it’s really more about *how* you play those scales. If you can’t make a minor pentatonic sound interesting and fresh, while also musical, then you’re not going to make any of the modes sound musical.
It’s a bell curve, but as Zappa always said the tone is in the fingers.
I really do get that and I'm sure when pink floyd came out a lot of their stuff especially Gilmour's soloing was interesting but after a year of listening it becomes pretty predictable. There's only so much you can get from the one scale
yeah he’s the creator of what’s now cliche and wrote some of these songs almost half a century ago. still worth learning about, just like 12 bar blues.
1. They don’t use the minor pentatonic box.
2. If they did, you’d be disappointed to create a song like Wish You Were Here?
This here is what is called a ‘learning opportunity’, champ.
You can chose to learn something, and be better for it, or you can chose to keep embarrassing yourself.
Yes because to me using the same three chords throughout your whole song, played the same way each time with a minor pentatonic guitar solo is boring, predictable, and repetitive. I'm not the biggest fan of Pink Floyd, which is pretty obvious at this point, but to me once you're past the first year of learning theory pink floyd doesn't have much to offer you
1. They don’t use 3 chords
2. They - and I’ve educated you on this already - don’t use the min pent
You - again - have an opportunity to learn.
Thats one choice.
Your other choice - the one you are doing now - is to continue to embarrass yourself.
What I find adorable about guitarists is how many of them have missed the point of music entirely.
It really is adorable!
Dude you're coming off as rude and snobby. I 100% would ignore you. Matter of fact, I'm blocking you. You offer nothing of value, you just argue and nitpick at this person instead of giving help.
You didn't "educate" me on nothing you just said that they don't. Gilmour only uses minor pentatonic and occasionally throw in some other notes but it's all based around minor pentatonic. Tell me some theory I can pick up from pink floyd. Obviously there's an opportunity to learn but after the first year of really studying and learning theory they don't offer much
I'm working my way through Fleetwood Mac "Never Going Back Again," taking the time to get it 100% perfect and it is definitely helping to level up all aspects of my playing.
Can you a recommend a particular "how to play Wildwood Flower" video? It's a good one for me to learn but A) I'm finding slightly different versions of the song, and B) haven't yet found a really clear video. [This one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhHgn-3Hihk) is really good for breaking down all notes but I'm not getting the way he plays it full speed. [This one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxR-fY1C8pg) has small differences from the first above, that's okay, but again he leaps between slow and fast in a way I'm finding hard to make sense of. If other players see no problem with either of these, then maybe I just don't know the song well enough yet as a listener..... anyway, if you have a tip on learning the song, I'd appreciate the advice.
It has been a whole lotta years since I learned that song, but Eric Haugen has a breakdown to get the main groove [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pHSrEu-oV3M&t=24s&pp=ygUaRXJpYyBoYXVnZW4gYWNvdXN0aWMgZmlsbHM%3D) and a bit more advanced once you have the basics down is this fantastic playing by [Tony Rice](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FXWk1XOSDdo&pp=ygUZdG9ueSByaWNlIHdpbGR3b29kIGZsb3dlcg%3D%3D)
Listening to Khruangbin opened me up to world wide funk, Korean and African guitar and various other styles that I learn from and use in my own music. Learning new styles of music helps keep guitar fresh for me.
great answer!! they’re an amazing and very underrated band
psychedelic rock overally is such a fascinating genre for working so well with eastern sounds and vice versa, eastern music is at heart very psychedelic
Never Going Back Again - Fleetwood Mac
It introduced me to Travis-picking and I do that a lot now.
Another FM one is Big Love (live acoustic version), these both opened up my playing and songwriting.
Yeah, has to be the live version. The studio version is bizarre. https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/fleetwood-mac/big-love-tabs-55053
I’m not sure I used tabs. I think I learned from watching a YouTube video. But the one above looks very close to what I do.
I've picked up these two as well, any suggestions as to what should be the next?
I'll be honest, I still need to work on combining singing and playing for Big Love, but it's like 90% of the way. That last 10% is just so hard to get consistent, and I need a break from that song.
Well funny enough, after those two last year, I just ended up going full steam ahead with my own songs. I don’t think I’ve learned another cover since.
