Easy Way to Play F Chord on Guitar

Is the F chord holding you back from playing some great songs? Some of the most popular song keys on guitar have the F chord, so there's no way to avoid it. Not to worry! I'm going to show you an easy version of the F chord that sounds great.

The F barre chord is really one of the first major challenges you'll experience as a guitar player. Of the "first position" Major chords, it's likely the hardest to play.

But there's an easier version of this chord. There's no barring required and it sounds great. I call it the easy F chord for guitar. And if you can play a C Major chord, you're 90% of the way there to play this easy F chord.

The easy F chord starts with your index finger on the 1st fret of the 2nd string. Then use your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string. Your ring finger and pinky will play the 3rd fret on the 5th and 4th strings respectively.

For this version of the F chord, you won't play the high or low E strings. I prefer to mute them with my fretting hand. Gently touch the high e string with your index finger so it doesn't ring out. Do the same on the low E with your ring finger. For the high e string you can also strum so you don't play the string. I personally do both.

​How Good Does The Easy F Chord Sound On Guitar?

Your first thought might be "This isn't the full F barre chord so it won't sound as good, will it?". But you might be surprised. Sure, it will sound different. But when you're strumming through chords you might not even notice a difference.

Check out 2:01 in the video to hear both of them. What do you think?

(Note: It's not just the F barre chord that can be made into an 'easy chord'. The easy F chord is easier to play compared to a full barre chord, but it's also a different voicing of the F chord. It's quite common for songwriters to use different chord voicings in songs!)

​How To Practice The Easy F Chord on Guitar

Now that you know how to play the easy F chord on your guitar, let's work on chord changes. Knowing the chord doesn't help unless you can play it smoothly without thinking about it.

Here is an extremely effective way to practice this. It's effective for two reasons…

1) It uses a chord that's very often used with F. You'll practice a very common movement.

2) It uses a method called Common Chord Fingers.

Here's how to do it:

1. First, make a folk-style C chord. This is your standard C Major open chord. From here there are only two small movements to get to the easy F chord.

2. Move your middle finger up one string to the 3rd string (still 2nd fret), and place your pinky on the 3rd fret of the 4th string. That's the easy F chord.

3. Keep your first and third fingers in place during the chord change. These are what we call Common Chord Fingers. Think of them as anchors. Now let's move back to the C chord.

4. Do this a few times without strumming to get the feel of the movement. This helps with your muscle memory.

5. To practice, strum the C chord twice, and then change to the F chord (while leaving the Common Chord Fingers where they are each time). To help keep you on time use a metronome at a slow speed. Practice so you can change on time without stopping or slowing down.

6. When you can do this without too much of a challenge, strum once per chord. Strum each chord one time and then change.

7. Finally, increase the speed of the metronome a little bit at a time (5bpm) to build up speed.

(If you're interested I use the principle of Common Chord Fingers and explain it in more detail in my Real Guitar Success Academy.)

Do this for just a few minutes each day and you'll have this easy F guitar chord down.

Building To A Full F Barre Chord

There's one more important thing I want to talk about.

Even though this easy F chord is extremely useful and can be played anytime you see an F chord, it's still important to learn the full F barre chord. Mostly because you can play this same shape up and down the neck.

The F barre chord is actually a great first step into the world of barre chords. You'll learn how barre chords work, and how they're made.

If you can finger the easy F chord on the guitar, you might be ready to work on the full F barre chord.

Here is a step by step lesson to successfully play the F Barre Chord:

Step By Step F Barre Chord

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Source: https://www.starlandmusic.com/guitar-lesson-tips/easy-f-chord/#:~:text=The%20easy%20F%20chord%20starts,high%20or%20low%20E%20strings.

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