The Many Ways to Play
Most people pick up the guitar in order to play a song. Not necessarily a specific song, but rather the idea of playing a song on the guitar. Maybe the guitarist is also singing the song. Or someone else is, should the guitarist not be all that comfortable singing.
Or maybe it’s learning just a part (the guitar part, of course!) of a particular song, like the solo of “Stairway to Heaven” or the intro to “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” that inspires someone to take up guitar.
Whatever the reason or inspiration, and whatever the song, the question that usually comes up next is that of what, to you, constitutes “playing a song?” For some, it’s as simple as strumming a few chords. Others may decide that nothing less than a perfect note-for-note duplication of the original recording will suffice. And, of course, there are no end to the arrangement possibilities between those two points.
With our various Guitar Noise song lessons, we try to give you as broad a range of choices as possible. We have lessons where our arrangements are fairly close to note-for-note transcriptions, such as “Hey There, Delilah,” or “Three Marlenas” or the first of our two lessons on “Scarborough Fair.”
Then there are those such as “Ventura Highway” or “Cat’s in the Cradle” or “Wake Me Up When September End,” where the arrangement has been created to allow the guitarist to be a little more creative, while still giving the listener enough of the flavor of the original song to appreciate. Our three R.E.M. song lessons (“Man on the Moon,” “Driver 8,” and “Losing My Religion“) definitely fall into this category.
And we also encourage you to be even more creative with your guitar accompaniment in our two latest lessons, “The Circle Game” and, especially “Crazy Love,” where the spare guitar accompaniment compliments the vocal much in the way a pianist might.
The bottom line is that regardless of what song you want to play, remember that there are all sorts of ways to play it. Don’t settle for learning just one. Use whatever happens to be your first arrangement as a starting point and explore as many possible variations as you can. That’s what playing guitar (and music) is supposed to be about.
Peace
4Guitar
January 4th, 2017 @ 6:13 am
This is something a lot of people struggle with. They want the song they learn to sound just like the recording, even if there are 3 guitar parts on it! A lot of famous guitarists don’t even play the solo’s the same way they did on the record. Its all about the feel of the song. As you say, that’s what music is all about.
Frankos
December 28th, 2015 @ 12:29 pm
Before I picked up the guitar, I was operating under a lot of false assumptions about how difficult it is to become a musician (that was many years ago). Back then there was no Internet. I know this article will help a lot of people! Nice work.
Steve B
November 3rd, 2015 @ 7:35 am
For years I tried to get my daughter to just “play” instead of counting on notation in front of her as a guide. I believe the spontaneity of just letting your feelings guide you through a familiar piece, rather than by wrote, opens up a whole new world of interpretation. But whether note by note or fumbling through an arrangement, at least she plays – for that I’m grateful.
need guitar lessons
April 28th, 2015 @ 2:41 pm
That makes a lot of sense. The more we know about the music we want to play, the easier it is for us to be able to play it and experiment with variations. Thanks for the links to those other pieces; I’m getting close to being able to play a couple of those now.
Josh
September 9th, 2014 @ 4:05 am
You know one of the things I love doing is using a looper pedal (I personally use a Line6) as a way to take that “first arrangement” and learn to add to it. In this way I’m actually creating my own song, something which inspires me to play even more!
Matt
September 1st, 2014 @ 11:26 pm
You touch on a great point, and that is that you really have to make music your own. I grew up playing classical music, which is the last thing I wanted to play as a kid. Every time I tried to learn in my own way, I was “corrected.” This led to a couple year long hatred for music in general before I picked it back up on my own terms. I wish I had you as my teacher!!! Keep up the great work.
-Matt
Guitar Strings Reviews
James
August 19th, 2014 @ 3:49 am
I recommended a certain local guitar teacher to a friend of mine, after his first lesson he called me and said that the teacher I vouched for referred him to this webpage. Two things: great website, crap teacher.
The positive side of tthe story is that I found out about guitarnoise :D
Martyn
August 8th, 2014 @ 3:05 am
I know a few guitar teachers and they often say many of their students just want to play the basics of the song i.e the chord pattern, and nothing more. As soon as they show them how to improvise or play something more advanced, they put up a wall and say it’s too hard, without really trying. I guess for some guitar students, just playing the chord progression is often enough. Martyn => http://www.musicteacherinfo.com
Dan
July 8th, 2014 @ 3:57 am
I alway encourage my students to learn a song all the way through. I think it is important to learn at least all the sections in a song, intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, etc as this helps with the understanding of the music on a much bigger scale than just learning the riff.
With strumming type songs there is definite freedom to have some creative license in terms of strum patterns or picking the notes out which is a lot of fun.
millo lailang
June 1st, 2014 @ 5:15 pm
I have been playing guitar for a very long time but I still try to play a song note for note until I get bored, then make up my own silly notes and finally give up learning the rest of the song. Lately, I have started trying to make mini compositions of my own but when it comes to learning someone else’s song, I still try learning them note for note. Thanks for shedding light that a song can be played in different ways.
Victor
May 25th, 2014 @ 4:27 am
Thanks for the advice, I get stuck on playing a song perfectly when I learn it and this sometimes gets very frustrating especially because I enjoy metal and the metal songs I listen to are very complicated with extremely fast solos. Learning to play in different ways have been something I have wanted to do because I want to cover some songs to improve my vocal skills and am sick of getting stuck on the guitar. I will be trying this tonight with the latest song I am working on and see if I can get it all down on record.
Dennis Fraser
April 2nd, 2014 @ 10:44 am
This is a great piece of advice, especially for those just starting out. Sometimes the idea of having to play a whole song note for note can be daunting. Remembering that there are many ways to play a song can ease off some of that beginner pressure.
Tom Farr
March 13th, 2014 @ 8:30 am
This is great advice. When I first started playing, I would get frustrated that I could only play the coolest sounding parts of a song. You’ve got some really helpful lessons here for playing full songs, and I appreciate the advice on learning how to play songs in different arrangements. Thanks.