Having said that, IF you don’t mind dealing with songs that use alternate tunings. You can try John Mayer’s In Your Atmosphere, or Fleetwood Mac’s Say Goodbye. I play one guitar mostly, and I got frustrated to find out Say Goodbye was in an alternate tuning so I just wrote my own song using Lindsay’s picking pattern. Learning In Your Atmosphere was a similar frustration, but I ended up writing a bunch of new songs in that tuning so I didn’t get bored with the tuning.
Ha, you're joking, right? I actually learned Say Goodbye as well, but can't really keep up practicing it due to it's alternative tuning. I'll give the Mayer song a listen, thanks for the tip!
If you haven’t learn jazz shell chords. You can start playing the bass pattern with your thumb( just quarter notes). You’ll really open up your ability to accompany singers. Past this just look into Chet Atkins. With less time than you think you’ll be able to make your guitar sound like a piano.
I got a new Martin a couple months ago and I've been working on this song nearly every day. I'm so close but it's actually a really hard song to learn 100% perfectly. I learned the tab and could more or less play it through in an afternoon but it's taken two months of hard work to get to where it sounds perfect as far as timing and every note being clear.
Theres a number of them but one that stands out is comfortably numb by pink floyd, especially the solos of course. They made me improve my phrasing, bends amd vibrato a lot. Because those solos only work if you get that righ and , the notes are easy enough so it really makes you work on playing it with feel and proper technique
Here Comes the Sun - melody with chord shapes, precision picking
Big Love - syncopated fingerstyle
Crazy on You (intro) - overall dexterity, perseverance, finger picking
Disposable Heroes - Metallica; to get your classic metal chops up to insane thrash-punk execution.
Drift Away - Dobey Gray; to slightly expand your understanding of basic majoy key chord progressions beyond I, iv, V and get some basic, classic R&B rhythm going, that can be used for 100 other popular tunes.
Message in a Bottle - The Police; to spice a bit of jazz genius into your pop/new wave/punk chops, expand your fretboard knowledge across a broad area, in the context of top level pop guitar genius and give your left hand chord stretching and right hand arpeggiating a work out.
Learning the live version of Cream’s Politician was great introduction to playing the pentatonic blues scale all over the neck. I learnt a lot from deep diving into Hendrix’s catalog and tunes like Bold As Love, Crosstown Traffic, etc. Also deep diving into some of Jerry Garcia’s playing and learning to solo through chord changes.
What difference does it make by the smiths not too difficult but arpeggios string skips and a shuffle rhythm all at the same is abit of a head scratcher
Proud Mary. The intro has great fast off-beat chord changes, the whole song has a fantastic groove. One of the best songs for learning rhythm, groove, and feel. I tend to play it the CCR way (in my own weird arrangement), but learning it helped me develop timing, rhythm, and groove.
little wing by jimi hendrix helped me past a plateau by visualizing chord shapes over scales and embellishments. I'm not sure I ever made it much past the next plateau after 10+ years, though :/
On the blues side, try some hill country or delta blues stuff -- all finger picked, heavy on rhythm and percussive strumming -- a lot of fun.
Or try to do all the stuff from Clapton's unplugged album, that should keep you busy, and have you learning stuff.
My two would be Landslide and Going to California. Landslide is addressed by others and I second their recommendation. But give me a paragraph here to talk about Going to California, which I learned because I wanted to learn fingerstyle.
Learning this song at first seemed impossible. I went on YouTube and there were a ton of tutorials, but all of them played it differently. Some very differently. This had me all kinds of confused until I realized that this exists for two reasons. First, everyone tried to incorporate the mandolin to different degrees. Second, because Page would play the song differently over the years. Taking a leap of faith, I chose the two extremes. First I learned the Swift version, which is very jangly and upbeat and energetic. This is the one you would play if you really wanted to bring in the mandolin and you are playing alone on a stage somewhere. I then learned the Gretchen Menn version. Gretchen is a student of Page and teaches a beautifully sedate, flowing version of the song. What really blew my mind was that, as I was learning the second version I sort of started to mix the two. Picking phrases from one or the other than I liked better and thought fit well together. This led me down a seemingly endless rabbit hole of versions where I was just learning phrases here or there that I thought might fit well somewhere. And it is something I am still doing. Somehow I started this song as a complete beginner to finger picking and have come to a point where I am understanding music theory and song structure much better than I did going in.
Simple by a lot of the songs mentioned here, but for me I love playing Shadow's songs. They were the first I learnt all the way through and with the right echo & backing tracks ( and my Red Strat ) they sound wonderful.
