Lauren Bateman (YouTube instructor) demonstrates beginner workarounds for two common barre chords: an Easy F (presented as F major 7) and an Easy F# minor. To make the Easy F major 7 from a standard open C chord, move the 2nd finger down one string to the 3rd string and the 3rd finger down one string to the 4th string (same frets), then strum the bottom four strings. To make an Easy F# minor, play an A major shape moved down one string so the A shape sits on the bottom three strings (in the second fret), and strum only those three strings. The video emphasizes these as workarounds for beginners who struggle with full barre chords.
Chapters
Welcome back. I'm going to show you how to do a simple F chord that you can use in songs that's still a completely open chord. So the F chord is typically a bar chord.
And it's six strings. And the first finger has to play more than one string. And for beginners, that can be really tough. That can actually be really hard. And I have some exercises we can do to build up the finger strings strength a little bit so that we can actually do these chords, these bar chords, a little bit easier. So when I have songs that have an F chord that pops in, I show my students some easy workarounds to play the F chord. Now, if you know a C chord, which at this point I hope you do, we're going to show you how to get into what's called an F major 7 chord. Now, an F major 7 chord looks a lot like a C chord, except we're just going to take the top two fingers and move them down one string each. So if we make a C major chord, our full C chord, we're going to take the second finger, move it down one string, and our third finger, move it down one stringS, and you would just strum the bottom four strings of this chord. This is an F major 7. I think it's used. This chord is actually used, I think this way.
And you choose one. But we're going to do a very simple version. So full C chord, take your second finger, move it down to the third string, stays in the same fret. Take your third finger, move it down to the fourth string, stays in the same fret.
And now you've got a very Easy F major 7 chord which you can use for songs that have F. And it's a great way to get around not having to play a bar chord. Now, another chord that might pop up is an F sharp minor chord that is also a bar chord. But I have an easy fix for that one too, so that you can learn as many songs as possible without having to jump into those really hard barre chords yet, which I consider more an intermediate level skill. So what you're going to do, if you know an A major chord, which you do at this point, you can take this A major chord and you can move it down one string each. So you're basically putting an A chord on the bottom three strings and just strum the bottom three strings.
Doesn't sound as nice as the full bar chord, but it works and it'll get you through playing some songs that have F sharp minor. So to get into F sharp minor, we have an A major chord.
And then we're going to move all of our fingers down one string so that the A is only on the bottom three strings in the second fret. And we have F sharp minor. So those are two easy fixes for bar chords that might pop up into your songs. So practice those and hopefully you'll be able to use them in some songs when they pop up. Alright, welcome to the close up. I'm going to show you F major 7. So we're going to start by the C chord we already know.
And we're going to take the second finger, move it down one, the third finger, move it down one and play the bottom four strings.
To get back to C. Move third finger up, second finger up, one string each, you're back at C major, F major seven, second finger down one, third finger down one.
And last time, third finger up, second finger up. That gives us C major. If you move the second finger down, third finger.
Got F major 7. Now to get to F sharp minor, we're just going to take an A major chord that we know and we're going to move each finger down one string. So we're playing an A chord on these bottom three strings. So it's an A chord on the bottom three strings. So here's A major. If you move everything down one string each, you get F sharp minor, the easy version of F sharp minor that you can use. So one more time, here's A major.
