Thats a good tip also try pulling your elbow into your body, I aim for the bottom of the ribs it works for me, I also tried playing the chord standing up which sounded good then back to sitting down, now got it sounding out most times, I am usng Fmaj7/c for songs but the full barre chord sounds better with the bass string in it. Hope this helps
Dave, I just started my journey with F chord and I have precisely the same problem. I wish I could you give you advice and help but sadly I cannot. The only thing I can say, keep at it and may be one day you get a breakthrough and will teach me how to do this F-chord. Cheers,
Eugene.
As someone who went through this earlier this year and now can play the F quite well, I think there are two major things that can have a massive impact on how easy it is to learn the F chord that some beginners overlook:
- Learn it on an electric. Justin does recommend learning on electrics early in grade 1, but I see a lot of learners on the community learning on acoustics. He strongly recommends electrics in the F chord lesson as well.
- Replace your standard acoustic strings with lighter gauge .11s or .10s
Cheap acoustic guitars are some of the hardest guitars to play. Justin even has a video on one. You need to press down with more force.
Learning the F is both a hand co-ordination AND a strength thing. Whatās the best way to build strength? Not start on the heaviest weights you can. Start on a lighter weight and build up, while working on your technique too. The way you do this on guitar is start with an instrument thatās easier to fret, and the simplest way to make it easier to fret is to have lighter strings (lighter acoustic gauge), or both better setup & lighter strings (an electric is lower action and usually has 9s or 10s).
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I can play the open chords relatively easy, I can do scales pretty well after a bit of practice, I can even play the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings of the bar pretty well. No matter what I do I cannot get my pinky to not mute the 3rd string. The 3rd string will always be muted I try everything I can to get my pinky to curl up so it isnāt muting the 3rd string, but no matter how I try the 3rd string will always be muted. I am the type that I need to play everything legitimately. I canāt just say oh I will play without ever doing barre chords, I have to do it all and at this point this is my 3rd day trying this barre chord and no improvement has been noticed. I feel like I have the muscles to do it since I can play the barre part fine, it is the 3rd string. I am honestly considering calling it quits here, with no improvement I really donāt think it is going to ever get any better. Might be the end of the road here unfortunately.
First of all, welcome, and do not despair!
You said that this is only the 3rd day of you practicing the F barre chord - the time it takes to perfect this chord is measured in months, not days.
Just keep practicing it 5 minutes a day and donāt worry about it other than that. Have fun playing everything else youāve learned and can continue learning, and the F chord will come peacefully, though probably not quickly.
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Yes, welcome Josh! Please be patient with that F chord. Brian @coolAlias gives good advice. Iāve been working on it for months, and havenāt perfected it yet. Some days itās great, and other days I just canāt get a clear chord. Which is not unusual! Everyoneās hand is different, and for some of us it just takes longer to get be able to form the chord without thinking. Three days is not nearly enough ā¦ work on it for a week or two, get it as good as you can for now, and move on to the next lesson(s). One approach is to try forming the G barre chord (same shape, third fret) and getting that clear, then moving toward the nut one fret at at time. Donāt despair, and donāt throw it in!
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I appreciate it. I have the same approach getting my high school degree, on to my associates, and then my Bachelorās. I always say what is the point and come back at it, just discouraging not making an ounce of progress in 3 days, where I could tell noticeable improvements over the course of days with the other stuff.
Seeing Justin do it left-handed and get it right the first time makes me wonder why I canāt get any closer doing it right-handed like he did his first time left-handed, but I work on it for like an hour each day just doing that one practice routine to hopefully try to get it better and after a few hours still stuck. I will keep trying to get my pinky figured out on the 4th string and see if it hopefully stops muting the 3rd string sooner or later.
I know I sound like a little kid right now, but huge update! After killing my pinky finger and my wrist feeling like it wonāt work anymore I got it to ring out with all the notes one time! Still a little buzzy, but I just wanted to play all the strings without them being muted just once and I finished practice doing it one time! For anyone else having issues with the pinky muting the G string on the F major, you just really have to curl up your fingers and get them right on the tips and press pretty hard at first. I am sure after more pinky strength and time on it, it will get much easier, but a huge first stepā¦ heck yeah!
