OT: Acoustic Guitar

[benb]

Originally Posted by redir

Do you have a good set up on the guitar? The string height at the nut should be the same as the frets in front of it. I Have people bring $3000 Martin and better guitars in my shop that could stand to have a better set up at the nut.

The F-Chord is a hard one to get but a good set up can help tremendously.

Have it checked out.

Pretty interesting.. I picked up a $1000 martin in a store recently and the setup was horrific. I think it was the nut... the individual strings were at different heights above the fretboard, big differences. The G string was super super low, most of the others were really high. Super distracting trying to play it.

I had mine setup at a local luthier.. it is fairly low. I'm not really working on barres but hopefully that means my guitar is OK. I keep finding anything that seems like it is a hard physical effort on the guitar is just incorrect technique, finger placement, etc.. so hopefully that's all I have to figure out with the F chord or B chord, etc..

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by redir

Do you have a good set up on the guitar? The string height at the nut should be the same as the frets in front of it. I Have people bring $3000 Martin and better guitars in my shop that could stand to have a better set up at the nut.

The F-Chord is a hard one to get but a good set up can help tremendously.

Have it checked out.

Thanks for the advice. I bought a used Breedlove Discovery Concert. It could probably be set up better, as I get some fret buzz on the low E and A strings on the first and second frets.

That said, I am hitting the f-chord with about 40-50% success. When I get it, I get it. Then there are other times that, even with a perfect set up, I don't think it would help. My fingers are on the wrong strings and/or not aligned properly with the fret (either diagonally in one direction, or way up close to the nut). The song I'm working on now has a boat load of F-chords. Something like 1/3 of the song is F-chords, so it is an issue of consistency.

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

That said, I am hitting the f-chord with about 40-50% success. When I get it, I get it.

HaHa! Yeah, the guy on the street who yells to a taxi driver for directions: "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice!" replies the cabbie.

What until you gotta hit the Fm barre chord - most newer players can't get the G# to ring correctly 'cos it often falls right under the first joint of the barre-capo-index finger when laid across the first fret.

How to fix this? Practice, setup on the nut, curve the finger across the fretboard radius while applying pressure, wrist alignment which affects finger position & alignment, all of the above in varying degrees. The subtleties in playing an instrument are both satisfying and maddening depending on whether you see options & technique as a blessing or a curse.

Have fun - the journey is the reward.

[redir]

Yup even the high quality factory guitars often come out of the show room needing setups. Don't even get me started on Gibson... They are the worst. But once set up they are great.

I think the full barre F7th might be the hardest.

You'll get the hang of it after a while.

I forgot to mention string gauge too. I always advocate that one should find the best string gauge based on the tone of the guitar but when you start learning it might be helpful to get a light set. Then you can go to medium if the guitar sounds better with them.

[Louis]

Reading all this and watching some of the Justin videos sure makes me think that learning to play the piano is a lot easier, at least when it comes to finger coordination. (I do neither.)

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

F the F chord.

That is all.

Aw hell - it will just be there one day. Done.
Try playing full bar chords. When you get comfortable with, say G or C bar chords, the F will kick right in...
GL

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by fuzzalow

What until you gotta hit the Fm barre chord - most newer players can't get the G# to ring correctly 'cos it often falls right under the first joint of the barre-capo-index finger when laid across the first fret.

How to fix this? Practice, setup on the nut, curve the finger across the fretboard radius while applying pressure, wrist alignment which affects finger position & alignment, all of the above in varying degrees.

...or substitute an Fm7, which is not only harmonically richer and generally regarded as "hipper" by jazzbos and elitest music theory snobs, but also (ironically) much easier to play.

[marciero]

A simple and easy approach with all of these fully-voiced six-note F variants is to use thumb on low E-string.

[rounder]

Accoustic Guitar refers to the non-bar chords as cowboy chords. You can play them with a lot of songs, especially folk songs and the chords will sound great.

But there is no way that you can move forward playing guitar without learning how to play barre chords. The more that you play them, the easier it gets. The more you do that, the more you understand how to play guitar, and the more satisfying it gets.

[marciero]

Originally Posted by rounder

Accoustic Guitar refers to the non-bar chords as cowboy chords. You can play them with a lot of songs, especially folk songs and the chords will sound great.

But there is no way that you can move forward playing guitar without learning how to play barre chords. The more that you play them, the easier it gets. The more you do that, the more you understand how to play guitar, and the more satisfying it gets.

Cowboy chords are open position chords with open strings-C, D, G, etc. These are typically the first chords one learns. Chords in other positions up the next, however, are not referred to as cowboy chords.

While a knowledge of barre chords is important, they have little use outside of rock and roll, esp. the full index-finger barre. Jazz players, for example, favor three and four-note chords, or even two-note voicings depending on the other instruments.

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by redir

I think the full barre F7th might be the hardest.

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

...or substitute an Fm7, which is not only harmonically richer and generally regarded as "hipper" by jazzbos and elitest music theory snobs, but also (ironically) much easier to play.

I get what you're sayin' but I think that either remark is beside the point: in learning an instrument, it doesn't matter what the fingering is, how hard it is or workaround substitutions that can be used. The only thing that matters is that you keep at it until you get it. A hundred reps, a thousand reps, whatever it takes. Face it, fingering is fairly rudimentary; timing and phrasing is equally difficult if not more so - and you need all of it.

No music snob or jazzbo here - I'm just an amateur nobody who enjoys music to want to play it. I'm perfectly happy to play Zep's "Good Times Bad Times" as playing as good as I aspire to be. Talking about F barre chord, there's some arpeggio barre stuff in "Since I've Been Loving You" that's tricky but it feels good to get better at something - so you just keep going at it until you can nail it.

[redir]

Full barre chords are used quite a bit in classical and flamenco too. I think they are even harder to make on classical guitar. People think classical guitar is easier to play and in fact often suggest it for beginners because the strings are nylon but it's not really true. You have to be even better at adjusting the pressure on each string in a barre chord or else it will be dead and it will sound horrible. Missing a note on a steel string or electric guitar is not as bad sounding.

I've recently started playing some Gypsy jazz tunes, talk about weird chording. mostly odd shaped 3 note chords with muted strings and so on.

[cmbicycles]

Full and partial Barre chords are used in just about any style, the thing I've found is that over time you learn how to press just enough on the strings. Over time you start to vary pressure on different parts of your fingers as you get more sensitive to finer adjustments in your fingering.

I don't have thick calluses like when I started playing as my fingers "know" how hard they need to press and it isn't as much. I'm no Segovia & I don't have the (incredibly adept) sausage fingers he had either , though Ive noticed some of my students with thinner fingers have more difficulty with barre chords than those with more meat on their bones so to speak.

Looking back after 25+ years I've grown tremendously as a guitarist, & I'm maybe a better than average guitarist (when Im playing at my best), but there is still so much for me to learn.
As Fuzz said, the journey is the goal. Enjoy the learning, failing, and growth thru it all.

[unterhausen]

I think the best thing I ever did was learn to play on an electric. I'm sure many people will disagree, but I found picking up acoustic was pretty easy once I could play. And if you have an electric you can play without pissing everyone off.

Barre chords are the way to go. You basically need to know two forms and done. That's the genesis of every bar band ever. If you're going to get fancy, there are a couple of forms of the pentatonic scale that get used a lot. Probably easier to learn those than chords.

[OtayBW]

Bar chords made easy!..............NOT!: