Songs for beginners

LukinFan

LukinFan wrote:

I need some suggestions. I'm pretty new to guitar. So far the only chords I know are D, Dm, A, Am, E, and Em. I can play "Three Little Birds" and I'm getting better on "Peggy Sue". Any song suggestions using those chords?

I'm into PJ, of course, Ben Harper, JJ Grey and Mofro, MMJ, Black Keys, Band of Horses - bands like that. Thanks!

to add to this, I now know G and C. Any other suggestions? I'm currently learning "I Won't Back Down" - pretty sweet

he.who.forgets

LukinFan wrote:

LukinFan wrote:

I need some suggestions. I'm pretty new to guitar. So far the only chords I know are D, Dm, A, Am, E, and Em. I can play "Three Little Birds" and I'm getting better on "Peggy Sue". Any song suggestions using those chords?

I'm into PJ, of course, Ben Harper, JJ Grey and Mofro, MMJ, Black Keys, Band of Horses - bands like that. Thanks!

to add to this, I now know G and C. Any other suggestions? I'm currently learning "I Won't Back Down" - pretty sweet

Lukinfan, try playing Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins. The beginning riff is Am, C, G, D# (a D but holding the top E string first fret with your thumb). It's a fast strumming pattern though so it may take a bit of practice to get used to. Fun to play though.

DriftingByTheStorm

LukinFan wrote:

LukinFan wrote:

I need some suggestions. I'm pretty new to guitar. So far the only chords I know are D, Dm, A, Am, E, and Em. I can play "Three Little Birds" and I'm getting better on "Peggy Sue". Any song suggestions using those chords?

I'm into PJ, of course, Ben Harper, JJ Grey and Mofro, MMJ, Black Keys, Band of Horses - bands like that. Thanks!

to add to this, I now know G and C. Any other suggestions? I'm currently learning "I Won't Back Down" - pretty sweet

Lukin,

If you know G D A
or G D C

... hold on, first i'd like to just remind you, if you know THE E CHORD, all you have to do is work on your BARRE ... and THEN YOU KNOW EVERY CHORD (every major chord) ... lift your middle finger off the bared e chord and you now know every minor chord as well. Move the e chord up one fret ... thats F ... move it up two more, thats G ... move it up two more ... thats A ... move it up two more ... thats B ... move it up one more ... thats C ... 2 more ... D ... and 2 more you're back to another E (past the 12th fret, where everything is just the same as down low ... remember the 12th fret demarks the portion of the fret board that repeats, fret 12 is like the open strings, fret 13 is like the 1st fret) ... you should learn that stuff pretty quick, it will help you get around the guitar much better.

back to G D A & G D C ... you can play a SHIT TON of songs with it, but from my memory ...
check the tabs for the actual chord order, some of the are D G A or what not ...

BETTERMAN (G D A)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (G D A - i highly suspect eddie "ripped off" TKAAR" for Betterman)
KNOCKIN ON HEAEVNS DOOR (G D C)
ROCKIN IN THE FREE WORLD (Em D C verse, then G D C -em? - chorus ... i think, don't quote me)

oh fuck ... look those two chord progressions are so goddamn common ...
here is a webpage on it
lol.

guitar-how-to.com wrote:

G C D is a common chord progression in popular music. Some songs using this progression are, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” by The Beatles, “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Wild Thing” by the Troggs, “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Amazing Grace”, “Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, “The Times Are A’Changin” by Bob Dylan, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” by the Spin Doctors, and “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC.

rock em all.
rock em hard.

Learn F too and you can play Paradise City -- G - C - F - C - G

Learn these two chords, and learn how to bar them
E, and A.
start working on baring that A chord as soon as you have hand strength, its probably a little harder for the beginner than a bared E chord ... between those two bars, you can fuck up just about any rock song pretty good.

LukinFan

You guys rock - thank you! I'll try it out!

DriftingByTheStorm

Also,

I forgot one that uses almost every chord you know, (except the E chords)

L.ZEP - TANGERINE!
an ***AWESOME*** song to learn
( i think it may actually be my all time favorite zep song, to be honest )

... you'll have to learn how to do both a hammer on and a pull off on the Am chord,
and then learn your hammer on \ pull offs for the Sus2 Add4 bits that go around the D chord in one spot ...
but other than that, the song uses the following chords, fairly simply
(oh, you'll have to "walk down" the root note of the C chord in one spot too)

Am C D G
in various orders. (always check the tab, lol)
woop woop.

titchinello

this is good info, I did start to try and learn, but never found the time, or was always too tired, now i'm thinking of giving it another go. so this is good info.

DriftingByTheStorm

Lukin,
take this version of the tab for REM - Stand and use it to make yourself learn many of the different bar chord positions.

