The F Maj7 Chord (Guitar Lesson BC-142) Guitar for beginners Stage 4

This is Stage 4, Lesson 2 of Justin's Beginner Guitar Course.

This video shows you how to play the F Major 7th chord.

The Justinguitar Beginners Guitar Course, a series of over 100 lessons on guitar for beginners. Text support is on the web site and also in a proper old skool paper book which can be ordered from the web site of your local music store :)

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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Have fun :)

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Now, a lot of people really struggle with the F chord, the big barre chord F,

the big bad F everone's scared of but that one's not coming up until Stage 6.

What I'm gonna show you is a nice little work-around that you can very often play instead of big bad F

and that's this F major 7. It's not a particularly difficult chord, in fact actually it's kinda easy

but what's difficult about it is making sure that you use your ears to let you know when you can use it.

So if in the sheet music it says 'F' you should try and play this Fmaj7 if you struggle with Big F

and use your ears to tell you, does it sound cool or not

'cause sometimes it will sound cool, sometimes it won't.

For those of you that are music theory buffs or have studied other instruments

if the song is in the key of C then you play Fmaj7 instead of F. It's probably gonna sound cool.

If it's in any other keys the Fmaj7 might sound a little bit, well, not right, a bit weird.

So, just be aware of that and most importantly remember that if it sounds good, it is good.

So if you try and insert the Fmaj7 instead of an F and it sounds good:

Brilliant! Use it! It's working, man! That's what the whole point is.

If it sounds bad, go: 'Uh, OK, I can't play that song until I learned proper bar chord F.'

which is like I said. It's coming up in two stages. So, we're in Stage 4 now

and it comes at the beginning of Stage 6, so you haven't got that long to wait.

So, let's go to a close-up now and check out this Fmaj7.

So here we are, this is our Fmaj7 chord and you can see if you look at the neck diagram there

that we are not gonna play the thickest two strings.

So it's kinda like a D chord in that way. We're not gonna touch those two thick ones at all

'cause that will sound really horrible with this Fmaj7.

Now, the fingering is quite easy 'cause we've got here just literally open thinnest string,

then first finger 1st fret 2nd string, second finger 2nd fret of the 3rd string,

and third finger 3rd fret of the 4th string. That's a very cool sounding chord.

. . .

Now, what's important to realize here, it's a good trick to try and get your third finger

just leaning over to touch that 5th string a little bit, just to stop it ringing out in case you hit it accidently,

just if you like a little precautionary measure.

Now, if you find yourself ever struggling with this one a good way, to get to it as well is from C chord.

So, if you're starting off with a regular C chord and you move both your second and third fingers

down toward the ground by one string, you end up with an Fmaj7.

It's a very, very...you can hear it's kind of an airy sounding chord. I really like this chord.

and very often you'll find that this chord is used with C.

So you will often find yourself going like C, Fmaj7 and then maybe G, that kind of thing.

So, it's a really, really nice little one to get under your fingers.

I am gonna show you the proper way to play F

and a whole bunch of cheats on how to get around playing F if you're finding F really difficult

but I want you to get this chord down, this Fmaj7 chord down,

'cause it's a really, really useful one to have down at this stage before you've learned proper Big F.

So, try and get that one under your fingers nicely and I'll see you for yet another chord,

you learn a lot of chords this stage, I'll see you for another chord in a moment.