Suggest songs for a new guitarist

Suggest songs for a new guitarist

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Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
Getting to the point now where I can bodge my way through relativrly simple songs on the acoustic.

I am ernjoying learning The Eagles and The Verve songs.

Any suggestions for songs of similar ilk that will stretch mre a bit but not depress me with my incompetence?


M5-911

1,436 posts

52 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix?
Creep by Radiohead?
The man who sold the world by "Nirvana"?

Maybe to easy?

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
M5-911 said:
Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix?
Creep by Radiohead?
The man who sold the world by "Nirvana"?

Maybe to easy?
Quite a few barr chords in Creep (not gone there yet). Hendrix may be OK. Nivana had some less usual chords but they all look simple enough. Are they more suited to electric?

Wheel Turned Out

1,051 posts

45 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
A Horse With No Name or Sister Golden Hair.

Not that challenging, but satisfying. Can't go wrong with a lot of America's tunes.

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
Wheel Turned Out said:
A Horse With No Name or Sister Golden Hair.

Not that challenging, but satisfying. Can't go wrong with a lot of America's tunes.
I get a bit daunted by some of those chords like the D6/9 chords but looking at threchord diagran they are really simple.

otolith

58,934 posts

211 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
“Everybody Hurts” is simple chords played as arpeggios.


triggerhappy21

288 posts

137 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
I've been playing for about a year. 2 of mine I like playing and can play pretty well are:

Half the world away by Oasis
Have you ever seen the rain by CCR

I would recommend Blackbird too. It seems a bit daunting initially, but it doesn't take long to learn. I'm not up to full speed with it, but its great to practice coordination.

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
otolith said:
“Everybody Hurts” is simple chords played as arpeggios.

I have done that (badly) struggled to be able to sing and play the arpeggios at the same time.

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
triggerhappy21 said:
I've been playing for about a year. 2 of mine I like playing and can play pretty well are:

Half the world away by Oasis
Have you ever seen the rain by CCR

I would recommend Blackbird too. It seems a bit daunting initially, but it doesn't take long to learn. I'm not up to full speed with it, but its great to practice coordination.
Oasis HAWA was actually a song I shou,ld have looked at over the summer before I went down The Verve rabbit hole.

The CCR one looks very doable. Blackbird has that C, G, A7 fast fingers bit? I wil try that bar and see how it feels.


Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
Maggie May looks within my grasp now (tried it a few months ago).

A, G, D,
G, D, G, A
EM, A, EM

Bit of F#m



awooga

401 posts

141 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
Wild Thing is pretty straight forward, one of the first tunes I could play that someone else could recognise as being vaguely familiar to them.
7 Nations Army
Where is my Mind?

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Saturday 21st September
quotequote all
awooga said:
Wild Thing is pretty straight forward, one of the first tunes I could play that someone else could recognise as being vaguely familiar to them.
7 Nations Army
Where is my Mind?
Troggs?


Animal

5,336 posts

275 months

Sunday 22nd September
quotequote all
I use the Ultimate Guitar tabs & chords app a lot of the time, rather than buy physical sheet music (I don't read music, just the tab versions), and there are a huge range of songs to choose from.

I've just checked now and you can filter by tuning, genre and difficulty (amongst others), so if you just want to learn to play without wanting to learn a particular band or musician's music (e.g. I just wanted to play along to Def Leppard!) then there's a lot of choice.

There's also plenty of lessons on the app too, although you'd probably have to pay for some of them.

In terms of recommendations, REM and Oasis have quite a few songs that are easy to learn (and you can always just strum chords instead of playing the more intricate parts), or there's always Neil Young or Tom Petty? If you're OK with different tunings then go for the Rolling Stones or Bon Iver (or Nick Drake).

PS - there's also a series of books called White Pages, which are basically compilations of sheet music/tab. I've got about 4 volumes of them, about 100-ish songs in each, and there's also an Acoustic Guitar White Pages too.

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Sunday 22nd September
quotequote all
Animal said:
I use the Ultimate Guitar tabs & chords app a lot of the time, rather than buy physical sheet music (I don't read music, just the tab versions), and there are a huge range of songs to choose from.

I've just checked now and you can filter by tuning, genre and difficulty (amongst others), so if you just want to learn to play without wanting to learn a particular band or musician's music (e.g. I just wanted to play along to Def Leppard!) then there's a lot of choice.

There's also plenty of lessons on the app too, although you'd probably have to pay for some of them.

In terms of recommendations, REM and Oasis have quite a few songs that are easy to learn (and you can always just strum chords instead of playing the more intricate parts), or there's always Neil Young or Tom Petty? If you're OK with different tunings then go for the Rolling Stones or Bon Iver (or Nick Drake).

PS - there's also a series of books called White Pages, which are basically compilations of sheet music/tab. I've got about 4 volumes of them, about 100-ish songs in each, and there's also an Acoustic Guitar White Pages too.
I have used Ultimate Guitar. I usually copy out the lyrics and chords. I will have a look at White Pages. I wont mess with my tuning quite yet, but I could retune my old guitar.

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Monday 23rd September
quotequote all
Ordered a Vol 1 White Page from Ebay.


cherryowen

11,953 posts

211 months

Monday 23rd September
quotequote all
Maybe "House of the Rising Sun"

A lot of open chords with the occasional F maj

Cogcog

Original Poster:

11,827 posts

242 months

Monday 23rd September
quotequote all
cherryowen said:
Maybe "House of the Rising Sun"

A lot of open chords with the occasional F maj
Nice one, looks good

otolith

58,934 posts

211 months

Tuesday 24th September
quotequote all
Cogcog said:
cherryowen said:
Maybe "House of the Rising Sun"

A lot of open chords with the occasional F maj
Nice one, looks good
Also another good one if you want to practice finger picking.

franki68

10,665 posts

228 months

Tuesday 24th September
quotequote all
Johnny cash hurt

When I started I bought nirvana unplugged tab book and learned the entire album very quickly , pretty much an entire album of basic chords .

President Merkin

4,297 posts

26 months

Tuesday 24th September
quotequote all
Slightly obscure suggestion but with logic - Hey Julie, Fountains of Wayne.

Good acoustic tune, bright & pacey, so it's fun to play if for no other reason it keeps you busy and uses basic chords with C add9 which introduces a simple altered voicing & has one (Bm) barre chord which you can play without barring if required, so stretches your playing a little in the right direction.

When you inevitably move on to electric, I'd say a must learn song is Blur - Charmless man.

I'd put this in GCSE electric guitar if I was actual president. It has every technique you ever need outside of metal shredding. Barre chords, open chords, descending bass lines, hammer ons, pull offs, slurs, unison bends, trills, a full guitar solo & it's still nowhere near being their best song. Graham Coxon is an operator.




Edited by President Merkin on Tuesday 24th September 08:44