Hey Friend,

Let's look at the various triad shapes you have available to you for F major. 

The first five give you the shapes from the CAGED system. We've also got good representation from each inversion. Four of the chords are root inversions with the note order of 1 3 5, three are first inversion (note order 3 5 1) and four are second inversion chords (note order 5 1 3).

The way you can tell which is which from the chord charts is when there is a "/" title for the chord. The letter after the "/" tells you what the root note is.

No slash? The root note is F. The notes  are F A C. If you see a "/A", this is a first inversion and the notes would be A C F. "/C" gives us the second inversion with notes C F A. 

Learning these positions may seem to be kind of tedious and repetitive, but what have I said about patterns? Guitar is all about learning and applying patterns to your playing. You may notice, if you compare the chord charts you've seen so far, that these chords just move a little up or down the fingerboard. Sure, the fingering changes a bit for minor chords, but you're never far from the next chord you need, no matter where you happen to be playing on the neck.

Look at the charts again. See how you have options for F major at different neck positions? At least three in the open first position area, three at the fifth position, three in the tenth position and a couple around the 7-8 position. 

These give you plenty to work with if you're trying to stay within a box area on the neck, and there's a really good chance the next chord you need in a progression is going to have a version that works right in that same box.

This means you don't have to always rely on the F major barre chord, or even the barre across two strings. Are you starting to see how versatile you can be when you know more chord positions than just the first position open chords or barre chords?

Think about when you decide you want to play a little riff between a couple chords as you move through a progression. When you know these chord positions, you can simply change shapes instead of moving up or down the neck. You truly begin to know the fret board and where to find the notes you need. 

Play with these. Listen to each one to hear how positioning changes to color just a bit. Practice them to get the fingering into your muscle memory. See, F major doesn't have to be so scary anymore... Rock on!

Peace~

Dave