The "Easy F" Chord

Here we have the most traditional way of playing the F chord on a guitar.

This is a barre chord, and if it's your first time seeing one you're probably wondering how they're performed.

We'll cover that soon, but I want to provide you a quick way to play the F chord that will work for you right away.

Even once you master barre chords, you may still find this "Easy F" chord useful for faster songs!

Or, if you're impatient, click HERE to learn about barre chords right now!

Here is our "Easy F" chord. As you can hopefully see, all we've done is eliminate the notes played on the high E and low E strings.

However, this is still a perfectly valid way to play an F chord.

You'll need to use all four fingers and make sure to only strum the middle four strings of the guitar, so it's still a little more challenging than the open chords you learned first.

If you know your C chord, try switching back and forth between the two chords and note how similar they are. These chords are often played together so it's a good idea to get comfortable making that switch now.

The most common error I see with this chord shape is players letting the high E string ring. It even sounds pretty good! But letting the open E string ring here will turn your F chord into an Fmaj7 chord.

That could be handy once we learn what that is! But for now, make sure to keep that string muted if you're looking to play a standard F chord.