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Woo hoo! Congratulations! Now you know you can do it. Some more (unsolicited this time) advice: Practice it daily, but only for 5 minutes. That way you wonāt kill your fingers or wrist - which will only set you back farther because you wonāt be able to play at all for a time!
Regarding Justin progressing so quickly left-handed - donāt forget that heās been playing and teaching for over 20 years. That has to be a big advantage for him!
Keep us posted Josh.
I really appreciate the support! I type all day for work, so I know the risks of using the wrists to much, the hand was really tight last night, I could tell I was working on the right things. I will definitely keep tabs on how it is progressing as time goes on for sure.
I use a chord sequence it goes D, F barre, C, G barre, D its the chords to a song see if you can guess two strums on each chord.
When I place the Barre, itās always that my B string gets muted. I can play all the other strings in the F chord except the 2nd string. Any ideas on how I can improve it or is it just that it will come with practice.
Also are we supposed to press the thinnest two strings in the Barre with the finger joint areas(i.e. the part where we have the 1st line on our finger. Iām clear about the angle of the finger but not sure if I should press with the joint area or the part between the lines on our finger)
Just tried the module 9 today I was utterly unable to get a tone out of the b/h string no matter how hard I press. I thought I had strong fingers since I am a seasoned climber. But this F chord has really humbled me.
Sorry for missing the comments, been a crazy time over the Christmas Holiday. To not mute the B-String the Barre is extremely important I have found and the placement of it. I am by no means an expert on this, since i am just now starting to get my F-Chord decently sorted out now. I have found; however, the B-String was my 2nd hardest string to figure out because it was either always muted or buzzing. I found that if you put your finger down on the fret itself straight up and down and slightly roll your finger to the left and make sure it is rounded where the top of the finger and bottom of the finger is in line with each other, but it makes a curve a bit in your finger. You also want to make sure you are pulling back a bit with the hand, you can even take the thumb off the back of the guitar to make sure just hand pressure is enough to get them ringing out which seem to be good with me. If it is the B-String I would say it is the Barre itself needing work.
It is for sure the hardest thing I have done yet and for sure humbling. I even almost broke my guitar from throwing it down on the ground, that is how bad the F-Chord got to me in the beginning, but it has now started to work out. For instance, on my acoustic that is extremely hard to play barre chords on, especially for someone just learning them, I found I still canāt play them great most of the time, but the second I pick up my electric guitar I am nailing them just about perfectly every time now. This is after throwing the electric on the ground because I couldnāt get barre chords to work on it, now it isnāt that bad on electric anymore. The tale they tell is true indeed, practice and time and it will slowly start to work out for you. Hang in there.
Itās just time and practice. I had all sorts of problems but my son said to me ādad, just keep doing it and it will just happenā. Now Iām having problems with something else and feel a sense of relief when I see a plain old āFā coming up!
Like my son said, just keep on going, itāll happen.
Cheers
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Exactly, Tim! I discovered the same thing today (day 2 of my F cord Journey). Itās much easier at the 9th fret! (Itās a start.) Perhaps this should be stressed in Justinās lessons?
Richard: Thanks for clearing up which direction āmoving upā the fret-board is. Iāve been a little confused by this term.
I suggest that, instead of pressing harder, try rotating your index finger a bit so the strings contact less on the flat part and more on the area between the flat inner part and the side of the finger. Keep experimenting with subtle changes in finger angle and finger position until you find the spot that requires the least pressure to get everything ringing out.
Itās normal for this to take months, even years, to master, so make it a short-term goal to find the best spot for your index finger, but a long-term goal to get it smooth, repeatable, and with minimal finger pressure.
YMMV
Before I needed hand surgery and put the guitar down the last time, I was beginning the FU chord. I thought Justinās lesson on this is tremendous. He goes into the right amount of detail, and makes sure you understand that it this is just the start, so introduce yourself to it and keep working on it, but donāt let it hold you up. I know barre chords are coming, so this is a setup lesson, in my opinion. I suppose?
Is my hand position āokayā here?
I feel like I need to push my index finger further up the fretboard so that the tip is āaboveā to get in the best place to barre all the strings
