That is a particular version of F … thumb wrapped around for the low root note, fingers 1, 2 & 3 playing the B, G & D strings respectively.
The A and high E strings are not played.
It is not a version in the beginner course.
You’re probably right but shouldn’t the A and E be Xed out if they are muted or not played?
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You’re right, a full F chord is a barre chord based on the E-shape found in the CAGED system. Thus, a full F chord is not an open chord.
However, you can try playing the Fmaj7 chord, which is an open chord. It sounds lovely in the key of C major / A minor and it’s a valid substitute for the full F chord in some other keys. Your ears will tell you when it sounds good or not.
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The A and high E have neither an open circle nor a cross against hem so it is impossible to know if they are meant to be played open or not played at all.
Without context it is a very poor chord diagram. Hence me asking @Jimgatos where it came from.
The answer to this questino is that there is no F-shape chord whatever.
The F chord is an E-shape chord.
There are only five ‘shapes’ of chords which are all derived from the five major chords that can be played in open position (without a barre).
C major → C-shape
A major → A-shape
G major → G-shape
E major → E-shape
D major → D-shape
Move an E major chord up one fret, barre behind it at fret 1, ta-dah, you have an F major chord.
For the reasons I have just explained above.
CAGED contains no B either.
There are only seven letter names used (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) and two of those, when thought of as root notes of major chords, cannot be played without a barre.
I’m sorry. I got from here.
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Demtrios, I’ll not pass comments on other teachers here. You may have picked up some points to consider in replies above and I’m not going to watch the video on the link you shared.
I’m also not sure where you are in the learning journey, if following Justin’s curricullum. Irrespective, you may want to take a look at this module and the first couple of lessons (assuming you’ve not already done so): https://www.justinguitar.com/modules/the-f-chord-journey-pinky-workout I’m sure that will help answer some of the questions in your mind.
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Perhaps a better way to ask the question is, can you have a teacher explain the 2 “F’s” I circled? I would think if I put the capo on the 2nd fret where the f note is I’d get a g chord? Or an f chord if I use a g shape?
Thank you, … I finished Justin’s music theory course and passed all the self tests with almost 100%. Playing for over 20 years. Play every day. Also took the jazz course among others…
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All you need are F-A-C notes strummed together. How you get there is dealers choice.
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Demitrios
I think you are reading this table incorrectly, it is not a freboard.
To start with F is on the 6th string 1st fret not 2nd.
If you put a capo on the first frest and play an E “shape” chord, the notes from 6th to 1st string will be.
F
C
F
A
C
F
You may recognise FAC as the triad making up the F chord.
If you place a capo on the 2nd fret and play a G “shaped” chord the chord will be A, and A shaped chord will be B.
So if you place the capo on the frets down the right hand side and play the “shapes” shown in the same row, the musical chord will be that shown in grey at the top of the column above each shape.
What is confusing here, is the presence of the F “shape” as highlighted. As already explained there is no open F chord and no F shape. If the shape indicates in the table suggests a F chord played with an E shape barre chord, it negates the capo, as you are already barring with your index finger.
Is the diagram from the source you quoted above, I don’t recall seeing that in Justin theory course.
Hope that helps.
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Demetrios.
I just watched the video.
The instructor uses the phrase F-shape and that is definitely not correct.
It is an E-shape.
It is (like the full 6-string barre chord that it is derived from) a movable shape. So he is 100% correct to show that the same shape at different frets becomes different chords.
Fret 1 = F
Fret 5 = A etc.
The F on the upper row is a natural note taken as the root of a major chord.
The F on the second row of the grid within the inner cells (and all other Fs within) are errors. There is no F-shape.
Okay … you need to read from the left column to the inner cells of the grid to the upper row.
Note how the inner cells contain only the letter names A, C, D, E or G … the CAGED system. Only those five shapes can be called shapes and are the basis of barre chords (or the form of other actual chords if a capo is used).
Very important.
The upper row of the table shows only natural note names A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It does not contain sharps or flats.
At fret 1 there is only one of the CAGED shapes that gives rise to a chord whose root is a natural note.
E-shape → F major
At fret 2 four of the CAGED shapes result in chords whose root notes are natural notes.