You could play this in open chords, mostly, except you can't play Eb or Ab in open position, so you are thus forced to learn the bar versions.

Anyway, if you learn these chords, E A B G primarily in bar, you will be well on your way.
E chord (same one you know)
A chord (E chord with your pointer finger baring 5th fret)
B chord (E chord, pointer baring 7h fret)
G chord (E chord, slide back down, pointer baring 3rd fret)

Stick with the song till the end and you will learn something about transposing song keys ... thats where all the chords change to different chords (F# B C# in this case) but the "sound" is still the same. It is because the song just moved to a new key. In this case it moved up a whole step from E to F# (EtoF and BtoC are the only half step changes between letters on the scale, all other letter to letter changes are a whole step, learn that too)

The Major Scale Construction (learn this): WWHWWWH (whole whole half whole whole whole half)
W-W-H-W-W-W-H
- 2 -2 -1 -2 -2 -2-1 (number of steps)
E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#-E (applied to make the key of E)
See?

DriftingByTheStorm

Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane

You need to add Bm to your repertoire to play this correctly,
although you can play it (as Lou Reed sometimes does) by omitting it and just going from
D - A - G back to A (by way of an extra strum or two on G to "replace" the Bm) before repeating the D A G

he.who.forgets

Drifting, thanks for the info as i LOVE both Tangerine and sweet Jane. I'll have to give em a try.

LukinFan

Drifting - you are the man!

Speaking of, is the song, "Drifting", hard to play?

DriftingByTheStorm

LukinFan wrote:

Drifting - you are the man!

Speaking of, is the song, "Drifting", hard to play?

lol.
no, not terribly, although the rhythm is a bit tricky to follow.
watch this video and try to play along. drifting.

Did you learn "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" yet?
Cuz if you did, all you gots to do is throw a D up in to that shit, and you got Drifting.
Tab for Driftin
it should be pretty easy for you to tell when and what he is changing to.
You know what a G looks like, middle and pointer up top (top by your head, low strings, technically).
When he shift that down (up toward higher strings, from E and A string to A and D string) he is going to the Cadd9, and when he goes all the way to the top strings with his pointer middle and index, thats when he is playing the D and the "D9" chord (according to that tab, from what i "know" about music theory, that chord is better described as a Dsus4, but hey, what do i know. ?)

knock yourself out. the rhythm can be a bit tricky though, and i think a couple of times in that video performance eddie is both early and late to change chords in spots.

PS - once you learn Drifting, go take a look at the tab for More Than A Feeling.
LOL. Same chords, just picked, instead of strummed. Then you can rock out the power chords too.
woop woop.

PPS - "Down" is the same chords too, u just got to do some "Over The Hills..." style picking in between one of the chord changes. also there is some Am - Bm - Cm shit in the "hope could grow from dirt" type parts ... but the verse is identical in chords to Drifting. Down

PPPS - Might want to check out the chorus to Corduroy too while your on the G \Cadd9 kick. A little more complex, and a lot of picking to be sure, but Corduroy was one of the first songs i learned when i was a wee geet player.

LukinFan

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

LukinFan wrote:

Drifting - you are the man!

Speaking of, is the song, "Drifting", hard to play?

lol.
no, not terribly, although the rhythm is a bit tricky to follow.
watch this video and try to play along. drifting.

Did you learn "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" yet?
Cuz if you did, all you gots to do is throw a D up in to that shit, and you got Drifting.
Tab for Driftin
it should be pretty easy for you to tell when and what he is changing to.
You know what a G looks like, middle and pointer up top (top by your head, low strings, technically).
When he shift that down (up toward higher strings, from E and A string to A and D string) he is going to the Cadd9, and when he goes all the way to the top strings with his pointer middle and index, thats when he is playing the D and the "D9" chord (according to that tab, from what i "know" about music theory, that chord is better described as a Dsus4, but hey, what do i know. ?)

knock yourself out. the rhythm can be a bit tricky though, and i think a couple of times in that video performance eddie is both early and late to change chords in spots.

PS - once you learn Drifting, go take a look at the tab for More Than A Feeling.
LOL. Same chords, just picked, instead of strummed. Then you can rock out the power chords too.
woop woop.

PPS - "Down" is the same chords too, u just got to do some "Over The Hills..." style picking in between one of the chord changes. also there is some Am - Bm - Cm shit in the "hope could grow from dirt" type parts ... but the verse is identical in chords to Drifting. Down

PPPS - Might want to check out the chorus to Corduroy too while your on the G \Cadd9 kick. A little more complex, and a lot of picking to be sure, but Corduroy was one of the first songs i learned when i was a wee geet player.

you sir are the man! Thank you!

