F Barre Chord

OK, so here it is our first barcode. This is the F barcode. Uh, the dreaded F code, the effing F code. This has so many bad terms associated with it because it is incredibly difficult for many people and I'm gonna try and show you the best way that we can play it so that the vast majority of people will be able to do this. So this is the position we have our fingers in with our first finger barring. At the first fret. So barring is the action of pressing down the side of our first finger, typically our first finger, to uh press down all six strings in this case. But even if we just press down two strings and holding down two strings with one finger, we can also refer to this as barring two strings. It's holding down multiple strings with one finger. If we do that with the side of the first finger. It's a much tougher um part of the finger than the very soft, fleshy part which is flat facing the palm of the hand. So just on the side of our first finger I'm pressing between the thumb and the first finger in this sort of uh pinch action and very much uh bending from the knuckle rather than er the wrist kind of like this. Um I'll look at more in the other. Parts of the wrist and hand in a second. The side of the first finger is crucial, and this is what makes the F chord tougher than many other chords because we're pressing down the strings right where they're being held up at the nut. So many other chords, uh when we use this same shape and move it higher up the. Neck as we're going to do in the coming videos. Um, it actually gets easier up to a certain point when we move more at least to the middle of the neck. The F chord is probably the hardest E-shaped barcode that we have and therefore we'll cover a couple of easier options in a second, but let me talk you through the other fingers. So we have the middle finger. At the 3rd string of the 2nd fret. 3rd finger, 3rd fret of the 5th string, and the little finger directly underneath it. Therefore, the 1st finger is essentially acting as a capo or a capo if you're American. And these fingers are playing an E major shape. So one great thing to do is play a standard E major chord with our three weaker fingers, middle finger, third, and little, which will be very strange for many of you. Um, but if we can get this ringing out. That in many ways is the first test. Can you make an E major shape with your three weaker fingers, so middle finger. Third, and then little. And have everything ringing out so they will need to be right on their tips. And then we slide each of those one fret over, so middle finger is at the 2nd fret, 3rd and little at the 3rd, which is the dotted fret for me. And then side of the 1st finger, thumb behind the 1st finger like this. Bending at the knuckle and just the slight slight angle of the wrist but certainly kind of nothing like this. I see a lot of people kind of do this sort of action. Um, elbow at 90 degrees and a pretty nice straight line all the way to your to your shoulder, you know, no sticking out of your elbow kind of like this or too far in kind of like this pushing it too much. A nice sort of straight line there. And this is what the F bar cord should sound like. And we wanna be able to pick each uh string from 6 to 1. And that is how to play the F barcode and what it should sound like. OK, so here's my top 5 tips to get your F barcode sounding great. As I've said, first of all, make sure we're on the side of your first finger. I think that is the most important. But another tip is to um actually if you're really struggling and this isn't ringing out, move your first finger. Up very slightly. What can happen is the grooves in the first finger can line up with the string and then it kind of doesn't ring out because the string's in a, in a line or a fold in your finger. So wherever you have to place your first finger, so that the thinnest two strings are uh are not in that groove, can can work out best for you, but typically. We don't want it to rise up much more over over that string 6 if you can help it. So first things first, side of the first finger. Top tip number 2 is to do this squeeze between our thumb and first finger requires building this muscle here. And depending on how you play your open chords, this muscle will either be developed by now or not. So if you play your open chords kind of like this and you're holding the guitar all the time um in this part of your hand here, sort of entirely in the palm, you're never gonna be working. This thumb muscle here and this muscle will be very weak. So what you need to do is move that thumb below and er have it around here. So here on the guitar, let me just show you there. There we go. And we're pivoting. And we're pressing between the thumb and the tips of the fingers in this sort of action, OK, rather than rather than gripping it, rather than holding the neck like this. We're pressing on the tips of our fingers like between E and A or any of our open chords. It's only really on the D when that thumb starts to come over. At the top, but we never really want to hold it. The guitar never wants to really be in contact here when we're doing open chords. And when we're doing the F bar chord, you can see that that part of my hand is not in contact with the guitar. There, it's not like this, it's like this. So we need to develop this muscle, which I think in the ebook. No, I haven't written down the technical term for that muscle, but that's the muscle that we need to develop. Your thumb should also be parallel to your first finger, though the actual angle can vary slightly between person to person. But it should never be kind of pointing down the neck like this. It should definitely be facing up. Number 3 is to train fingers 23 and 4 separately to this barcode and separate to your first finger. So typically our strongest finger is from number 