Ask the Expert – Easy chords for the key of F

Ask the Expert – Easy chords for the key of F

Open chord shapes for F

Jonathan Gabriel emailed us asking for advice on open chords for the key of F.

Andy replies:

F is not the most natural guitar friendly key so if I was playing in F I’d probably capo on fret 1 and use E shapes or fret 3 with D shapes. That said if you want play open without the capo I would use the Fadd9 shape from chords in C and move it up the fret board to get the other chords in F you can’t easily get to using the C shapes already outlined.

Here is what you need for the key of F

1           2           3           4           5          6            7
F          Gm       Am       Bb        C          Dm       C/E (5/7 chord)

So fret 1 is Fadd9, moving it up to fret 3 is G5 but works over the Gm chord as a 5 chord is neither major nor minor, fret 5 becomes Am7, Bb doesn’t really work on fret 6 so use the Bb power chord shown in the ‘5’ chords substitutions, C is fine on fret 8 but I would probably just use a conventional C chord, I’d use the Dm7 for chord 6 and play a normal C but leave the bottom E string open for your 5/7 chord. That should give you everything you need.

Other posts on chords you might find helpful:

Substitute chords in G

Substitute chords in B

Substitute guitar chords in A

Substitute guitar chords in E

Substitute guitar chords in D

Substitute chords for the key of C

Add9 guitar chords for adding beauty

‘5′ chords for strength and power

Substitute chords – B with a detuned E

Capo positions for awkward keys