DriftingByTheStorm

LukinFan wrote:

you sir are the man! Thank you!

lol.
hardly.
just "paying it forward" as it were. maybe backwards, rather.
this sub-forum helped me out a SHITton when i was assbackwards on guitar (i mean, i still am, but i can strum now. lol) ... a few guys in particular went WAY out of their way to help me on all kinds of shit.

one nice guy on here actually got a hand made pedal manufacturer-dude to make me one last pedal of a type he had previously discontinued. The pedal came with a note, "last one. thank you!"

i was so stoked.
the musicians and gearheads around here are the greatest.
thank YOU!


PS - when yall get tired of playing "struming only" songs, start working on your picking skills with some simple PJ riff based shits.
Try the following rather simple riffs (all you need to do is work on the accuracy of your attack - how you hit each string individually - and your speed)
Glorified G
RVM
Animal
the verse of Corduroy

there you go, daniel-son.

wax on wax off

DriftingByTheStorm

Okay.
If you think you're ready to STRAP ON YOUR CODPIECE, & DON YOUR SPIKED VEST, then it's time for you to dig your chops in to this one:

Living After Midnight, Judas Priest.

This may actually be one of the easiest songs you ever learn.

Two very simple things to practice while you do this one,
and the only other thing is for you to try to get your synchronized wide-leg-stance sway going on while you riff out ... don't forget to enlist your buddies help so ya'll can time your back and forths. Once you get the hang of it, grab two ottomans and stand on top of them ... THE PRIESTS usually do this from pillars at some height, so it behooves you to try to ape their glory in your living room!

Two things:

1. when you get to the part just "after midnight" wher you go from the 1st position A to the B power chord at 2nd fret, you are going to strum a quick E chord , like this

[edit: CORRECTED. sorry it was upside down! 7-19-12]
-4---
-4--2
-2--2
-x--0

this should give you a chance to practice muting that E string for the B chord with the tip of your pointer, then readjusting to unmute it for the E, for which you don't want to even move your finger position from the B chord position, just raise your 4th and 5th finger (or your 4th only, if you are baring 2 strings with 1 finger) just enough to mute either both the D & G string or just the G string. Either one will get you the jist of an E.

2.
The other "Trick"
to learn would be the, "loaded ... loaded" bit, where you are going from the E at 7th fret down to the bottom of the fret board to play the following (G & E)

[edit: CORRECTED. sorry it was upside down! 7-19-12]
D

---

A--5---2
E--3---0

you may be tempted to shift your finger position, but DO NOT.
put your pointer on the 2nd fret of the A string to make that E chord rudiment, and then throw your middle finger up on to the 3rd fret on the E string, and your pinky on to the 5th fret of the A string. STRUM (G chord), now pull those fingers off. Strum again (E chord).

Way cool, huh?
So you strum up the E at the 7th fret, then quickly slide down, and throw your middle finger and pinky in to position for that G chord, and while you are strumming that, quickly get your pointer finger ready at the 2nd fret for the E chord (if you're a born pro, it will already be in place from where you slid down from fret 7, that would be optimal). Strum that, then throw those two fingers back in place to do the change all over again.

Now you're a fucking rock star.

DID YOU WORK ON YOUR SYNCHRONIZED SWAYING YET?
*** YOU NEED TO ! ! ! ***

LukinFan

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

the musicians and gearheads around here are the greatest.

I agree 100%

DriftingByTheStorm

I Got You (Verona, '00)
Tab for it

Easy shit.
Get you warmed up to "palm muting" ...
you can actually drop the high "d" on the b string and just use your pointer and middle finger to play the A and A# on the G string for the verse ... other than that, its just G A and D chords, with some Sus\Add embelishments on the D (typical with that progression) ... and an F thrown in before a G at the end of the little "solo" break down. You can learn that pretty easy too ... you can play it (solo) in first position D and its real easy. Just give your ear a chance to figure it out. BTW, when you hit that G chord in the verse, strum it once, then (still holding the G chord) quickly hit the low E string then the high e and b string in succession. Gives you that "doo dee doo"\church bell\door bell effect that they are doing there.

2nd Best PJ Cover\Tag, behind Save It For Later.


I guess Naked Eye is still one of my favorite full covers though.

mcthud

Can we request a sticky for this one? It's turned into quite a good resource.

Geert

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

I Got You (Verona, '00)
Tab for it

Easy shit.
Get you warmed up to "palm muting" ...
you can actually drop the high "d" on the b string and just use your pointer and middle finger to play the A and A# on the G string for the verse ... other than that, its just G A and D chords, with some Sus\Add embelishments on the D (typical with that progression) ... and an F thrown in before a G at the end of the little "solo" break down. You can learn that pretty easy too ... you can play it (solo) in first position D and its real easy. Just give your ear a chance to figure it out. BTW, when you hit that G chord in the verse, strum it once, then (still holding the G chord) quickly hit the low E string then the high e and b string in succession. Gives you that "doo dee doo"\church bell\door bell effect that they are doing there.

