This is a cover of Justin’s Greensleeves chord melody from grade 3 and a version where I try to sing I also posted a recording of Silent Night chord melody from last year that I only put in my learning log.
I can finally play the chord melody version of Greensleeves from Grade 3, but I had to revise the fingering to avoid an Fm barre, by playing two different partial F barre chords and playing individual notes for the raised finger to form the Fm barre. I only left out the first low F note, but it sounds good to me,
Have you tried the thumb-over version of F? Since you never play strings 5 or 1 with the F-chord in this piece, the thumb-over version is actually not so difficult: 1x321x.
@jjw John, thanks for the listen and positive review and the suggestion. I can play an F barre, but for some reason (soft fingers, small hands, crooked pinky, poor technique?) I was never able to get a clean tone when I raised the finger to form an Fm barre, even with my classical guitar. I had so much problems with the muted tone on that note that I gave up on the song when I was going through Grade 3. I was determined to master the song during Grade 3 consolidation this year. I considered the thumb over F note with the Fmaj7 shape, but i thought that playing the higher F in the Fmaj7 shape and then playing the lower F note sound good. Otherwise I played all the notes in the arrangement. I had read in one of my fingerpicking books that one of the advantages of fingerpicking is being able to fret partial chords for speed and clarity.
I also posted a recording of Silent Night chord melody from last year that I only put in my learning log.