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Horse With No Name - Easy Songs for Beginners # 1
This week we take a break from chord theory and get into some song analysis, cleverly disguised as Songs For Beginners. We'll take the easiest song I know and learn to play it. Not only is it a song most of you know - it's also probably a song most of you would rather forget that you know.
House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
In this lesson we're going to learn two different fingerpicking patterns for House of the Rising Sun, a song performed by the Animals way back in the sixties. The first will be very straightforward, simply arpeggiating the chords in a very easy finger style. Then we will go on and doctor that version up a bit, throwing in slightly more complex picking which will include a bit of a moving bassline as well as using a standard alternating bassline in a few spots.
Drop C Tuning
Evan may be young but he does get his point across. Here's a lesson that introduces Drop C tuning and even includes a riff from Toxicity by System of a Down.
Easy Guitar Riffs
My fascination with guitar riffs goes back a long way. I was still only playing the air-guitar and washing dishes in a restaurant when I ordered a tape from TV called Guitar Rock. This lesson contains examples of some of the most popular and easiest rock guitar riffs, including: Smoke on the Water, All Right Now, Layla, Purple Haze and more.
Don't Give In
Reader Paul Humphreys offers us this inspirational piece on how to get through those tough first weeks and months of playing. His advice is great for people of all ages!
Friend Of The Devil - Grateful Dead
As you learn more and more techniques, you should start trying to incorporate them into the songs you already know. We'll take a very easy song and come up with some interesting things we can do for arranging it for the single guitar.
Blackbird - The Beatles
Today we're going to start with that concept and then kind of warp it around a bit. The song is Blackbird by Paul McCartney (but being a Beatle at the time, it is officially a Lennon/McCartney piece). Not only is this a good showing-off song for the solo guitarist, it is also a great exercise for stretching one's fingers.
After The Gold Rush - Neil Young
Here's a short lesson that uses the chord melody approach to come up with a nice song arrangement that you can play either as a chord melody or as a single guitar accompaniment for a singer (or yourself).
Imagine - John Lennon
Welcome in the Chinese New Year with a song of peace and hope! Here is a thoughtful arrangement of this John Lennon classic for the single guitarist.
Wild World - Cat Stevens
While the focus of this lesson is on switching chords smoothly, you'll also learn some cool flourishes and riffs and strumming patterns and even find a good practical use for that pesky C major scale!
Don't Panic - Coldplay
...we live in a beautiful world... Yeah, we do! Don't let the Intermediates tag discourage you from trying out this cool single-guitar arrangement of the opening song from Coldplay's Parachutes CD (also featured in the Garden State Soundtrack). It's not at all hard and you might even learn a few things!
Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
This is a back to basics lesson, taking a simple, two-chord song and focusing on changing chords and strumming. You'll also get a practical introduction to slash chords and, if you still need more to learn, there are a couple of fun and easy riffs for you to add.
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
So, so you think you can tell? Learn about freeing up your strumming, making it a bit more natural and a little less mechanical. In this lesson we'll bet the basics of this classic Pink Floyd song down so that we can tackle the second guitar part in the upcoming Intermediate lesson.
Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffett
Today we're going to learn Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet. In and of itself, this will not take very long. We will only need three chords (okay, four, but one (A7) is just a simple variation of another).
Before You Accuse Me
Today we'll be branching out into three chord songs in a big way. We'll do this by learning a standard blues song, Before You Accuse Me, written by E. McDaniel, known to the world as Bo Diddley. But we're also going to be examining the theory behind what is known as Twelve Bar Blues so, in essence, you will be able to play almost any blues song (in any key) when we're finished with these next few lessons.
Horse With No Name - Adding Some Personal Touches
I know that a lot of you think that I probably never play the guitar 'cause I seem to spend so much time thinking about things. The reality is that there are a lot of things to think about before (and while) playing. Most of it takes less time to deal with then you will spend in reading this sentence.
Nowhere Man - The Beatles
You'll learn the basics of this song so quickly that I had to throw in a lot of fun and challenging stuff. Let's put your chord melody training to good use and create an instrumental to include in this easy arrangement. Plus, pick up some new chords and a bit of theory while you're at it!
Three Marlenas - The Walflowers
Usually the biggest challenge for any beginner is to be able to play at speed. This does not mean to play something fast; it means to play something in a steady prescribed tempo. Fingering and playing a chord may come quite easily to some, but the chances are that sense of ease disappears pretty quickly when faced with more and more chord changes within a song.
Roll Over Beethoven
Today we will look at the 12 bar blues pattern and typical blues shuffle rhythm. When we are done you will be able to play an amazing number of straight ahead rock and roll songs. All sorts, from Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to Bruce Springsteen and more performers than I could possibly list in a simple introductory paragraph.
Bookends - Simon and Garfunkel
Last time out we learned some basic fingerpicking with House of the Rising Sun. Today we're going to do something that is both a little easier and also a little harder with an old Paul Simon song called Bookends. It's a very simple song to learn and it will help us to develop some more coordination in our fingerstyle play. Specifically, it will serve to teach us to use two fingers on two different strings at the same time. And just to keep things even more interesting we'll get to look at time signature changes within songs as well as what I call planning ahead in regards to finger placement.
Feelin Alright
Who says a two chord song has to be boring? Like anything, it all comes down to what kind of effort you decide to put into it. Creativity is whatever you bring to the table. It is what you do with something and not just something you do. This time out, we've got yet another two chord song to work on. It's called "Feelin' Alright" and it was written by Dave Mason back when he was with the group Traffic.
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
This week we learn the old Buffalo Springfield classic. Since it's only two chords, we also get to learn a new strumming technique - how to get that cool acoustic percussive sound into our rhythmic patterns.
Going to Kansas City
Okay, if you're still with me, then let's wrap up our (all too) brief introduction into the (very basic) blues. Today we're going to look at three things: the turn around, the (again, very basic) blues lead scale and what I call the grand finale. I have chosen to use the old blues standard (Going To) Kansas City for this lesson because I want to demonstrate these techniques on a song that you probably have heard but are not overly familiar with.
I Shot the Sheriff - Bob Marley
Today's song is Bob Marley's I Shot The Sheriff, which will not only serve as a delightful introduction to reggae rhythms, but I've also managed to get very sneaky and throw in some transposing as well.
Blues Solo Improvisation
Arjen has an ambitious project for the New Year - a series of pieces on improvisation. This first lesson introduces the form of the twelve bar blues, the minor pentatonic scale and the blues scale. There are exercises and even some MIDI backing tracks that you can practice along with!