated material once you start listening for them. Practicing a progression like Bm-G-D-A on its own, cycling through it slowly with a metronome, builds the specific hand movements you will actually need once you meet the same shape inside a real song, without tying the drill to any one piece of music.

Changing Into and Out of Bm

The shape is rarely the hard part once you have it under your fingers. The hard part is arriving at it in time and leaving it in time, especially mid-strum in a song that is not going to pause and wait.

Bm to F#7 or Bm to G: both are common in songs written in D or in B minor itself. Moving from the 2nd-fret barre to G means shifting your whole hand down toward the open position, so practice releasing the barre and reforming a G shape as one motion rather than two separate movements.

Bm to D: since D and Bm share two of their three notes, this is one of the smoother changes available. If you are using the four-string no-barre Bm shape, the ring and pinky fingers barely have to move to land on a D chord.

Bm to A: common in the key of D. The A-shape barre chord and the open A chord share a family resemblance, so players who know the open A shape often find the transition into the Bm barre easier once they notice the same finger pattern, just shifted up two frets and missing the open strings.

Bm to Em: both are minor chords with a related, slightly melancholy character, and moving between the Bm barre and an open Em is mostly a matter of releasing the barre and letting two fingers fall into the Em shape.

Practice any of these pairs slowly, without a metronome at first, and say the next chord's name out loud a half second before you move to it. That verbal cue forces your brain to commit to the destination shape before your hand starts moving, which is usually the actual bottleneck, not finger speed.

Songs Built on B Minor

"Hotel California" by the Eagles is the song most guitar players associate with B minor first, and for good reason: the song is written in the key of B minor and leans on the Bm and F#7 chords throughout, which is part of why it is a common piece for building barre chord stamina once a player has the basic shape down. F#7 sits a barre shape away from Bm on the neck, so the two chords together give you repeated, back-to-back practice at forming and releasing a barre, which is exactly the repetition that turns the shape from effortful into automatic.

Working through even the first section of a song like this, rather than isolated chord drills alone, gives the barre shape a reason to exist beyond the exercise itself, and that context tends to make the shape stick faster than repetition alone. Once Bm is comfortable, it is also worth listening for it deliberately in music you already know, since minor-key verses and bridges in pop, folk, and rock songs reach for it often enough that, once you can hear it, you will start noticing it everywhere.

A Practice Routine for B Minor

Fifteen minutes is enough if it is focused. Try this sequence:

1. Two minutes: fret the full barre shape, strum once, release completely, rest, repeat. Focus only on getting a clean strum, not on speed.
2. Three minutes: play the three-string no-barre version and the four-string version back to back, comparing how each sounds against the full barre.
3. Five minutes: pick one chord pair from the changing section above, Bm to D is the gentlest start, and practice moving between the two chords slowly, saying the next chord name before you move.
4. Five minutes: play through as much of a song that uses Bm as you can manage, even slowly, even with pauses. A real piece of music, not a drill, is what tells you whether the chord is actually usable yet.

Repeat this daily rather than doing one long session once a week. Barre chord strength is built the same way any hand strength is, in small consistent doses, and it fades almost as quickly as it builds if you stop practicing it for long stretches.

A Longer Arc, If You Want a Target

Fifteen minutes a day is enough on any given day, but it helps to know roughly what progress should look like over a longer stretch, so a slow week does not feel like failure.

Week 1: focus entirely on the three-string and four-string no-barre versions. Do not force the full barre yet. The goal this week is a chord that rings cleanly, even if it is the simplified one.

Weeks 2 to 3: introduce the full barre using the short press-strum-release drill above. Expect it to sound worse than the no-barre versions at first. That is normal and it is not a sign the earlier practice failed; a six-finger barre is simply a harder coordination task than a three-finger shape.

Weeks 4 to 6: start pairing Bm with one other chord, using the changing section above, and bring in a real song. By this point most players can hold the barre chord cleanly on its own; the remaining work is almost entirely about the transition in and out of it, not the shape itself.

Beyond week 6: if the full barre still is not reliable, it is worth checking in with an experienced player or teacher in person, since a hand position issue that is easy to spot from the outside can be invisible to the player making it. It is also worth ruling out a genuinely high-action guitar, covered earlier, before assuming the problem is entirely technique.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does B minor need a barre when other minor chords don't?

Because none of the six open strings in standard tuning play the notes B, D, or F# together in a way that forms the chord without fretting most of them. E minor and A minor happen to line up with open strings; B minor does not.

Is there really no open-chord version of B minor at all?

Not a full six-string one, no. There are partial shapes using the top three or four strings, shown earlier in this post, that avoid the barre while still forming a genuine B minor chord, just without the low strings.

What is the easiest way to play B minor for a total beginner?

The three-string version: index finger 2nd fret high E string, middle finger 3rd fret B string, ring finger 4th fret G string. No barre, three fingers, and it is a real, usable B minor chord.

Why does my B minor chord sound muted on the high E string?

That string sits at the very edge of the barre finger and is the easiest one to miss. Check that your index finger extends fully across it and that the finger is angled rather than flat, so the tip end still has enough pressure on the last string.

Can I play B minor without using my pinky?

Not the full six-string barre shape as commonly fingered, since it relies on the pinky for the G string. The three-string and four-string no-barre versions earlier in this post avoid the pinky if you prefer, using index, middle, and ring only.

Is Bm the same as B minor 7 or Bm7?

No. Bm7 adds a fourth note, A, to the B minor triad, which softens the chord and is a different, if related, sound. This post covers plain B minor only.

How long does it usually take to play B minor cleanly?

It varies, but most players who practice barre chords in short, regular sessions notice real improvement within two to six weeks. Progress tends to arrive in a jump rather than gradually, once the hand's strength and muscle memory both catch up at once.

Why does the same shape work for other chords too?

Because a barre chord's identity comes from where you start it on the neck, not from the finger pattern itself. The exact same hand shape produces a different chord at every fret, which is what makes learning one barre shape worth far more than learning one open chord.

Does a capo make B minor easier for real, or is it a shortcut for beginners only?

It is a genuine technique, not a beginner-only workaround. Clipping a capo to the 2nd fret and playing an open A minor shape produces a real, correctly voiced B minor chord, and plenty of experienced players use a capo deliberately for exactly this kind of chord when the song and setting allow it.

What is the difference between Bm and Bm/D?

Bm/D is the same three notes as Bm, B, D, and F#, but with D as the lowest note instead of B. It is a chord inversion, not a different chord, and it is especially useful for fingerpicking passages that use the open D string.

Should I learn the 2nd-fret or the 7th-fret barre shape first?

The 2nd-fret A-shape version is the more commonly taught starting point and is worth learning first, since it is the shape most chord charts and songbooks assume when they simply write "Bm." The 7th-fret E-shape version is worth adding once the first one feels comfortable, mainly because it generalizes to every other minor chord on the neck using a second, equally useful shape.

Is finger soreness while learning Bm normal?

Mild soreness on the side of the index finger during the first couple of weeks is normal and fades as calluses build up. Sharp pain, numbness, or soreness that lasts long after you stop playing is not normal and is a sign to rest rather than continue pressing through it.

Do I have to strum the low E string on the full barre shape?

No. Muting or simply not strumming the low E string is a common and correct choice, since it leaves the A string as the lowest note instead, which many players find gives a cleaner, more focused sound than including the low F# from the open barre. Either version is a genuine B minor chord; it comes down to the sound you want in a given moment.