Songs for beginners

LukinFan · September 2011

Started working on Green Day's "Time of Your Life" this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdlg_lbB5yE

Professor Earthtones · September 2011

I didn't read through every post, but here's my list of semi-popular, easy songs for the guitar that I still enjoy listening to, and playing...sorry for any duplicates from previous posts.

If you know power chords (and you should!), then every song by Green Day is cake (although Palm Muting is a skill that takes some developing, and you do need a quicker picking hand). They are a much better band when you START playing guitar. Also, drop D tuning is the friend of the beginning guitarist that wants to play some easy songs, or even better, playing your own easy songs/jams.

Other easy songs off the top of my head:
Soundgarden: Outshined (Drop D)
Local H: Eddie Vedder
Pantera/Sabbath: Planet Caravan
Jimi Hendrix: Wind Cries Mary
Pearl Jam: Corduroy, Release, In My Tree
Mad Season: River of Deceit
TOTD: Hunger Strike (Drop D)
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here
Foo Fighters: For All the Cows
Alice in Chains: Down in a Hole, Nutshell
Metllica: Enter Sandman, Fade to Black, Nothing Else Matters (first 5 notes SUPER EASY! lol... other parts not too difficult for beginners either)
Nirvana: almost everything's easy...About a Girl is a very easy one with easy to find video of them playing it
Tool: older stuff is very easy for guitar...mostly in drop D (I don't know any new stuff)

mfc2006 · September 2011

a few others...

Beck-Lost Cause
My Morning Jacket-a lot of it is easy, you just need a capo
Soul Asylum-Runaway Train, Homesick

LukinFan · September 2011

anyone have any good videos for "Wishlist"?

mfc2006 · September 2011

LukinFan wrote:

anyone have any good videos for "Wishlist"?

pm me your email address & i'll record one for ya, Roger.

LukinFan · October 2011

mfc2006 wrote:

LukinFan wrote:

anyone have any good videos for "Wishlist"?

pm me your email address & i'll record one for ya, Roger.

Matt - you rock! PM sent

magga1976 · October 2011

Harvest Moon is a great song for beginners IMO
This tab works pretty well
The riff and the chords sound pretty spot on
i don't think the arpeggio is right (maybe supposed to be harmonic on the 12th fret) just leave it out

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/n/neil_young/harvest_moon_crd.htm

play along with this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1DFifr7iYg

LukinFan · December 2011

I started messing around with this one today:

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BS-305-Y ... eatles.php

Hugh Freaking Dillon · December 2011

Tweeter and the Monkeyman (by the Travelling Wilburys, but redone by the Headstones in a punk sorta way).

LukinFan · February 2012

phungi · February 2012

Blackbird by the Beatles is much easier than I expected...

LukinFan · March 2012

Horse with No Name

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Jki9Ga ... re=related

YgoWash · March 2012

try learning just about any song from

Iggy and the Stooges " Funhouse " album

all are pretty easy !!!

LukinFan · March 2012

Been working working on Times Like These by the Foo Fighters. Pretty easy chords. Still trying to get down the strumming for the verses

DriftingByTheStorm · April 2012

mfc2006 wrote:

Soul Asylum-Homesick

Hell YEAH.

I still feel like i have to apologize to myself for liking this album.

Somebody to Shove, Keep It Up, and Black Gold all rock so fairly-hard,

and the above mentioned Homesick along with Without a Trace are hauntingly beautiful (imho).

It's a shame they got this "kind've lame \ kind've 'kid friendly' rock vibe" mostly cuz of Runaway Train.
They put out some bitchin' tunes on this record, if you ask me.

Somebody to Shove is "pretty easy" to play, and helluva fun to CRANK.

ed243421 · April 2012

DriftingByTheStorm · May 2012

Bob Seger - Night Moves

Oh yeah.
SoOooo easy.

LukinFan · May 2012

I've been working on "I am Mine" for the past couple of days, I think I pretty much have it down. Fun and easy song to play

LukinFan · June 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd0vIT0GaEE

Neil Young Keep on rockin' in the free world acoustic

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

Pretty sure these have yet to be mentioned:

The Weight - by The Band ... is one of those classics, and it is pretty dang easy to play.

also

The Ballad of Curtis Loew - Lynyrd Skynyrd (only played ONCE LIVE by original band!!!) is pretty dang easy for the rythm, and messing around with the slide section (even if you aren't using a slide!) is super fun. The picking or "lead" section in general is a fairly straight forward, SLOW, and easy way to start understanding how chords and leads overlay a scale together. Song on youtube

simple and pretty darn accurate chording ... mouse over B7 to see the chord shape.

This song also gives you an idea of how you can take 4 or 5 relatively simple parts and string them together to transcend the individual simplistic pieces and create an organic sound that is more than the sum of it's parts alone.

FrankieG · July 2012

Nice Thread!

I will be playing some of these this weekend hopefully.

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

So Also ...
i've been on like a "revisit all things southern rock and deep 70's" recently ... probably cuz i'm sick to death of modern music ... even the indie shit is all either variations-on-an-emo, or I-Think-I'm-The-Replacements-Or-The-White-Stripes, etc ...

Midnight Rider - Allman Brothers

TRULY easy as piss.
Even the solo, again like most of the songs i'm posting with solos, is a fairly straight forward pentatonic solo, and you really don't even move out of 7th position for the whole thing. These are good ways to get familiar with using single notes in a scale (ie. soloing, der dee der)

Heres another, mildly retarded song, but I've started at this point just clicking on the youtube sidebar for ideas \ related content ...