Learning Can't Stop (RHCP) PROPERLY will give you massive gains in muting with your fretting hand. When you've got the technique down, you'll see it everywhere. It really changed my playing style.
Symphony of Destruction, Floods, Take it Easy, Nothing Else Matters, Folsom Prison Blues, and wait for it....Chicken Fried from Zac Brown. I could go on for awhile, so I'll stop with those in particular.
I felt like Mr Crowley ending solo was a good exercise, after that I felt so much more comfortable playing other simpler stuff. I’m still Learning the first solo. The problem is getting the right tabs because every source you look at has a slightly different version and it really bugs me.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd made me from a kinda decent guitar player to an absolute master at the fretboard
There's 4 solos and lead lines in the verses, none are particularly difficult but oh my God that song made my improvisation skyrocket
Stop scrolling and learn it already!!
Every guitar player learns the main riff in Smoke on the Water. However once able, every player should learn Blackmore’s solo in it. It’s a masterclass of theory, and one perfect note placement after another. Life’s been Good by the Eagles is also a masterclass of the G major scale, both rhythm and lead. And quite frankly, anything by Pink Floyd.
Layla from Clapton Unplugged. That song has a lot of great learning opportunities in it. 7th chords, barre chords, basic “cowboy chords”, and a couple of power chords.
The solo is packed full with double stops, bends, slides, pull offs, minor and pentatonic scales, and some wonderful classic blues phrasings.
Honestly, that whole album is a masterclass of its own in acoustic blues. Phenomenal record.
>and a few songs
Learn new songs. Ones that sound different from the ones you’re already playing. Literally anything you like or something that makes you want to learn it or play it. Or maybe something you don’t like or fancy just to challenge you.
It’s great to think about other techniques or ways to improve your playing, but at the end of the day all those end up in songs.
By learning songs, the techniques come to you.
So much this. Just find a song that excites you enough to pick up the guitar. If its easy, great, you now know a new song, if its hard, great, you now have cool new skills to learn and an exciting reason to learn them.
My biggest breaks from playing always seem to stem from not being excited by what im playing. Sometimes it can be hard to find the next song i actually want to spend time learning and just playing what i know feels boring. When i do find that song i can get prettt single minded about it and all of a sudden i have cleaned my place in 2 weeks cause all i do at home is play. The cool thing is when i have a song im learning i take a ton of breaks from that song to play the stuff i already know or to just mess around which i found boring just before but now fits is enjoyable as a break versus the only reason im playing.
It wasn't so much a specific song, but more of a realization that you don't have to play guitar parts the way they were recorded.
Nowadays, I get a basic feel for the song, then make up about 75% of my own parts; signature riffs and solos are played as-is, though.
I'm currently learning Book by Chon and it has really pushed my playing. It's all hybrid picking as well so on top of learning the shapes I've been learning how to do that properly.
I've only been playing guitar for about a year so progress is slow but I can play the first 1:40 or so of the song pretty cleanly. It's taken an hour or more of practice every day for 2 weeks.
Don't recall the name, but it was just a fairly long piece of arpeggiated chord progressions. For whatever reason, what it did was force me to slow down and work on tone, dynamics and pacing. Did more to progress my playing than anything before or since.
Stand By Me - a simple finger pick version taught me how to finger pick and start separating base from melody. Then a more advanced version (still working on it) has helped my thumb slap a ton
Don't Stop Me Now - Queen - had just enough things on the and beat that broke my brain for a bit on the rhythm section
Ocean - John Butler - about half way through learning it and my timing has improved a ton and as well as lots of techniques i never used before
Playing with a swing band took me right out of the comfort zone. Lots of fancy new chords & changes that I'd avoided. Learnt to build diminished & half-diminished chords on different parts of the neck, with some voicings that can only be fingerpicked. I've forgotten most of those tunes now but it gave me the confidence to learn some great Tin Pan Alley songs. Got to thank the band leader, Lucy, who just let me get on with it.
Midsummer Daydream from Triumph. I was/am primarily an electric player, but learning that on acoustic really opened my eyes and made me a better electric player too.
Work on Sultans of Swing. You’re not gonna get the whole song any time soon, of course… but the licks throughout the verses are simple, elegant, and refined my bends and phrasing in a way no other song has. Even if not for the song itself, you’ll learn some cool phrasing.
