Practising a lot seems to help :) Also try rolling your finger sa little bit onto the edge, ie onto the side of the finger nearest the Thumb, I usually get a slightly better bar from that. Learning how to bar the strings, like in the F cord, opens up a huge range of songs to play, so its worth the frustration of muffled strings for a while.

Happy Playing

Steve

Like your aero position, you should make sure your guitar is set up properly before you spend too much time on learning to play. Take it to a good local music store that does repair and ask them to look at the action for you. That means they'll look at the distance between the strings and fingerboard. If that distance is too great, you'll have a hard time playing barre chords until your hand is very strong.

Once you've got the guitar set up properly for the style you want to play (different action for extra light strings on a jazz guitar as opposed to medium strings on a bluegrass guitar), you might want to pick up a little hand exerciser called a Gripmaster. This thing allows you to exercise individual fingers and practice barre chords whenever you feel like.

Hope this helps... happy chording.

TomC

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Tom C

My wife is a good banjo player. She loves that blue grass stuff. We went to an after triathlon party one time and it seemed that everyone there was also a musician. They had quite jam session going.

To be honest, nothing beats just practicing the chord for a long time for a week. You'll eventually get it. But if you really want to play this song that is in your head, don't forget you can always transpose it up to the key of D very easily (assuming you are playing in C, kuz I don't assume you are playing in F kuz that's a bit tougher)

Have fun picking.

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berndog
How did we all get sucked into this crazy sport anyway?!!

Either play a barred "E" shape at the first fret (harder to do and is usually out-of-tune) or play it as a modification of the "C" shape, but don't hit the high and low E strings. This would be with your index finger fretting the B string at the first fret, etc. I always play an open F chord as a four-string chord.

Ah, the dreaded F chord! It took me a long while to get this one, but it is now my favorite. One thing that helped me initially was capo-ing up to the 3rd fret, thus reducing the "reach" of the four working fingers. Once I got this nailed down, I then worked at wrapping my thumb over the top to get the low string on the first fret (or whichever fret also had the index finger on the first and second strings) - this makes for a very nice, resonant bass, alternating with the fourth string.

I play blues and ragtime stuff, and like you I'm a better triathlete than a guitarist. But I see a similarity in the discipline required to improve at both, and I REALLY enjoy the guitar as a therapeutic diversion to heavy triathlon training in peak tri season. A resource you might want to check out is guitarvideos.com, especially if your main interests are acoustic. This is run by Stefan Grossman, who is one of the finest fingerpickers around, especially for blues, ragtime, and Celtic. Keep working at that F - it's one sweet chord!

"My wife is a good banjo player."

Cervelodude the more I know you the more I love you. Blue grass gospel is one of my family's favorite things. Me and my kids can't get enough of the Carter Family. Makes me almost want to believe. Almost. Pure beauty is blue grass.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

I've also been a bluegrasser for many years playing fiddle, mandolin, and a little rhythm guitar. In learning to play some of the harder chords I found it was easier when I changed my attack. In the beginning I was trying to place my first finger and build the chord up the neck, I found in changing my attack to placing the bass finger and working backwards I was able to make the chord much easier. Give it a shot and keep picking.

Mark

I am a very poor guitar player but really enjoy the guitars. I have '65 Les Paul I bought new in '65 no less during the garage band era. Saved a long time for that one. 3 years ago bought a PRS (Paul Reed Smith) that has awesome tone and a great fret board for playing. Like someone else said check your equipment and set up it may need to be "tuned up" to help your playing.

Good Luck

fal7

Good to see there are other guitar players out there. I remember when I was learning. I hated F! My hand would get so sore from trying to press my fingers down so hard. When you're new to barre chords, muted strings are comman. Like others have said, check the action and just keep on trying. If all else fails there is that alternate fingering described above. There are times when it's actually preferable, but learning your barre chords will open up a whole new world.

Do you also have trouble with B-flat minor or B minor?

My two solution to all those tough fingerings...don't play with another rhythm guitarist, and transcribe the tunes into easier keys. Bass players and lead guitarists aren't so tied to key.

...and otherwise, use a capo to put everything else into comfortable, open chords when playing with a group. Who needs F when you can use a capo and play E; or jump up two steps and play the tune in G or D or whatever.

It's the chord-strumming folkie's oldest trick. Real guitarists may frown, but I'm not a real guitarist.