F Chord Cheats for Guitar Players


Published on 26 January 2016
If you would like to gain full access to all our Guitar Teaching Materials please visit the Secret Guitar Teacher Site and take a free tour: http://www.secretguitarteacher.com/youtube/ssb.php?lp_id=393 Here's the video transcript: We promised in the last Sound Bite that for those who really find the basic F shape too difficult to get clean we would go over some alternative ways of playing F in this lesson. But even for those who are OK with the basic F chord there are great reasons why having alternative shapes at your fingertips can come in useful. I also hope in this little lesson to give you a methodology for finding alternatives for any chord shape, without introducing you to too much complex music theory. Starting with the basic F major shape, let's have a quick look at what actual notes make up this chord. Most of us tend to think of this as a four string chord shape so we either miss... or mute these two bottom strings . This leaves us with the note F on the fourth string. D D# E F...the note A on the third string G G# A...the note C on the second string B C ... and another F on the top strong E F. So that's F A C and F. So, we only have three different notes... in this case F, A and C. And according to the rules of music theory, we can in fact arrange these three notes in any order and our ears will hear the resultant sound as an F Major chord. There is only one catch...if we're playing by ourselves, in most instances we are going to want to hear the note F as the lowest sounding note in the chord. Here we have the granddaddy of all F chord shapes - what we call the 'E' shaped Barre chord played at the first fret. Now although the majority of beginners will find this harder than the basic 4 string F chord shape, I have come across several players, particularly those with large, strong fingers who actually find this an easier option. So if that may be you - I recommend at least giving it a try. For the rest of us, a useful approach is to pick out smaller parts of this chord that nevertheless qualify as 'proper' F chords in that they have at least one of each of the notes FAC, preferably with F as the lowest sounding of the three. Here's the easiest option I can think of. Be sure to miss or, better still mute out the top string and two bottom strings when you play this chord. Here's another shape that's often overlooked as a viable easier to play alternative to the basic F chord.This one is great for a nice solid bassy sound. This time you want to make sure you mute out the top two strings. Finally, for this lesson I want to show you one more of the options derived from the barre chord shape which at first glance seems to break the rules we have set. This is a five string shape which has the C as it's lowest note making it what we call a second inversion F chord. Fingered like this it is again a shape that a surprising number of guitarists actually find easier than the four-string version. If playing it with a bass player looking after the lower sounding F note it works fine, but I also find it useful when using a style of alternating bass note picking like this ...or maybe this. So that's a little intro to chord theory as well as a few practical alternatives I'm offering to using the basic F shape that gives beginners so much grief. In this lesson we have covered the most likely options for anyone using a pick, but if you are a finger-style player, there are a few more alternatives I'd like to show you. But I'll save those for the next Sound Bite. If you found this little video useful, please click on the ‘Like’ button if there is one, or leave a comment, and do feel free to share the video with your friends. And if you’d like to gain full access to all our guitar teaching materials, please visit the Secret Guitar Teacher Site and take a FREE look round at what's available there... See you again soon!