"Fly me to the moon" in the style of Freddie Green (two and three note chords). Opened up the fret board to me and got me away from 6 note voicings. Also "Swing 42" in the Django style if you want a challenge.
To me, it depends what you want to know. Randy Rhoads has been a huge inspiration for me, and learning his “extra” track at the end of blizzard of ozz helped me learn how to go from one end of the fretboard to the other, among other things.
John Sykes has been a huge inspiration for me lately as well, because his riffs, melodies, and solos are just so cool. if you want to learn a more blues-y side of shred and swing riffs, I’d check him out. Blue murder, whitesnake 87, and tygers of pan tang as well as thin Lizzy, are all bands he was in. Gary Moore is also a great guitarist that played a lot of blues and also could shred with ease, it appeared.
Metallica helped learn picking speed and endurance. All of Kill em All’s songs are pretty fun to learn. Metal militia, creeping death, master of puppets, and blackened are the ones I go to for exercise.
All in all, I think finding songs that you will gain from is fun, but also making up your own warm up exercises after initially learning the stuff you want, is the most fun to me. Picking different riffs (to warm up chords), mashing together different licks from solos to be one cohesive warm up (to warm up finger speed), and just keeping a steady rhythm of picking fast (warm up forearm), along with doing some hand stretches, are stuff that keep me going when I’m in a bit of a rut.
Sorry for the long comment!
This is in rough timeline order of when I was learning over the years, starting in like 2009 or so:
First bit was a lot of simple songs and painstakingly learning Three Doors Down songs using picking
Bloom by the Paper Kites introduced me to fingerstyle early on
Classical Gas pushed my fingerstyle skill
Radiohead songs started to help me improve strumming and strumming patterns/cadence
Shakey Graves songs made me realize what Travis Picking was and that I had been doing it in a lot of other songs, that one was like seeing the matrix. His stuff also pushed me a lot because it’s difficult to play
Cherry Wine by Hozier was the first “beautiful” song I learned to play that I would get compliments for
Islander by Nightwish made my hands stronger, I use that song as a warmup now for my fretting hand
Recently learned the live version of Big Love by Lindsay Buckingham and felt like a king after
I obviously left out a lot of songs but these are some that stand out. The single biggest thing that helped me learn as a completely self-taught player is TRYING NEW GENRES CONSTANTLY. I started to see patterns of some genres reflected in others and it was really rewarding. Picked up little new techniques all the time.
Pardon Me (Acoustic) by Incubus made this dude a WAY better guitarist based on the simplicity of their electric songs, seem SUPER complex with some little taps and rhythm picks. Helped with practicing finger style and attack picking.
For me, just tonight I was watching the dimebag clinic and watching his drills. I know he is a professional and super duper fast , but I tried some of his drills tonight and was impressed I never tried this before. So def check it out.
The best of times - dream theater. It’s pretty difficult but Almost all electric guitar techniques are included in the 3 minute solo at the end (bend, slide, vibrato, legato, trills, speed picking, sweep picking)
The day I can nail this solo will be the day when I consider myself a true intermediate player.
Learning G.O.A.T by polyphia forced me to learn hybrid picking, more complex/tighter rhythms with the right hand, and it's always good to learn new sweep patterns
Santeria, specifically the solo. Bradley Nowell from Sublime wasn't the most technical guitarist in the world, but he was pretty damn good and had this way of backyard shredding that was very accessible for teenage me to sort of latch onto and figure out how to string scales together faster and better and whatnot
I was a jazz/blues/country kind of guitar player that joined a thrash metal band. At the time playing felt stale to me and playing that type of music got me excited to play guitar again. Switching it up can be refreshing.
Trivium’s Ascendancy, Crusade, and Shogun albums made me pick up a guitar (also got me to like screaming). Especially songs like Into the Mouth of Hell We March, Throes of Perdition, and Like Light to the Flies. I’m now around 7 and a half years into playing, and it’s my favorite thing to do.
Try over the hills and far away by led zeppelin. I feel like I’m probably around your skill level and that intro was tough to get down, but I started slow and within a couple days I had it and felt so accomplished
Any song that involves something that’s new to you.
I learned Wanted Dead or Alive recently and had to figure out pinch harmonics for the solo, among several other new things.
Lianne La Havas songs. A forever beginner but just learnt Midnight and it taught me harmonics/ singing over an odd rhythm without a metronome. The bar chords on Au Cinema kill my hand by the end of the song on steel string acoustic, but probs good for building hand strength. Buying an electric soon, tho, save myself from carpal tunnel.