G-shape __> A major
A-shape → B major
C-shape → D major
D-shape → E major
And so on.
The table contains errors - your thinking does not.
I will raise an alert with a view to having it corrected.
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I think the chord shape row should be below the second row listing that lists the chords for clarity.
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This chart is very useful, but I found it very confusing at first, and see that many others do as well.
Here’s how I marked up mine:
The procedure for using it is:
-
List the chords in the song that you wish to transpose with a capo. (For minor chords, just use the major shape as a starting point)
-
Find those chords in the grey “Original Shape” row.
-
Under each of these chords, search down the rows of “Capoed Shapes” fora row that contains a capoed chord for each of the original shape chords (there may be more than one row like this. Minor chords must have an equivalent shape )
-
Substitute the capoed shape where the original shape is played in the song.
For me, this is complicated - I have to write down the capoed chords and pencil them onto a lead sheet before I can play in the capoed position. I certainly can’t do it in my head on the fly.
If this is helpful, mods should feel free to update the website with this.
An example would probably help as well, but I don’t have time to provide that at the moment.
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I think that part the confusion results from the implication that F is a shape (as in CAGED). In this chart, I suspect the idea was that all the ‘chord shapes’ below the grey line are chords that you learn as a beginner in order to play many songs in the open (no capo) position. F (mini or otherwise) is one of them, albeit not a general (CAGED) shape. Armed with these ‘shapes’ (aka beginner open chords) and a Capo you can play along with some original recordings even though that recording wasn’t played in a key that works with open position chords. Another use of the chart is to play the same target chords but in a different position on the neck producing a different sound, but in the same key.
One nitpicky inconsistency is that F is treated as ‘chord shape’ until Capo12. It is then omitted. Capo12 would be the same as Capo0 (no capo). Perhaps having a Capo0 row and showing F on Capo12 along with adding a note about how F is used in this chart might help.
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I do tend towards the opinion that Justin has created a graphic and a system that creates confusion in using the name F shape.
I will raise this with him.
My preference would be a chart with no F contained in any of the inner cells at all or to redesign it and label / describe it differently.
One thought is redesign showing only the 8 essential beginner chords.
But neither Justin’s chart nor this new one I made address the real life situation. The lesson concerns two people playing the same song so they are likely to be playing diatonic chords. Hence there is a need for a chart or a diagram that shows how a group of diatonic chords can be played in different ways when a capo is used.
Aha - see next post. Someone has already addressed this issue.
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My actual preference is actually for something I created … please forgive me straying away from humility here but I am quite pleased with these diagrams / charts / tools I created.
Here:
Here:
Here:
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Richard, I really like your re-design - great use of shading and color (too bad I only have a monochrome printer 
Also, for including the minor chords, which threw me for a loop when I started using the original chart.
The problem I see with this is that beginners would not be able to use the chart to capo away from difficult chords like F and B (or even C - yes, that’s difficult for many beginners).
But perhaps that’s a different use case from “capo for two”.
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Thanks Tom.
If a song contains F and / or B and is uses a diatonic progression - which is likely if classed as a beginner song - then the chances are that F and B will not be the only difficult and / or barre chords.
F is diatonic to the keys of :
- F → F, Gm, Am, Bb, C, Dm
- C → C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am
- Bb → Bb, Cm, Dm, Eb, F, Gm
B is diatonic to the keys of:
B → B, C#m, D#m, E, F#, G#m
E → E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m
F# → F#, G#m, A#m, B, C#, D#m
Thanks for explaining your reasoning.
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough theory - yet - to exactly follow this…but that’s on me - no need to explain further.
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Hi, I’m not following the words “front” and “back” as they relate to the open chord shapes. I can find the root note of the chord and somehow the C made intuitive sense to me but after that I’m lost, so it feels like I’ve only got half the tools here. Does this refer to relative position up and down the neck from the root note fret? (Then what happens with a D, when the root note is an open string?) Or is it something else? I know the note names but am not seeing a pattern here that to me says front or back. Any clarification is appreciated so I can watch again without just having my brain say “WHAT? WHAT?” the whole time.
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