I was lucky to be able to fret the F right from the beginning. Nevertheless, changing is much harder, like you, I’m placing fingers 3&4 first, then finger 2, then the barre. Otherwise I don’t get the chord. It would be better to barre first, hope to get that soon.
I’m working on Hallelujah, which is an C-Am-F-G and C-F change and Have you ever seen the rain, which is Am-F-C-G. HotRS will be another project for the future.
Just another million OMC and PFC to do…but I’m sure to get there!
Keep on playing and let us hear some more stuff
Just wanted to say thanks again for this tip. I did check out the lesson as you suggested and have added 2 minutes of E shape barre practice to my routine. I’m not yet at the stage where I can play these other positions in a song, but I can see how it will be very practical in future. And focussing on correct form with the E shape in general is helping to improve my F as well.
I am finding that with these barres, my wrist wants to bend more the further down the fretboard I go (away from the guitar body) so F is the worst one from that perspective too. Not sure why, I guess just how the geometry works out, but I can keep my wrist pretty flat if I’m on fret 5 or higher, but on 3 it’s definitely starting to bend and at 1 (F) it is very much bent.
I have been forcing myself to place the barre down first when I do my OMCs with F, which straight away knocked down my speed by more than half (from ~60 to mid-20’s), but it’s slowly building back up.
Fret 5 to 7 are perhaps the easiest spot to achieve a good e-shape barre.
angles may differ but try to figure out which angles are considered natural and healthy. It’s hard to tell from here; when starting out, everything may feel artificial and straining. experiment with adjusting whereyou aiming the neck at, what your elbow does etc and check back with pictures if possible when in doubt (or in pain).
Yeah I think it will sort out if I just keep checking in and correcting it. If I make a deliberate effort to keep the guitar sitting flat against my body (i.e., not leaning it over so I can look at the fretboard) and make sure I pull back with the elbow, then the wrist ends up where it ought to be. It feels a little uncomfortable/stretchy but, as you say, that’s to be expected. I just need to put in the time and entrain those movements and positions.
And you may find Brendan that tilting the guitar so the headstock is pointing up at an angle, rather than the neck being parallel to the floor, helps with the hand positioning.
The progress and improvement is there for all (especially you) to see and hear. Without these recordings you may not have been aware of the betterment as it can happen imperceptibly. Good stuff.
By all means watch the lesson, it’s a good one. But the idea is easy enough to explain. Just make an F chord shape, and then move the whole thing along the fretboard, without changing the grip shape. You don’t even have to lose contact with the strings, just take the pressure off, slide along and then press down.
The F chord has your index finger on fret 1. If you slide the whole thing along two frets, so your index finger is now on fret 3, that’s a G chord. Slide it another two frets so your index lands on fret 5, now it’s an A chord. On fret 7, it’s a B. And so on. You can do this as far up the fretboard as you like, until it gets too awkward (frets get too close together, or the body of the guitar gets in the way, etc.)
Once you get how this works, it’s pretty empowering. It opens up a bunch of chord options that you don’t have to memorise new grips for, you just have to know where on the fretboard to play it. So for example, if I ever need to play a G# major chord, I know I can just make the F chord shape but play it on fret 4 instead of fret 1.
Put that together with a few other barre shapes (E min, A maj and A min shapes), and you can basically play every simple major and minor chord that exists, in at least two different places on the neck.
Very nice, thanks for explanation. That may be good news. I’m looking at some songs i would like to play and if seems as if all my favorites have a B. B is 100x worse than F barre!
I’m right there with you. Sometimes you can substitute in a B7, but depending on the song, that can either sound OK or pretty bad.
I’m working on Sweet Child O’ Mine, didn’t like how the B7 sounds in that. I have sunk a few sessions trying to get the A major shape barre for B to work, but it’s an absolute [insert worst swear word you know]. I have pretty much settled on using the E major shape barre at fret 7 instead.
If you put a capo on 2, that horrible B becomes a sweet little ol’ A. You’ll have to see how the other chords change, but it could be a way to get you playing your faves.
Well, if you put a capo on 2, the chord shapes that you play should all be a full tone lower than the original song. So, the original B becomes an A (1 full tone lower). Any other chord in the song is treated the same way – lower by a full tone. So, if the song has an E chord, with a capo on 2 you play a D shape. A → G, F#m → Em, etc. As another community member likes to say, “simples”.
Nice effort! I have always barred my F chord the Hendrix way. I find it way easier to do than the traditional way. House of the rising sun was the first song I ever learned on acoustic. I learned it from a Esteban dvd back in the day lmao.
Started to play Landslide by picking out the notes, rather than strumming. I love how it sounds and I think it’s really fun to play like this. No singing this time because the fingerpicking takes up all of my attention!
I am pretty much running straight up and down the chord every time (finger order T 1 2 3 2 1), but I think in the original they might use some trickier patterns.
Also since I recorded this clip, thanks to @Richard_close2u I found out that these chords from the JG app are a simplified arrangement. Apparently the D is actually meant to be a D7/F#, and the G is meant to be a G/B. So now I am working on bringing the slash chords in to my playing.