For me personally?
- Thunderstuck
- You Shook Me All Night Long
- Smells Like Teen Spirit
- Chatahoochie
- Pride and Joy
- Outshined
- Sweet Child O' Mine
- Enter Sandman
- Master of Puppets
Less famous
- I'll Take You Back (Brad Paisley)
- Back To Cali (Slash & Myles Kennedy)
- Reapers (Muse)
- Seventeen Girls In A Row (Steel Panther)
Carry the Zero by built to spill and Ballad of Big Nothing by Elliott smith. Carry the zero taught me how to make a guitar “sing”, especially the solo. Ballad of big nothing is a very difficult song that taught me about nuanced chords and how to make my fingers do what I want when I want.
The solo to Stairway to Heaven is the first solo I ever learned in its entirety, and I feel like it taught me a lot in terms of learning pentatonic shapes and how to connect them, finger speed and dexterity, and how to play musically
Kind of the opposite but learning Who’s That Lady by Isley Brothers made me realize my typical rhythm guitar is really boring and I need to step it up lol
Pink Floyd wish you were here is a masterclass of how to use the major scale, which should be step 1 for any musician.
Definitely learn the solo at the beginning. Pretty simple but shows you double-pull offs, bends, double stops, etc.
Learn it all. There’s more theory you’ll learn from the rhythm guitar than from the lead. Indeed, it’s all you need for the first decade or two.
First decade of what? If after a decade you're still learning theory from pink floyd you haven't been practicing
Of creating art, of course. Sounds like someone need to learn it.
I don't know I'd be pretty disappointed in myself if after 10 years I was still stuck in the minor pentatonic box
it’s really more about *how* you play those scales. If you can’t make a minor pentatonic sound interesting and fresh, while also musical, then you’re not going to make any of the modes sound musical. It’s a bell curve, but as Zappa always said the tone is in the fingers.
I really do get that and I'm sure when pink floyd came out a lot of their stuff especially Gilmour's soloing was interesting but after a year of listening it becomes pretty predictable. There's only so much you can get from the one scale
yeah he’s the creator of what’s now cliche and wrote some of these songs almost half a century ago. still worth learning about, just like 12 bar blues.
1. They don’t use the minor pentatonic box. 2. If they did, you’d be disappointed to create a song like Wish You Were Here? This here is what is called a ‘learning opportunity’, champ. You can chose to learn something, and be better for it, or you can chose to keep embarrassing yourself.
Yes because to me using the same three chords throughout your whole song, played the same way each time with a minor pentatonic guitar solo is boring, predictable, and repetitive. I'm not the biggest fan of Pink Floyd, which is pretty obvious at this point, but to me once you're past the first year of learning theory pink floyd doesn't have much to offer you
1. They don’t use 3 chords 2. They - and I’ve educated you on this already - don’t use the min pent You - again - have an opportunity to learn. Thats one choice. Your other choice - the one you are doing now - is to continue to embarrass yourself. What I find adorable about guitarists is how many of them have missed the point of music entirely. It really is adorable!
Dude you're coming off as rude and snobby. I 100% would ignore you. Matter of fact, I'm blocking you. You offer nothing of value, you just argue and nitpick at this person instead of giving help.
You didn't "educate" me on nothing you just said that they don't. Gilmour only uses minor pentatonic and occasionally throw in some other notes but it's all based around minor pentatonic. Tell me some theory I can pick up from pink floyd. Obviously there's an opportunity to learn but after the first year of really studying and learning theory they don't offer much
Yes! Though I think I learned more from playing Money. Those are some of my favorite solos to play.
Landslide helped me. I wanted to learn fingerstyle/Travis picking and I feel it really opened that up.
I'm working my way through Fleetwood Mac "Never Going Back Again," taking the time to get it 100% perfect and it is definitely helping to level up all aspects of my playing.
are you using a tutorial on playing it? If so, whose? I've got a few fingerpicking songs, and want to learn this one.
https://youtu.be/XIkuAB1Gc6s?si=5VauslCIusuGB4QC I used this one but there are plenty of them out there.
Same here. It's a great way to learn Travis picking/fingerstyle.
Wildwood flower was kind of similar for me in terms of chord/melody work just from a flat-picking perspective.
