I might've been playing the F barre chord with bad technique all along. What I do (and seems easiest for me) is to have my index finger sticking out over the top of the fretboard quite a bit. In my instruction book however, in the demo photo, only the tip of the guy's index finger is sticking out...about only half an inch. The strange thing is that if I position my index finger in between those two positions, it doesn't work at all; it's as though the knuckles on my index finger allow only two positions to work.
Should my index finger stick out only a bit, or should I do whichever way gives me the clearest (least buzzing) sound?
Everybody has slightly different hands... no matter how 'good' you are, if you position a barre so that a string lands in a finger joint, you'll have a tough time getting a clear tone.
When you do a full barre, two finger joints are going to lay on the fretboard. You need to position your hand so they land in between strings. For some folks, this will mean more finger sticking out over the fretboard than it will for others. It's one of those areas where you have to find the best solution for the physical limitations you might have on a particular guitar... if it's getting in the way of chord changes, switching to a guitar with a slightly different fingerboard width may change how you fret.
If you have clean tone, and no problem making changes to non-barre forms, I wouldn't stress over it :)
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Thanks Tom. Your last sentence was what I was hoping to hear. It's only now that I've been practising the F barre chord in earnest. Regardless of which way I do it I still sometimes don't get the B string pressed down hard enough, but building up hand strength seems to be the key. Side note: I never realized until now that the four-string F barre chord is the same notes as the full F barre chord but just with the two lowest strings dropped.
