New song to learn on guitar

[tenohfive]

I've been playing guitar on and off for about 3 years now, (having been taught 4 chords by a friend then being left to teach myself from internet tabs) and have in one of the spells where I find myself wanting to play every day.

I was wondering if anyone could suggest a couple of fairly easy songs to go for. Something with plenty of finger picking...to give some examples of the sort of stuff I'm looking for, heres a few songs I can play - I'm after something similar if poss:

Classical Gas - Mason Williams (intro)
Sweet Child O Mine (main riff)
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
Theme from Top Gun (no idea what its called)
Wherever you will go - The Calling
Other Side - RHCP
Duelling Banjo's

Any suggestions? Just looking for something fairly easy but that sounds good. Not looking to impress other people, just to learn something a bit more for myself.

Cheers
Chris

Edited by tenohfive on Tuesday 25th August 16:10

[evil len]

tenohfive said:

Something with plenty of finger picking

Hallelujah
Blackbird

[ShadownINja]

Get Total Guitar. They have tabs every month. Well worth buying it if you want to learn popular stuff.

But here's a start:
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/g/guns_n_roses...

Edited by ShadownINja on Tuesday 25th August 17:38

[Dai Capp]

Try Under The Bridge by RHCP - if you include all the hammer and pulls in the verse it's a fairly simple but cool sounding song. There's loads of 'how to play' for it on You Tube including John Frusciante himself playing it slowly. Total Guitar, whilst a good source, has this wrong in it's most recent issue.

Basically the verse is E B C#m G#m A then E B C#m A and then the chord at the end of each verse is Emaj7 and the chorus is F#m E B. All these are 1st and 2nd position so E and A shapes and the first E is in the 2nd position to give you a starter for 10.

For the chorus try and strum in 16th's and pick up the groove and sounded chords with left hand (assuming you're right handed!)

The intro is picked around D (played as a C shape barred at 2nd fret)and a picked F#. There's small runs to link them but they are easy to work out and are based around the relative scales.

The final bit is easy to play but hard to describe as its a set of moveable chords but I'll give it a go...

you're going to fret the d string at 7th fret, g at the 6th and b at the 5th for the first chord next is an A shape (not barred) at 5th fret then back to the first shape at the 5th, 4th and 3rd and then slide that down 2 frets. Stum pattern is still 16th's.

Then there's one more bit where he plays the D G and B barred at 10th and the e string fretted at 12th then that is slid down to barre at 9th with the e fretted on 10th and then finally a 2nd position G with your pinky adding the e string at 14th fret. Basically a variation of an F5, E5 and a G add something or other.

There you go, an utterly incomprehensible guide to under the bridge but if you break this down and watch Frusciante you'll easyily learn it and find it's pretty much cock on...

If you already know how to play this then hopefully someone else can find it useful

Cheers

DC

[tenohfive]

Will pick up next months TG. snd i csn already play Sweet Child O Mine intro (probably the most difficult bit of music I've got the knack of.)

Will check out Under the Bridge, and may have another bash at Hallelujah - though I struggled alot last time I tried.

Any other suggestions welcome, especially now my PC's playing up.

[gbbird]

Try Patience by GnR - a great song and reasonably easy to play. There is even a chord in there which is basically strumming all 6 open strings together

g

Edited by gbbird on Tuesday 25th August 20:49

[Nightmare]

Spanish Caravan by the Doors - mixes a well known classical riff with lots of Spanish. easy, great finger practice and sounds lovely.
not bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCxireC2wfo

SwampJuice Soul-o. by Poison One of my favourite bits to play..picking, hammering and pulling and a cool piece of music
cant find a link. trust me, it rules.

Pins and Needles - Billy Talent. Great acoustic guitarable
cant bring myself to link to any of the horribly retarded attempts on youtube. find a version of the song!

Is there anybody out there? Pink floyd v v easy, sounds lovely. once you've learnt it you'll naturally just fiddle with the keys and chords and can womble on for ages!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xACgZnt1wBo (from 1.20)

[kiteless]

Starting out, a good one to learn is Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out by Clapton: fingerpicked with a good selection of chord shapes. Similarly Us & Them by Pink Floyd is worth a bash (and contains an easily fretted diminished chord - well, my version does anyway!) Another one to learn simple fingerpicking, and exercising your left hand is Romanza by some person called "Anon"

Example here:

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

That guy is playing the piece a little fast, and it sounds much better played slowly. The first two parts in Em are pretty straightforward, the Emaj part is the one that gives your fretting hand a workout. I'm sure there's a tab out there for it.

