# I'm fairly new to guitar... what are some easy songs I could learn?



## 60_Revolutions (May 11, 2009)

I play an acoustic at this point in time since I don't have the money to buy my own guitar and an acoustic is all that is availible to me. I'm getting decent at chords, and have many memorized. I learned one trillion dollars by anti-flag if that helps let you know of my ability. 

Do you have any suggestions on some songs that aren't to hard to play and still sound good on an acoustic? I'm not really sure what I should start with. Preferably rock songs. 

Thanks.


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## Stratin2traynor (Sep 27, 2006)

Hi. Not sure if you are into the Foo Fighters but Times Like These is relatively easy. When I feel like messing around I usually search YouTube for a song that I like and see who is offering instruction.

One guy whose site I often visit for ideas is http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BL-013-BluesLicks1.php He's also on YouTube. He sometimes does his own arrangements and his instruction is pretty decent. He has quite a variety of songs to choose from.

Good luck


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## raptordigit (May 6, 2009)

I'd second the above YouTube reference. There are literally thousands of guitar lessons on YouTube. Do a search on "Guitar accoustic lesson"...or "guitar lesson" and the name of the song you want to play.

What I like is that there are usually more than one 'approach' to a song. I even learned a new way of stringing my accoustic after a few decades of doing it another.


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## Stig O'Tracy (Apr 21, 2009)

Wait a second, isn't it written somewhere that "House of the Rising Sun" is suppose to be the first song you learn? :smile:


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Stratin2traynor said:


> Hi. Not sure if you are into the Foo Fighters but Times Like These is relatively easy. When I feel like messing around I usually search YouTube for a song that I like and see who is offering instruction.
> 
> One guy whose site I often visit for ideas is http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BL-013-BluesLicks1.php He's also on YouTube. He sometimes does his own arrangements and his instruction is pretty decent. He has quite a variety of songs to choose from.
> 
> Good luck


+1 to Justinguitars. He's one of the better video instructors out there. He taught me how to do pinch harmonics!


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## simescan (May 15, 2007)

Depends on what kind of music you like. You'll find it much easier to play songs you really enjoy...
...By the way,...I'm close to your neighborhood...


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## Younggun (Jul 2, 2008)

Stratin2traynor said:


> Hi. Not sure if you are into the Foo Fighters but Times Like These is relatively easy. When I feel like messing around I usually search YouTube for a song that I like and see who is offering instruction.
> 
> One guy whose site I often visit for ideas is http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BL-013-BluesLicks1.php He's also on YouTube. He sometimes does his own arrangements and his instruction is pretty decent. He has quite a variety of songs to choose from.
> 
> Good luck


+1, Justin is a great instructor. Nice variety as well.


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## 60_Revolutions (May 11, 2009)

Hmm, I didn't think of checking youtube. Good suggestion. And "Times like these" was a good suggestion. Thanks.


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## billdraper (Oct 28, 2008)

*Hank Williams*

Try Hey Good Lookin or Move it on Over. Easy chords. Play it fast and early rock and roll style. Rocks out. Great lyrics. Good for jamming. Well known. Gets all engines firing and you can get good quick cause ya having a bag of fun.

Bill


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Some of the first ones I learned, which seem pretty common among other beginners:

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
Heart of Gold - Neil Young
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

Try to pick songs that other people know, so when you play them, they recognize the song or will sing along with you. Makes it more fun and reinforces your motivation to learn them better. My favourite songs to play are ones that few other people know, so I just end up playing them for myself, really.  

Initially, learn some popular songs so you can find plenty of tabs and lessons online.

--- D


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## Firestrung (Oct 26, 2008)

Depending on how you look at it, just by learning a bunch of chords you've kind of learned a lot of songs. There are thousands of songs based on three chords out there. Here are some of the first ones I learned when I started, though...

'Bad Moon Rising'
'Sweet Home Alabama'
'Louie, Louie'
'Wild Thing'
'Come As You Are'
'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
'When I Come Around'
'Blitzkrieg Bop'

A lot of these songs you can probably learn no problem at all. Good luck!

-Ryan


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## Lincoln1 (Feb 26, 2009)

There are a whole bunch of Nirvana tunes that are relatively easy to learn like Polly, SLTS, etc. U can pretend your unplugged in New York!


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## JamesD (Jan 28, 2009)

Duster said:


> Some of the first ones I learned, which seem pretty common among other beginners:
> 
> Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
> Heart of Gold - Neil Young
> ...