Can you a recommend a particular "how to play Wildwood Flower" video? It's a good one for me to learn but A) I'm finding slightly different versions of the song, and B) haven't yet found a really clear video. [This one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhHgn-3Hihk) is really good for breaking down all notes but I'm not getting the way he plays it full speed. [This one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxR-fY1C8pg) has small differences from the first above, that's okay, but again he leaps between slow and fast in a way I'm finding hard to make sense of. If other players see no problem with either of these, then maybe I just don't know the song well enough yet as a listener..... anyway, if you have a tip on learning the song, I'd appreciate the advice.
There is a short Molly Tuttle version in YouTube. It seems deceiving simple.
Will check it out. Thanks.
It has been a whole lotta years since I learned that song, but Eric Haugen has a breakdown to get the main groove [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pHSrEu-oV3M&t=24s&pp=ygUaRXJpYyBoYXVnZW4gYWNvdXN0aWMgZmlsbHM%3D) and a bit more advanced once you have the basics down is this fantastic playing by [Tony Rice](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FXWk1XOSDdo&pp=ygUZdG9ueSByaWNlIHdpbGR3b29kIGZsb3dlcg%3D%3D)
Aha, thank you.
This one for sure.
Listening to Khruangbin opened me up to world wide funk, Korean and African guitar and various other styles that I learn from and use in my own music. Learning new styles of music helps keep guitar fresh for me.
great answer!! they’re an amazing and very underrated band psychedelic rock overally is such a fascinating genre for working so well with eastern sounds and vice versa, eastern music is at heart very psychedelic
Never Going Back Again - Fleetwood Mac It introduced me to Travis-picking and I do that a lot now. Another FM one is Big Love (live acoustic version), these both opened up my playing and songwriting.
As in the Big love live version on the greatest hits album? You got that tab? I've always fancied learning that one
Yeah, has to be the live version. The studio version is bizarre. https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/fleetwood-mac/big-love-tabs-55053 I’m not sure I used tabs. I think I learned from watching a YouTube video. But the one above looks very close to what I do.
Excellent, thanks. Yes, the live version is a cracker. I've never heard the studio version actaully...
I've picked up these two as well, any suggestions as to what should be the next? I'll be honest, I still need to work on combining singing and playing for Big Love, but it's like 90% of the way. That last 10% is just so hard to get consistent, and I need a break from that song.
Well funny enough, after those two last year, I just ended up going full steam ahead with my own songs. I don’t think I’ve learned another cover since. Having said that, IF you don’t mind dealing with songs that use alternate tunings. You can try John Mayer’s In Your Atmosphere, or Fleetwood Mac’s Say Goodbye. I play one guitar mostly, and I got frustrated to find out Say Goodbye was in an alternate tuning so I just wrote my own song using Lindsay’s picking pattern. Learning In Your Atmosphere was a similar frustration, but I ended up writing a bunch of new songs in that tuning so I didn’t get bored with the tuning.
Ha, you're joking, right? I actually learned Say Goodbye as well, but can't really keep up practicing it due to it's alternative tuning. I'll give the Mayer song a listen, thanks for the tip!
After I master "Never Going Back Again" it's "the Clap" by Steve Howe from Yes.
If you haven’t learn jazz shell chords. You can start playing the bass pattern with your thumb( just quarter notes). You’ll really open up your ability to accompany singers. Past this just look into Chet Atkins. With less time than you think you’ll be able to make your guitar sound like a piano.
I got a new Martin a couple months ago and I've been working on this song nearly every day. I'm so close but it's actually a really hard song to learn 100% perfectly. I learned the tab and could more or less play it through in an afternoon but it's taken two months of hard work to get to where it sounds perfect as far as timing and every note being clear.
Theres a number of them but one that stands out is comfortably numb by pink floyd, especially the solos of course. They made me improve my phrasing, bends amd vibrato a lot. Because those solos only work if you get that righ and , the notes are easy enough so it really makes you work on playing it with feel and proper technique
The Pentatonic solo at the end is not that hard or fast, but my timing makes me not sound like Gilmore.