1 and somewhat 2 and then 3 and 4 and always 4 are very much weaker. So what we want to do is work back through your basic. Open codes E, A, D, for example, but do them with your three weaker fingers. So here is the E code as we've done a second ago. The first thing I taught many of you is how to change between E and then to A. Can you do that with these 3 weaker fingers and without using your 1st finger at all? That is a big test and if you can make the decode, especially with that thumb pressing like this, not like this, just pressing on on the tip of the thumb, then you're really working your fingers to be able to change to this F barcode, especially from other open codes. It's basically the same skill changing between E and A. And we're training fingers 23 and 4 separately and and working them harder than they would have to work otherwise. Tip number 4 is about changing code uh to this barcode or between different barcodes or with any higher level kind of codes. And the tip that I'm giving you here is learn the codes or the code changes just. The chord changes that are going to happen in that key or happen in that particular song. So in this course we're going to be learning how to play every chord, which is a lot. We have 12 major chords, 12 minor chords, and then the 7th chords and stuff as well. So you know, we're getting on for kind of 36 chords, and if we keep going from there, there are an awful lot of. Variations of these chords. Not all of them happen in the same songs, as you guys know if you've been following my lessons, songs tend to stick to 34 or 5 chords, and then the odd couple can crop in, but they're not commons. So with the songs that you're going to be learning with the F bar chord, typically the chords that are going to happen are the C chord. The D minor chord. E minor. The F G And A minor Those are the codes in the Kia C as was covered in my beginner's course. And the most common are the major chords in in any key, 100%. So we have the C. The F And the G Which we will cover in my theory module and we'll know those as the 14 and 5 in Roman numerals, all that to be explained in the theory module. But for now, you just need to be comfortable and you need to drill the changes between C and F. Between the F and the G. And the F and the A minor. So G and to a lesser extent to to the A minor, but always the major chords C, F and G are going to be the most common chords that crop up with your F bar code. They're the ones to practise more than any other. And final tip number 5, keeping this super practical cause this course is gonna be way more than just a chord book. We've got lots of uh song type exercises. The biggest thing is changing code earlier when you're going to any barcode, particularly the F. So when we're changing, for example, the, the recommended code sequence, should be on the screen now, but it's also in the book that I've uh I've got to accompany this course and that I'm using to teach this video. We have a C for a bar, F. A minor. And then G. So if I'm changing between those, what I don't want to do is go one. And then wait till the end of beat 4 to suddenly straightaway change to the Fer in in an immediate fashion. What you wanna do is change earlier on beat 4. So as soon as I've strummed beat 41. Lift off and change to that next chord. Now I've done that in an extreme fashion there, but if we compare the two, compare how a beginner would do this without this technique and then with it. So let's have a look. We have C and then 2 and F. So C. I begin to change into an F code, that might take that long. A beginner change into A minor. 34. OK, so we've stopped playing, we've stopped the strumming hand and then we've changed to the chord. What you want to do is change chord earlier so you don't have to stop the strumming hand and you arrive on the next chord on beat one. Most important thing. So same chord sequence again with this technique. 34, C. straight away. 3 change. Now what happened there was I didn't pause my strumming hand, which is the correct way to do it. Even if there's a bit of silence in there, there isn't a pause in that we didn't pause the strumming hand. That's the biggest thing that you've got to do, a change as early as you need to to a. Arrive on beat one or when you need to arrive on the next chord, that's the most important thing. Of course, if it's taken you 2 or 3 seconds to change between chords, you'll want to do a 1 minute changes exercise and just drill that single change for around 1 minute. To get it to around, around a second, but as soon as we're to around 2nd, which I think most people will be, if you've applied the principles in the beginner's course and you've been practising all those practise routines and etc. that should be the best way to do it. So those 5 tips, use the side of your first finger. Make sure your thumb muscle is strong and is used in all your open chords, so your thumb isn't like this, it's like this. We're training fingers 23 and 4 separately. We're changing only between the common chords when you're practising because the other chords aren't gonna happen anywhere near as often, so C, F and G primarily, just practise those changes. And when you're playing this chord in a song, the barcodes, or any common or any tricky chord change for you guys, um, you want to change on beat 4 or even a little bit earlier, making sure you arrive on beat one. Fantastic, so that is how to play the F barcode. Uh, because it is so tricky, as I say, in many ways it's the trickiest chord physically to play in this entire course cos we're nearer the nut. What we're going to do a little bit later is be moving this barcode higher. But what we're just going to make sure is that you guys all know the easier options with this F barcode and when to use them, where to use them, and I will see you in that video in a second.