Songs to strum along to or ?

Good question, coolnama - and there are as many answers as there are people replying :-)

Looking back at my experience, learn the chords and lyrics for a couple of popular tunes that all your friends know. Generally people are going to ask you to play something so it helps to have a few songs ready to play. Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here is usually quite good, it's got a mixture of single notes and chords. Anything rock'n'roll will be easy to play, like Stones etc.

After that it's really up to you and what you want to get out of playing guitar - after all, I assume you're playing guitar for your own benefit and enjoyment and not other people's. Single song arrangements are great, it can be fingerpicking, 12 bar blues songs with different turnarounds, some power chords with solos thrown in - the list is endless.

+1 to Bloos66, it all depends on what you want to play.

No doubt having a few good strumming/singing songs are good to just break out and play. It seems that's all that's in my repertoire, but I'm happy with that it's what I like to play. So you should have a repertoire of what makes you happy really.

learn to play your favorite songs you grew up with.
work out a few special ones (like your Comfortably Numb).
it is always great to pull a song out and play it well when asked.
I call them 'pocket' songs. songs you pull out of your pocket.
really cool when there is a guitar around.

once a while back as a newly wed. my new wife and I went to her friends party.
there was an electric guitar next to the roaring fireplace. the host said to play it upon hearing I played guitar.
so I grabbed it, someone turned on the amp and I started House of the Rising Sun. everyone sang before I did. cool, I didn't have to sing. I have to say the admiring look from my new wife was excellent.

i

learn to play your favorite songs you grew up with.
work out a few special ones

Yes. Not only that, but I went through the ESD and found some that look like they'll be interesting and easy to learn and play, even if a little "odd"... I Will Survive, Could It Be Magic and a bunch of others I like are in there. I've printed them out for future learning.

learn to play your favorite songs you grew up with.
work out a few special ones (like your Comfortably Numb).
it is always great to pull a song out and play it well when asked.
I call them 'pocket' songs. songs you pull out of your pocket.
really cool when there is a guitar around.

once a while back as a newly wed. my new wife and I went to her friends party.
there was an electric guitar next to the roaring fireplace. the host said to play it upon hearing I played guitar.
so I grabbed it, someone turned on the amp and I started House of the Rising Sun. everyone sang before I did. cool, I didn't have to sing. I have to say the admiring look from my new wife was excellent.

i

Yeah Comfortably Numb, the thing is I know the chord progression but will anybody actually recognize it without all the stuff that is in that song, most of the song is lead by the bass and then it has some stuff that I don't know what it is what I do is just strum along to the chord progression ( Bm A, G then F#/D and Em) then it changes to D A, C G. I just strum along and sing sometimes, I don't know if anybody would recognize it if I played it anywhere like that.

Good point - if you simply strum along for 1 minute or so, your audience will most likely not recognize the song or get bored, hence the single guitar arrangements. A song like Another Brick In The Wall is probably a bit better as it's better known and has only a few chords that are (fairly) easily recognizable. And it's easy to sing along, most people will know the words. If you really want to perform, then you need to look at single-guitar arrangements otherwise keeping people's attention will be difficult. Follow the Keep It Simple principle - focus on a couple of easy songs to play and sing along to, and songs that people will know.

I guess the best thing to do when playing alone and not singing is to learn the melody notes over the chords. Or sing, or hum or grunt or "doo doo doo" the melody. That way the song is truly recognizable. Some songs like Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay are quite recognizable in the intro and verses, but not in the chorus. At least not in the transcriptions from my teacher or the on-line video lessons. The same holds true for Losing My Religion. Great rhythm, but it's barely recognizable as the song. And then you have the songs where the rhythm is very recognizable, but it's the same rhythm throughout the song: Night Moves, Sundown, Proud Mary, and plenty of others. It's kind of boring listening to 3, 4, 5 mins. of the same chord progressions. Werewolves of London could make you want to put a Glock to your head just playing the rhythm... C (dd) D (dd) G (dudu) progression ad infinitum. But with the other things going on it's a fun song. Most songs have a lot going on... bass, drums, lead guitar, maybe another rhythm guitar, maybe keyboard, not to mention vocals.

Good point - if you simply strum along for 1 minute or so, your audience will most likely not recognize the song or get bored, hence the single guitar arrangements. A song like Another Brick In The Wall is probably a bit better as it's better known and has only a few chords that are (fairly) easily recognizable. And it's easy to sing along, most people will know the words. If you really want to perform, then you need to look at single-guitar arrangements otherwise keeping people's attention will be difficult. Follow the Keep It Simple principle - focus on a couple of easy songs to play and sing along to, and songs that people will know.

Wow yeah Another Brick in The Wall I could just say " We don't need no education" and start playing the chords and pray to God that someone starts singing along because its so hard for me to sing and play that song because its full of percussive strumming and I need to really get into it, the little chorus is easier to sing, and it has that little riff that I love how it sounds ( Dm Dm C C Dm C G ). I am just getting prepared for some day there might be a guitar somewhere in a place where people actually know these songs.

I don't know many Pink Floyd fans here were I live.

But really if I were to perform somewhere It'd be with a band, that I'm trying to make but nobody has got any transportation X_X.

That Comfortably Numb with a nice bass, a nice keyboard, nice singer, nice drummer, and then me, would be so totally awesome.

In Another Brick in the wall there is an instrument playing the melody line under the singer I'm not sure if its another guitar or if thats actually the bass O_O

I think Comfortably Numb is quite recognizable when just strumming to the chord progression. My wife recofnized it the first time I ever tried it, and she NEVER listens to 'Floyd. (I married her for other reasons....gotta take the bad with the good :) )

Others in the 'Floyd line-up that most have heard if you've been exposed to Classic Rock at all are "Breathe", "Time", "Wish You Were Hear" and "Welcome To The Machine". A couple others that lend themselves very well to single guitar arrangements, but lack in major mainstream popularity are (were?) "Mother" and "Nobody Home". "Nobody Home" is a piano song, but some slowed down rhythm guitar is actually quite fun. Not many people will recognize it though. Maybe not "Mother" either.

Lol Yeah and Mother is cool, but it takes way too long in between the lyrics, like " 1 short verse = like 20 seconds of strumming O_O, and it's played in different times, and It'd be way too complicated to sing along to :P

Mother would be a good one to pick up and try out periodically as time progresses. It's a song that requires some varying degrees of touch to get. Some strums are done with a harder force than others, some ring out slightly more than others, etc. It's good practice for learning how to stray away from the straight, standard strumming world. To me, it's a feel song. I could not play it until I really got the feel for it. It then was a breeze. Took a while, if I remember. Especially the chorus, for whatever reason. I didn't feel it.

Another challenging part is to not hurry your strumming along to get to the next verse line to sing. Kind of like that beginning to "Alice's Restaraunt" where Arlo Guthrie has to go through the whole chord progression again because he missed his own cue. He said something like 'I missed it, now we have to wait for it to come around again' and then cycled through.

Wow that is in the recording ? so cool of whoever they are to leave it :D

Here a link to a site with a lot of 60's, 70's song that many people will recognise and be able to sing along to. No Pink Floyd though.

-- Rob

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/~aparsons/guitar/guitar1.html

Wow Hey jude is really simple, thx for the link , lots of good songs there ( and some I've never herd of )

Woohoo Sultans of the Swing i love that song, and i love Guitar George, he knows all the chords :D

Hey what does that symbol mean ? in the Sultans tab, see if somebody can look at the chord/lyrics and tell me what it means ( maybe repetition or something ?