2nd Best PJ Cover\Tag, behind Save It For Later.


I guess Naked Eye is still one of my favorite full covers though.

To me this was a forgotten cover! Thanks a lot to remember! Indeed easy to play!

genevieve

Knockin on Heavens Door: G, D, Am, Am
G, D, C, C

Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds:A,A,D,A
A,E, A, E

You Belong With Me Taylor Swift:D,A,Em, G......Em, G, D,A all easy chords

Rivers of Babylon by Sublime: G, G, D, G
G,C,G,D,G

Anyone Else but You by the Moldy Peaches (juno soundtrack): G, Cm7

Halleluja: G, Em, G, Em, C, D, G, G, C, D, Em, C, D, D, Em , C, Em, C, GDC repeat.

Wonderwall: Em, G, D, A - C, G, D, Em

What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies: G, D, C, C, C, C. G, D, C, C, C, C. Find the ultimate guitar page with these chords showing.

Free Fallin: D, G, G, A the whole song through.

Boy Named Sue: G, C, D, G, G, C, D, G the whole way through.

All I Want Is You: G, Cadd9, G, Cadd9, for the verses and Em, C, Em, C, G, C for the chorus

No Rain: E, D, A, E till "I just want" then its E, D, E, D... then back to other chords.

Masters of War: Em, Em7... till the last line of the verse then its a fast Em, G, D, Em, Em7.

Dreams by the Cranberries: D, G, A, D, D, G, A, D repeat.

Indifference: Em, D, Em, D till how much difference then its G, D, Em-Em7

Hope these help someone else out. Ask me if you have any questions. Im still a beginner too.

LukinFan

genevieve wrote:

Knockin on Heavens Door: G, D, Am, Am
G, D, C, C

Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds:A,A,D,A
A,E, A, E

You Belong With Me Taylor Swift:D,A,Em, G......Em, G, D,A all easy chords

Rivers of Babylon by Sublime: G, G, D, G
G,C,G,D,G

Anyone Else but You by the Moldy Peaches (juno soundtrack): G, Cm7

Halleluja: G, Em, G, Em, C, D, G, G, C, D, Em, C, D, D, Em , C, Em, C, GDC repeat.

Wonderwall: Em, G, D, A - C, G, D, Em

What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies: G, D, C, C, C, C. G, D, C, C, C, C. Find the ultimate guitar page with these chords showing.

Free Fallin: D, G, G, A the whole song through.

Boy Named Sue: G, C, D, G, G, C, D, G the whole way through.

All I Want Is You: G, Cadd9, G, Cadd9, for the verses and Em, C, Em, C, G, C for the chorus

No Rain: E, D, A, E till "I just want" then its E, D, E, D... then back to other chords.

Masters of War: Em, Em7... till the last line of the verse then its a fast Em, G, D, Em, Em7.

Dreams by the Cranberries: D, G, A, D, D, G, A, D repeat.

Indifference: Em, D, Em, D till how much difference then its G, D, Em-Em7

Hope these help someone else out. Ask me if you have any questions. Im still a beginner too.

great list! thank you!

genevieve

No problem!

There are so many out there you just have to keep looking. And if you go on ultimate guitar and arent finding what you are looking for try typing "acoustic" in after the name of the song. Sometimes that gives you an easier version.

he.who.forgets

just started playing Immortality...really easy song. This video is a great tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3oZXSWio9Y

LukinFan

Just started working on Last Kiss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijv063fR ... re=related

he.who.forgets

Hey Roger, I know you're a big Ben Harper fan, try learning Burn One down if you havent already...just started playing it and it's super easy with a little practice

LukinFan

he.who.forgets wrote:

Hey Roger, I know you're a big Ben Harper fan, try learning Burn One down if you havent already...just started playing it and it's super easy with a little practice

Sweet - I'll check it out. I think you're a little more advanced than me though

he.who.forgets

cant be by much if any...just give it a shot.

LukinFan

he.who.forgets wrote:

cant be by much if any...just give it a shot.

I'll check it out this weekend - did you use a video or tab?

he.who.forgets

both. I watched a youtube vid and then just tabbed it out myself to practice by. also, when you are able to get that down, Bob Marley's Redemption song is nearly the exact same thing. two birds, one stone :P

LukinFan

he.who.forgets wrote:

both. I watched a youtube vid and then just tabbed it out myself to practice by. also, when you are able to get that down, Bob Marley's Redemption song is nearly the exact same thing. two birds, one stone :P

is this the one that you used?'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo0D0IdccCw

LukinFan

I just started messing around with"Hey, Ya" by OutKast - kind of a cool song. Here's a good video link on how to play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hgi0mSD ... _embedded#!