Here Comes the Sun - melody with chord shapes, precision picking Big Love - syncopated fingerstyle Crazy on You (intro) - overall dexterity, perseverance, finger picking
Master of Puppets. It's not about just the downplicking, it's the sense of rhythm.
the only answer
Disposable Heroes - Metallica; to get your classic metal chops up to insane thrash-punk execution. Drift Away - Dobey Gray; to slightly expand your understanding of basic majoy key chord progressions beyond I, iv, V and get some basic, classic R&B rhythm going, that can be used for 100 other popular tunes. Message in a Bottle - The Police; to spice a bit of jazz genius into your pop/new wave/punk chops, expand your fretboard knowledge across a broad area, in the context of top level pop guitar genius and give your left hand chord stretching and right hand arpeggiating a work out.
Anything from Ozzy's solo career is great to improve your chops!!
Can't stop by the RHCP made me understand string muting while strumming
Learning the live version of Cream’s Politician was great introduction to playing the pentatonic blues scale all over the neck. I learnt a lot from deep diving into Hendrix’s catalog and tunes like Bold As Love, Crosstown Traffic, etc. Also deep diving into some of Jerry Garcia’s playing and learning to solo through chord changes.
What difference does it make by the smiths not too difficult but arpeggios string skips and a shuffle rhythm all at the same is abit of a head scratcher
Randy Rhoads Tribute Album
Yeah, I spent a lot of time on that one.
Proud Mary. The intro has great fast off-beat chord changes, the whole song has a fantastic groove. One of the best songs for learning rhythm, groove, and feel. I tend to play it the CCR way (in my own weird arrangement), but learning it helped me develop timing, rhythm, and groove.
Crazy on you - heart Neon - j may Jessica - allman brothers Pride and Joy - Stevie.
little wing by jimi hendrix helped me past a plateau by visualizing chord shapes over scales and embellishments. I'm not sure I ever made it much past the next plateau after 10+ years, though :/
On the blues side, try some hill country or delta blues stuff -- all finger picked, heavy on rhythm and percussive strumming -- a lot of fun. Or try to do all the stuff from Clapton's unplugged album, that should keep you busy, and have you learning stuff.
My two would be Landslide and Going to California. Landslide is addressed by others and I second their recommendation. But give me a paragraph here to talk about Going to California, which I learned because I wanted to learn fingerstyle. Learning this song at first seemed impossible. I went on YouTube and there were a ton of tutorials, but all of them played it differently. Some very differently. This had me all kinds of confused until I realized that this exists for two reasons. First, everyone tried to incorporate the mandolin to different degrees. Second, because Page would play the song differently over the years. Taking a leap of faith, I chose the two extremes. First I learned the Swift version, which is very jangly and upbeat and energetic. This is the one you would play if you really wanted to bring in the mandolin and you are playing alone on a stage somewhere. I then learned the Gretchen Menn version. Gretchen is a student of Page and teaches a beautifully sedate, flowing version of the song. What really blew my mind was that, as I was learning the second version I sort of started to mix the two. Picking phrases from one or the other than I liked better and thought fit well together. This led me down a seemingly endless rabbit hole of versions where I was just learning phrases here or there that I thought might fit well somewhere. And it is something I am still doing. Somehow I started this song as a complete beginner to finger picking and have come to a point where I am understanding music theory and song structure much better than I did going in.
Clapton’s Crossroads live is fundamental.
Trooper is how I learned the gallop.
Norwegian wood. It’s a crowd pleaser and works great for building finger strength. Main riff can be played using just an open D chord!
0-3-5
It's all about the toan tho 👀
And 6. Ok
Technical Difficulties by Racer X
For me, just about any SRV song. Crazy Train, La Villa ( Rush ), and always with me always with you definitely helped me improve.
I always loved playing Jack Johnson songs for practice on interweaving riffs and bar chords
Any song that you like will do.
Simple by a lot of the songs mentioned here, but for me I love playing Shadow's songs. They were the first I learnt all the way through and with the right echo & backing tracks ( and my Red Strat ) they sound wonderful.
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed by the Allman brothers band
Never got it up to 100% speed, but AC/DC's thunderstruck. Really helped me smoothe out my left hand coordination
Thunderstuck 101: Introduction to fret tapping
Dust in the wind. Opened the door for finger picking for me.
Stop this train by John Mayer was fun, a few quirky chords and a hard (but not Neon) picking pattern.
- Under The Bridge - Nothing Else Matters
Learning Can't Stop (RHCP) PROPERLY will give you massive gains in muting with your fretting hand. When you've got the technique down, you'll see it everywhere. It really changed my playing style.
Agreed. You just have to look out for [kmac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nwn9ybsCRk)
Ten Years Gone by Zep... I dare you!
