The F Chord Lesson on JustinGuitar

I think if it works then it’s probably right. A lot of the positioning is going to be dependent on the unique way each of our hands are formed, length of fingers, thickness of fingers, mobility in the joints etc.
The most useful thing I learned was not just rely on my fretting hand to nail the F chord, a little pull back from the upper arm makes a lot of difference (and means your fingers don’t need to try to crush the fretboard)

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JK, good advice. I also like to do what others have said and play an E shaped barre chord higher up the neck at the 5th fret since the frets are closer together and the strings are easier to press down. I am reviewing the grade 2 lessons again after learning Grade 3 lessons for a year and find that my F chord still need to be tuned up a bit, especially in getting the B string to ring out, at least on the acoustic. The electric is a lot easier to get the F chord to sound clean.

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LOL I dream of a pinky finger placement like this :woman_facepalming:

After four years, I still have problems with F and with barres in general. I have very skinny fingers, with a fairly wide proximal knuckle joint and no finger meat between my distal and proximal joints. Anyone with advice on how to build finger meat? Do I need implants? :wink:

I have been practicing the full F barre chord for about 3 weeks now and making progress. I understand from this lesson that this is only an intro to barre chords and if I am not mistaken, barre chords won’t be covered again until the intermediate level.

For the song practice for this lesson I have been practicing House of the Rising Sun. Today I checked out Justin’s utube on this song and he does not use the full barre F and instead uses Fmaj7.

I am wondering if songs like House of RS which use mostly open major and minor chords do not use a single barre chord in the mix for practical purposes (ie playing and performing the song).

And secondly, in the lesson I am only using the barre F for practice purposes?

Is there an example of a song that would use a single barre and all open chords otherwise?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Try this one - https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/bobby-mcferrin-don-t-worry-be-happy-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-sg-135

Try Dancing in the dark - Springsteen. Or Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac. For full F. Both on the App.

The next bit for is power chords…:grinning:

Or this one https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/johnny-cash-hurt-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-bs-611

Hi Attila,

I’m not sure if barre chords won’t be covered again until the intermediate level. Maybe someone else can comment here.

Regarding example of songs where you can practice the barre F:
in Justin’s song recommendations for module 10 you find a couple: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/songs-for-module-10-bg-1010
And if you then take a look into the discussion of this module, there are many more: Songs For Module 10
And in this thread you find even more: How do I find songs with the F barre chord?

Hope this is not too overwhelming now… :smiley:

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The song actually uses the “mini” F chord which is quite common in songs rather than a full barre chords, from the lesson tab

image

Not sure if Fmaj7 would work in this instance if you played it finger style that open e may sound a bit off.

:sunglasses:

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Or this one https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/david-gray-please-forgive-me-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-bs-601

Oasis - Don’t Look Back in Anger

Well technically two but it’s F and Fm which is just lifting one finger off from the F barre

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I’m giving the F Chord a workout via Don’t Look Back in Anger! Fun tune.
The F Chord is still a work in progress and although slow it is coming along.
I’m trying to hold the face of the guitar more vertical. Tempting to lean it back to see your fingers but this also introduces more angle.

8Feb24 - still F chording! Re Don’t Look Back Am-E-F progression … We all appreciate there is a lot of muscle development going on in the F Chord process. Try middle, ring, little on Am-E, then the F is relatively set. Just a short term step, but it may help strength and confidence.

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@wiredforsound Kevin, I’ve thought about it and the only thing I have thought of other than taping some split rubber tubes or pipe wrap between your knuckles, is to get a tight fitting leather or rubber glove and cut off all the fingers except the first finger, for which you would just cut out the fingertip for using the first finger with other chords. This might let you play barre chords, but I make no guarantees. Hope you find an answer.

I had a bit of a breakthrough with my barre chord practice last night. I have quite fleshy fingers, and I was struggling on the the high a and e strings. No matter how much force I used, the notes were either muted or buzzy. I’ve been discovering that more force ≠ better playing.

I’ve been using a tip I got from @LievenDV to practice at the 5th fret, where the action is more forgiving. That was working, and i was able to take that and move up the frets, all the way back to F. But I couldn’t just nail the F if I went straight there.

So I was looking at my hand and realized that if I thought of my finger as sweeping (or squeegeeing) the string to the fret! And viola (:wink:) my fleshy finger was an asset, not a hindrance.

I hope this helps anyone who’s struggling with their barre chords.

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Good for you Eric small victories is what it all about.
Have to correct you on some guitar terminology
The A and E strings are low not high strings. It goes by pitch not where they are from the floor. Same with A at the 5th fret to F at the 1st fret. It’s going down the neck as in down in pitch.

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I meant B and High E :sweat_smile:, but I take your point of keeping consistent with up and down as in pitch.

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Thanks for sharing this, Eric. One never knows what visualization will help tackle that nasty F. I’m going to give this imagery a try!

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Oh man, muting the B string has been killing me on the the F barre. I will have to try this.

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Is it strictly a matter of the amount of pressure on the strings (mashing the pee poo out of them) to get them to stop buzzing with this chord?

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