[GetCarter]

I learnt this in my 20's... always impressed (can't remember which end to blow down now).

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/d/don_ross/blu...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtVbBe4fkm8 (girl with guitar - watchout, she playes it better than all the boys on u-toob (except Chet)

[SeeFive]

Have a look at Mojo's site - there's some simplified stuff on his videos that are good for an improver. He's a little erm, how do I say this, well, his talking about the "Johhny Cash finger", and sometimes he wears the right hat as well...

His version of the "Dead or Alive" intro and main chord structure is simple but effective.

ETA - forgot the link.... http://www.threechordguitar.com/vids.htm

Edited by SeeFive on Wednesday 26th August 17:41

[Dracoro]

Dai Capp said:

Try Under The Bridge by RHCP - if you include all the hammer and pulls in the verse it's a fairly simple but cool sounding song. There's loads of 'how to play' for it on You Tube including John Frusciante himself playing it slowly. Total Guitar, whilst a good source, has this wrong in it's most recent issue.

Basically the verse is E B C#m G#m A then E B C#m A and then the chord at the end of each verse is Emaj7 and the chorus is F#m E B. All these are 1st and 2nd position so E and A shapes and the first E is in the 2nd position to give you a starter for 10.

For the chorus try and strum in 16th's and pick up the groove and sounded chords with left hand (assuming you're right handed!)

The intro is picked around D (played as a C shape barred at 2nd fret)and a picked F#. There's small runs to link them but they are easy to work out and are based around the relative scales.

The final bit is easy to play but hard to describe as its a set of moveable chords but I'll give it a go...

you're going to fret the d string at 7th fret, g at the 6th and b at the 5th for the first chord next is an A shape (not barred) at 5th fret then back to the first shape at the 5th, 4th and 3rd and then slide that down 2 frets. Stum pattern is still 16th's.

Then there's one more bit where he plays the D G and B barred at 10th and the e string fretted at 12th then that is slid down to barre at 9th with the e fretted on 10th and then finally a 2nd position G with your pinky adding the e string at 14th fret. Basically a variation of an F5, E5 and a G add something or other.

There you go, an utterly incomprehensible guide to under the bridge but if you break this down and watch Frusciante you'll easyily learn it and find it's pretty much cock on...

If you already know how to play this then hopefully someone else can find it useful

Cheers

DC

Or capo it on 2nd and it's much easier

[Dai Capp]

Dracoro said:

Dai Capp said:

Stuff

Or capo it on 2nd and it's much easier

Thats's true enough - but then you've got to get the capo off to play the outro. Having said that, that's probably easier to do that play the intro off a barre chord

DC

Edited by Dai Capp on Thursday 27th August 16:52

[tenohfive]

Cheers for the suggestions above. PC broke a couple of days after posting this. I don't recognise many of the songs above, but saying that its probably not a bad thing to expand my horizons abit.

ETA:

Just started on under the bridge (as its the only song I know well) and I think I'm going to be able to get my teeth into it, good song and not too hard, nor too easy.

Cheers.

Edited by tenohfive on Tuesday 1st September 18:05

[Dai Capp]

Enjoy learning under the bridge - if you fancy learning Dani California or Californication let me know and I'll write them up. Most of the others are a bit complex to try to write in words!

All the best

DC

ETA - I'm working on Little Wing at the moment. Piece of cake..... until you get to the phrasing.

Edited by Dai Capp on Tuesday 1st September 20:10

[bga]

kiteless said:

Starting out, a good one to learn is Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out by Clapton: fingerpicked with a good selection of chord shapes.

Good call, it's an easy one to combine picking & spanking the chords out. IMO there is lots of his unplugged stuff which is good to learn. Tears in heaven, Signe & Hey Hey being favourites of mine to play.

[SaliMali]

Finish off learning SCOM. You will learn an awful lot from all the lead lines.

No More Tears by Ozzy is another good song with a great solo that's fun to play.

Panama by Van Halen and Crazy Train by Ozzy are well worth learning as well. I play Crazy Train every time I pick up the guitar...much to my wife's disgust