songs for intermediates

There’s a little bit of everything in this lesson, from easy arpeggios and strumming to some basic Travis style finger picking patterns. As always, David picks the song apart into small pieces that even many beginners can get with some concerted practice. Have fun learning this Harry Chapin classic!

Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet doesn’t take long to learn. We only need three chords and even a relative beginner will be able to impress their friends.

Van Morrison’s Moondance is an intriguing piece because it is very easy to play (chord-wise); but it takes a little extra thought to make it sound good.

Learn to play The Wallflowers’ “Three Marlenas” – picking up some easy and interesting chord changes and strumming tips along the way!

Our lesson of A Horse With No Name continues with advice on how to spice up your strumming as well as a look at the solo from the original recording.

A Horse With No Name by America is one of the easiest songs for you to learn. We’re going to teach you how to play it while throwing in some music theory.

Hey There Delilah by Plain White T’s is a great pop song that will help you pick up some solid technique whether you use a pick or play finger style.

Man on the Moon by R.E.M. is a beautiful song that beginners can easily learn to play. We’ll also add some nice touches for a solo arrangement.

In our beginner arrangement of R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion you can play the guitar, mandolin and bass parts all on a solo acoustic guitar. Sounds great.

This is a fun and easy to way to play the REM song Driver 8. We’re also going to learn a few new tricks like incorporating riffs into strumming.

Most of this song involves simple patterns that are repeated during each verse. There is some very interesting and intricate fingerstyle guitar playing.

This is an arrangement that most beginners can handle, plus we get into some discussion about choosing keys and chord voicings when creating arrangements.

David looks at how to go beyond the chords on a typical Internet tab sheet in order to get more of the flavor of the original of this great Mark Knopfler song.

Here is a rather faithful arrangement of the closing song from Bob Dylan’s immortal album, Blood on the Tracks. Excellent practice for finger picking technique.

This is another one of those songs that could easily have gotten onto the “Easy Songs for Beginners” page, especially if you’ve already worked on the two Guitar Noise Lessons on Travis style finger picking. While you’ll have to work at this one a bit, it’s not beyond the grasp of a beginner who’s ready to practice!

Don’t be put off by the “Intermediate” tag as beginners should have little problems putting this classic Who song into their repertoires. This is a great lesson on why playing strictly “by the record” can tie you up in knots and how important it is to simply have a good feel for the overall flavor of the song.

We’re going to combine a very simple walking bass with some of our Travis picking (and “pinching”) and create a light, lilting arrangement of this Simon and Garfunkel song. Even beginners can tag along as we’ll be using chord shapes that involve only one or two fingers of the fretting hand!

This is more of a mini-lesson, taking a song you know with fairly easy chords and coming up with an arrangement that will work for the single guitar. And with a simple strumming pattern and the strategic use of a capo, even beginners can have some fun with it.

It’s been ages it seems since we’ve had an intermediate song lesson. It also seems like it’s been ages since we’ve done something with an alternate tuning. And when was the last time we did a Neil Young song? And don’t let the intermediate label put you off – even beginners (with some practice, of course!) can make this song sound sweet…

There are seemingly limitless ways of playing any one song, so why should someone ever say I can’t play a song? Or worse, I’m waiting for someone to show me how to play a song… In this lesson, we’ll start out with a simple strumming arrangement, spice things up a bit with arpeggios, and then wind up with an arrangement that’s close to chord melody.