Preface (skip if this isn’t your first time here): 

THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW ANYTHING USEFUL ABOUT THE GUITAR!

It’s because no one either showed them anything useful or they never found out the basics of playing guitar.

DON’T BE LIKE THEM! 

Here we are going to talk about those guitar basics in bite-sized chunks. 

Hopefully, this will give you everything necessary to understand how to play the instrument, fix any flaws in your playing, and form ideas on how to change things up in your technique.

You’re nearing the summit of your chordal journey. There’s only two things that you need to do. We’ll start right where we left off with the full chord post, with ba...ba… bar chords. 

Remember this F chord? 

Yes, that chord needs a bar. A bar is normally done with your left hand index finger. Now you’re going to need to practice barring by itself first, then move onto playing this chord after the bar sounds good.

To the get the bar sounding good, go through these steps:

1. Keep your index finger straight. Straight from the knuckle. 

2. Use your index finger pad to push down on the 5th fret on the 1st and 2nd string (the 5th fret will be easier than the 1st fret).

Notice how the finger is pushing down right next to the fret bar (not in the middle of the fret)?

You want to push down with your index finger while using your thumb to push up against the neck (the same as when you normally use your fingers on the frets).

The trick here is to make sure your index pushes DOWN more than your thumb pushes up.

It should feel like you’re pulling the guitar towards you, not pushing the guitar away from you.

It might be helpful to sit in front of a mirror facing to your right to check how far away your guitar neck is from you (Hint: you want it as close to you as possible). 

3. Pluck the 1st and 2nd string. Make sure both strings can be clearly heard. If one or both strings are muted or dull, push down with your finger more. Remember to bring the guitar towards you. You can push more with thumb too, squeezing the finger and thumb on the neck, but make sure more pressure is being applied with your finger than your thumb and the neck stays near your body. 

If you can do that, try the same thing on three strings, then four, then five, then all six. 

Now let’s play this F chord. 

Go back to barring just two strings (or if it’s easier for you: three strings).

Now put your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the G string.

Pluck each of the strings individually to check the sound. If anything is muted, do step 3 from above. You should also make sure that your middle finger isn’t touching the 2nd string. 

Now if you can do all this, add on the ring finger on the 3rd fret on the D string. Do everything described above for this new finger. Get all four strings sounding good to play the F chord correctly. 

Just like all our chords though, there’s an easy version and a hard version. Here’s the harder version of F. 

Go through everything that we’ve done already for this:

1. Get just the bar on all six strings. 

Then add the middle finger. If that sounds good, add your ring finger. If all the strings still sound good, add your pinky. Your hand should look like the picture below.

Throughout both versions of these chords though, the technique remains the same:

1. Push DOWN with your index more than pushing away from you with your thumb.

2. Go for a good sound on every string.

3. Check everything just one string at a time. 

If you’re getting a good sound with this, try out barring some other chords with this:

Hotel California by the Eagles

For the words and chords, click here. But, if you want to play these chords right and get everything in one place, stay right here. Strum every chord you see four times.