The shape is movable. Try it at other fret positions further away from fret 1 (where it does form F major).
Your 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers need to adopt a team-work mentality and be able to slot into their respective positions as one group, one solid unit working together and helping one another. There is value in sequential finger placement to train finger independence and I teach it often. Your ultimate aim here is for those three fingers to know their positions and be able to get there without thinking or effort. They will take the exact same group-shape on A-shape minor barre chords too, albeit on the D, G and B strings in that case.
Hello @Richard_close2u , and thanks a lot for your reply .
Every other fret except the first one is okay. So it seems to be a question of finger strength. I know that the F barre is more difficult to play on an acoustic (in my case with gauge 12 strings) than on an electric. Next week or so, Iāll get an electric with gauge 9 strings. Iām really curious about the F chord on that guitar then .
Or just a basic acoustic with high actionā¦ if you can do it every fret except the first, youāll definitely be able to do barres on an electric. Youād probably be able to barre the the F on the acoustic with either lighter gauge strings (11s make a huge difference) or a luthier setup with the nut slots filed.
I know (knew) exactly what you mean. It took me months to get this sounding right and no real idea what i did to get it to work. Probably a combination of arm position, thump position and neck position in the end.
Agreed. I still canāt the changes over 30/min. at the moment, but no doubt will nail this in due course.
Hi @jkahn, and many thanks for your reply.
I also thought of high action at the beginning, but the shop keeper of my trusted guitar shop said no, itās fine. Lighter strings are an option. If Iām still struggeling with the F barre when I next time need to change strings, Iāll try gauge 11 .
Its been 3 weeks since I started practicing F Barre Chord but I still canāt make a perfect F chord sound, should I start F chord changes without getting perfect sound?
I deduce from your comment you have 12g strings? I have 10g strings on my acoustic and I have reasonably strong hands. If youāre struggling with F barre chord you donāt want 12s.
Yes, 12 gauge strings. Meanwhile, itās getting better, but still far from perfect. The next change of strings will probably be necessary in July or August. Iāll definitely consider using 11gauge strings, if Iām still struggeling with the F chord then. But Iām still hoping for a miracle .
Hey Rick, thanks to you for encouraging me in this direction, mini Bar F is almost ready to mix with other chords. Richard (One off Justinās guitar teachers is helping me with the big F nowā¦ā¦ā¦ watch this spaceš
Iām like all the others on hereā¦F chord is a beast. However, I have looked back at my journey since I started learning guitar and what do I seeā¦The first chords I learnedā¦A and D were a struggle. The next challenge was Dm. I almost wrote an unkind song about that chord! C,G, the stuck 3-4 chords all held their own challenges as well. I admit I stayed back on the stuck 3-4 chords because I didnāt want to face the dreaded F chord.
Last week I could barely get my fingers in position. This week I managed to squeak out an F. That was progress in my books. The next day I sort of, kind of got another F chord. Iām focusing on that as progress. 2 weeks ago I wasnāt even doing that. I will mention that the first F chord I got was on a friendās guitar. It had just been set up and the action lowered, 11 gauge strings. My personal guitar has 12 gauge strings.
I wish I had access to an electric but I will continue as I am.
As to the F chord cheats, I am able to get the mini F most of the time. Fmaj7, Fmaj7/C are working for me.
Donāt give up.
It took me months to get F chord to sound decent and yes it was a struggle. I still have trouble making chord changes to and from the G chord but Iām not giving up. Justin says just do things slowly and keep up the practice. I know I will get this down and so will you. Stay strong!!!ā
My F chord changes are slowly improving. I find it easy to place 3rd/4th and 2nd finger down first an then the barre. On the other hand, I struggle to do it the other way around or placing all at the same time. The problem seems to be finger independence, i.e. stretching the 3rd and 4th fingers away horizontall from the barre and 2nd whilst also keeping the 3rd/4th fingers together.
Does anyone know any exercises to improve this movement?
Several of us have benefited by practicing leading with different fingers, i.e. practice a minute or so putting your index finger first, then another minute or two putting your middle finger down first, and so on.
Then focus on practicing your slowest finger a little more.
This seems to really help in getting all your fingers down simultaneouslyā¦or at least much faster.
I found it helpful to form the changes -(donāt strum ) until you can move your fingers comfortably. Then, practice this with a metronome .Slowly at first. Once you can do thisā¦
Then pick out the strings until they ring clearly.
once you can: move ,strings ringing out,then add strumming .
Sent
If you try to move,sound and strum you will get really frustrating-itās too muc h.
I was playing on a beginner Yamaha and after a month Iām able to to it okay but on my Taylor academy I couldnāt do it until this morning. I found on the taylor I needed to ever so slightly pull the whole guitar into my body just a bit to get the full sound of the f-chord. Thanks for the great lesson here it was super helpful to really just think about the finger placement. Iāve been struggling on the taylor for the last few weeks on the F chord.
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