I'm Your Captain - Grand Funk Railroad ... i mean, TWO CHORDS for about 10 minutes ... and then an easy 4 chord refrain: Dm-Bb-Dm-Bb-Dm then Bb-F-A-A x2

no real solo, a lick or two, and again, really straight foward easy as piss.

ALSO, i don't think anyone has mentioned the following, and it was ALSO ONE OF THE VERY FIRST THINGS I EVER TRIED TO LEARN ON GUITAR:

The Who's - Tommy (all of it) ...
some of this is obviously multiple instruments (sometimes not even guitar) reduced down to guitar ... so actually like the overture is pretty complex (but good practice for theory & fingering) ... but MOST of it is EASY as piss ... see Christmas, Go To The Mirror Boy, Tommy Can You Hear Me, EVEN PINBALL WIZARD are all pretty goddamn easy. The rest involve a bit more fingering \ walking bass lines (Pete always straddled a fine line between lead and rhythm) but is still not Ynwingie Malsteen!

Also, straight up randomly,
Mama I'm Comin Home - Ozzy good for practicing simple finger picking patterns (that, GnR Paradise City and Beatles - Black Bird, which are both a bit harder, but definitely not out of "beginner" reach in some capacity) [pps. you can use a pick on Ozzy & GnR (recommend you learn to finger pick though), but don't try it with Blackbird!]

OH.
and if you wanna walk some bass lines learn
ROLL ANOTHER NUMBER - NEIL YOUNG

When you see chords like this:
D/A and D/B
the FIRST letter is the CHORD. the SECOND is the walking ***NOTE*** ... you are walking the song ... listen to it to get the feel for the rhythm and the bass\"walk" ...

D [consider this D/D]
e----2
b----3
g----2
d---0- <---- This is the D
a----
e----

D/A
e----2
b----3
g----2
d

a----0 <---- THIS IS THE "A"
e----

You pick\walk like this:

____D______D/A______
e

2--2

2--2----
b

3--3

3--3----
g

2--2

2--2----
d---0

a

0

e

____G______G/A_____G/B___G/A_
e

3

3---
b

3

3---
g

0

0---
d

a

0

2

0

e----3

CAPISCHE?

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

One more.

Uriah Heep - Easy Livin (live)
Tab that Plays The Music For You To Hear

It behooves you to try your damnedest on that little riff at the end of the chorus. You will reap the rewards in the long run, especially if you bother to study your pentatonic scale at all. Then you will start to understand WHY and WHAT they are playing. Why those notes? Well. Lookie here at the Dminor Pentatonic Scale:

That riff starts in "position 4" and falls back to "position 3".

Learn that shit, fools!

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

Slow Song Morning over here.

This falls in the EASY AS POO category:
Man of Golden Words - Mother Love BONE

(uh i had this friend a long time ago who didn't know MLB, and instead of saying the name with the natural pronunciation on Love, he put it on Bone. Try it. It sounds idiotic.)

ANYhow ...
song is really easy, and beautiful.
Try messing around with hitting\appregiating single notes in the chords for some flavor.
Or try hitting chords higher up. Like do F and G as bared "A Chords" on 8th and 10th frets. Whatevs.

LukinFan · July 2012

I Use to Love Her - GnR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-NzvEb0zGM

D
A
G
A

x2

then
G
A
x3

then D

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

LukinFan wrote:

I Use to Love Her - GnR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-NzvEb0zGM

D
A
G
A

x2

then
G
A
x3

then D

Also,
if you're learning this one,
might as well learn the song (that GnR also covered well) that they probably "stole" this general song structure from (same way i think Eddie prolly ripped off The Kids Are Alright for Betterman, but hey, who am i to say?)

Chords
Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers - Tab
woop woop

Better Tab of Riffs\Fills\Leads

Great 'Stones Live Version

ALL GUNS N ROSES SONGS = HALF STEP DOWN, ALL STRINGS.

megatron · July 2012

whipping is a fun one
its just E G A G

power chords or majors either way is real easy

a good one for strengthening your barre chords is come back

its just F B-flat and C

the pattern changes a couple times during the song..real easy to listen and figure it out. easy solo too

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

megatron wrote:

a good one for strengthening your barre chords is come back

yeah but that solo really pisses me off.
i can never get it to "rip" like Mikey does it.
:( :( :(

megatron · July 2012

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

megatron wrote:

a good one for strengthening your barre chords is come back

yeah but that solo really pisses me off.
i can never get it to "rip" like Mikey does it.
:( :( :(

ok i meant the first part of the solo is easy

and "i can never _______ like mike" is a constant theme in my playing. he's pretty good at guitar

DriftingByTheStorm · July 2012

megatron wrote:

he's pretty good at guitar

lol.
yeah.
playing with your guitar behind your head = "pretty good".

:P :roll: :P

I guess you have to play with your TEETH or your TONGUE like Hendrix to be "really good"?

I guess we all SUCK then?
:( :( :(

HEY LUKIN,
hows your playin' comin?
Frustrated, excited, bored, whats goin on man?
The 1st year of guitar always sucks the worst.
Like so much possibility yet so limited in your ability gets frustrating (least i was pissed off!)
sounds like you're on the right track though.

PS - 4:22 on the recorded version of Come Back is what i'm talking about.
I know this is just simple pentatonic shit but he makes it sound SOOOOOOOOOO goood.

Songs for beginners

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