I’ve had this one simmering away for a while, currently working on Parts A and B.
I think the one I flub most often is switching to the D/F# grip where the index finger goes from fret 5 to fret 2. And the move to G → D in Part B also trips me up quite often. But it’s still always super fun to play.
Haha, I know what you mean Cate, I immediately tried to learn Stairway when I first bought a guitar back in '05, with no prior training or skills whatsoever. It went about as well as you would expect, and the guitar went into a cupboard for some years! It’s a tough one for sure.
Oh. Since picking this back up 40yrs later and learning (failed attempts only so far) the F chord, I wondered why the teacher way back, had me playing it. Okay, so maybe it’s more doable. I don’t know that chord as I’m still doing grade one but I’m going to give it a shot now.
@CateB the F chord is hard cos it’s near the nut. If you move it up 2 frets you get a G. You might find that grip easier to get and with practice you’ll get the F more comfortably.
BTW I bought Led Zep IV the day it came out over 50 years ago now.
Yep Rory is right, all of the F chords in the intro are Fmaj7, which you can play like this:
It’s a lot easier to play than a full barre F chord. Justin goes into some detail about this chord and a couple other F substitutes in the second module of Grade 2.
I can do a G chord although I’m not yet up to that chord change stage yet. I should be but have had a few things going on this week and not even picked the guitar up (first time since getting it).
I’ve tried the mini F but still not great with the muting part. Seems to be a big struggle of mine. Is the F major7 the ‘mini F’?
I’m possibly getting far too ahead of myself here and will end up getting frustrated.
No, they are different. The mini-F is where you hold down both the thinnest 2 strings with your first finger (a “mini barre”). It’s easier than the full F, but definitely harder than Fmaj7 in my opinion.
Mini F looks like this:
The difference with Fmaj7 is you play the thinnest string open, so it plays an E. The E is the major 7th in F, so that makes it an Fmaj7. Don’t worry if none of that makes sense to you right now, all you need to know is how to hold down the strings.
Aargh. I began my own ‘journal’ of sorts. I’ve fret boards drawn on all pages where I’ve entered in the chords and then gone and written the names above. And now looking again, I can see I’ve done the same chord twice, only on one, I’ve not written mute 1 and 2.
I’m going to continue trying as I’d really love to play House……
But, I must also stick with the course. This is so typical of me. I’ll just forge on ahead and then wonder why I’ve arrived at struggle street.
I would not fret over the F chord. If you can’t get the top string don’t worry about it the chord still works without it (triads are covered much later in Justin’s course for those more advanced). And if you hit the open 5th string no problem too as that still works. It will all come with practice
I’m actually not up to triads yet so that’s also gone over my head. I might just listen to it on YouTube for now and aim for it to be a challenge once I get to that level.