I just started learning and I've been trying to play Wish you were here. It's quite a fun song. I also was doing house of the rising sun as well.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

JamesD said:


> I just started learning and I've been trying to play Wish you were here. It's quite a fun song. I also was doing house of the rising sun as well.


Fun easy chords that are used in plenty of songs, and the intro part was my first experience with the pentatonic scale. Fun to play with another guitarist also.

--- D


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## DMac604 (Jul 8, 2007)

check out this guy hes mostly acoustic
http://www.youtube.com/user/yourguitarsage


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Try this link:

http://www.threechordguitar.com/

Regards, Flip


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## rhh7 (Mar 14, 2008)

*House of the Rising Sun*



Stig O'Tracy said:


> Wait a second, isn't it written somewhere that "House of the Rising Sun" is suppose to be the first song you learn? :smile:


As of now, this is the only song I know! And I can only play it with barre chords. But now I have a small acoustic, I plan to go back and learn open chords, and build a repertoire of simple songs.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

rhh7 said:


> As of now, this is the only song I know! And I can only play it with barre chords. But now I have a small acoustic, I plan to go back and learn open chords, and build a repertoire of simple songs.


Well, let's say you're doing great if the first song you have learned to play you're doing with barre chords. If you can do barre chords most of the open chords are easy in comparison.


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## Head (Feb 10, 2007)

The Beatles - Come Together
Any Alice Cooper song


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## guitarsmark (Jun 1, 2009)

Old Nirvana is fairly easy too, I think the first one I learned was about a girl. Also - I would check out brown eyed girl. Both good for acoustic strumming.


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## peter benn (Mar 29, 2007)

This is going to seem extreme, 60 revolutions, but I will suggest it anyway, for your consideration.

Get the first Everly Brothers record on CD, the one with the two motorbikes, Gibsons slung over their backs.

The one I have is Rhino R2 70211.

Now learn every song on the record over a period of a year, realizing that it's all campfire chords, and mostly a matter of repetition. This kind of music is '50s bluegrass crossing over into pop, and there's three or four guitar parts in every song, including the Chetster.

Along the way you'll encounter the problem of absolute tuning versus the tuning on the record, always considering whether the musicians on the record may have been tuned differently. It's fun, trust me. You learn to listen to open strings on the recording to prove the tuning, A's and D's and such.

Point is, a majority of (non-Beatle) white '60s pop derives from the chord changes on this Everlys album. The faster you learn the pure form the more other stuff you'll be able to play automatically.

Everyone else has given you sensible advice, sir.....


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

how about "hey joe"? that's not too hard for an accoustic.
or "the ballad of dwight frye". it's easy to play AND has freaky lyrics.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

cheezyridr said:


> how about "hey joe"? that's not too hard for an accoustic.
> or "the ballad of dwight frye". it's easy to play AND has freaky lyrics.


+1 on Hey Joe. It's interesting-sounding for a beginner, and you can have a lot of fun with it no matter how advanced you get. 

To me that's part of the fun of learning a song - the way you play it develops over time. I still play some of the first songs I ever learned, a few years ago, and the way I play them today is very different from how I started. You'll figure out there are many ways to play the same song and as you add more tools and theories to your knowledge, you'll be able to apply them to the same songs you already know.

--- D


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## pdks (Mar 11, 2009)

*Helpless*

I don't know if you saw the press around the "Great Canadian Tune" contest for the Toronto Luminato festival. 1600+ guitar players gathered at Yonge-Dundas Sq last w/e to play the winning song.

It was a 'fix' in that they chose the winner based on being a classic Canadian song ...and a three chord masterpiece, ha, ha!

The song was Neil Young's "Helpless." Play it in D and it's just D - A - G, over and over again!


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

pdks said:


> I don't know if you saw the press around the "Great Canadian Tune" contest for the Toronto Luminato festival. 1600+ guitar players gathered at Yonge-Dundas Sq last w/e to play the winning song.
> 
> It was a 'fix' in that they chose the winner based on being a classic Canadian song ...and a three chord masterpiece, ha, ha!
> 
> The song was Neil Young's "Helpless." Play it in D and it's just D - A - G, over and over again!


Isn't that most Neil Young songs? Ha! Nothing wrong with that though. Isn't there a song that goes "the right three chords could make me cry"?

Thread hijack: Did they break the world record?

--- D


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

i was going to go and play judas priest instead. i ended up doing other stuff


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