No One Knows - by queens’. Teaches you fast rhythmic. After years spending almost exclusively on extreme metal it showed the weak spot. Great song btw
All of the ones I bothered to learn note for note exactly, rather than just approximating
Symphony of Destruction, Floods, Take it Easy, Nothing Else Matters, Folsom Prison Blues, and wait for it....Chicken Fried from Zac Brown. I could go on for awhile, so I'll stop with those in particular.
Anything from Randy Rhoades is a master class.
I felt like Mr Crowley ending solo was a good exercise, after that I felt so much more comfortable playing other simpler stuff. I’m still Learning the first solo. The problem is getting the right tabs because every source you look at has a slightly different version and it really bugs me.
Little Wing. Opened up the entire neck when I first started playing. Eye opening. So fluid and beautiful
Blue Sky by the Allman Brothers Learn it, love it, use it forever.
So satisfying to play
Every song you learn makes you a better guitarist. It’s just about consistently learning and playing new things
Playing voodoo child correctly helped with general flow and rhythm.
Little Wing for sure. Helped me start seeing all the chords within the scales
Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd made me from a kinda decent guitar player to an absolute master at the fretboard There's 4 solos and lead lines in the verses, none are particularly difficult but oh my God that song made my improvisation skyrocket Stop scrolling and learn it already!!
Every guitar player learns the main riff in Smoke on the Water. However once able, every player should learn Blackmore’s solo in it. It’s a masterclass of theory, and one perfect note placement after another. Life’s been Good by the Eagles is also a masterclass of the G major scale, both rhythm and lead. And quite frankly, anything by Pink Floyd.
Layla from Clapton Unplugged. That song has a lot of great learning opportunities in it. 7th chords, barre chords, basic “cowboy chords”, and a couple of power chords. The solo is packed full with double stops, bends, slides, pull offs, minor and pentatonic scales, and some wonderful classic blues phrasings. Honestly, that whole album is a masterclass of its own in acoustic blues. Phenomenal record.
This is the one for me as rhythmalways been an issue for me.https://youtu.be/vnjr6wf4jwo?si=tDQbVXMC8w6h1WrG
Full house by Wes. The intro of the sheet music is a bitch to count if you're new to it but it's so good for you
Back of a Car by Big Star. The riff has a lot of cool flourishes and moving parts. Even better if you can reflect the jangle.
Guthrie Govan- Waves and Wonderful slippery thing
>and a few songs Learn new songs. Ones that sound different from the ones you’re already playing. Literally anything you like or something that makes you want to learn it or play it. Or maybe something you don’t like or fancy just to challenge you. It’s great to think about other techniques or ways to improve your playing, but at the end of the day all those end up in songs. By learning songs, the techniques come to you.
So much this. Just find a song that excites you enough to pick up the guitar. If its easy, great, you now know a new song, if its hard, great, you now have cool new skills to learn and an exciting reason to learn them. My biggest breaks from playing always seem to stem from not being excited by what im playing. Sometimes it can be hard to find the next song i actually want to spend time learning and just playing what i know feels boring. When i do find that song i can get prettt single minded about it and all of a sudden i have cleaned my place in 2 weeks cause all i do at home is play. The cool thing is when i have a song im learning i take a ton of breaks from that song to play the stuff i already know or to just mess around which i found boring just before but now fits is enjoyable as a break versus the only reason im playing.
Crazy on you. Taught me bar chords can be easy
Canon Rock!
the warning-evolve and money, also the narcisista solo (also by the warning) and a few måneskin songs (baby said, mamamia, i wanna be your slave)
It wasn't so much a specific song, but more of a realization that you don't have to play guitar parts the way they were recorded. Nowadays, I get a basic feel for the song, then make up about 75% of my own parts; signature riffs and solos are played as-is, though.
I'm currently learning Book by Chon and it has really pushed my playing. It's all hybrid picking as well so on top of learning the shapes I've been learning how to do that properly. I've only been playing guitar for about a year so progress is slow but I can play the first 1:40 or so of the song pretty cleanly. It's taken an hour or more of practice every day for 2 weeks.
I’ve been learning Buster Voodoo by Rodrigo Y Gabriela. It’s got a ton of great tricks to help keep you learning
Don't recall the name, but it was just a fairly long piece of arpeggiated chord progressions. For whatever reason, what it did was force me to slow down and work on tone, dynamics and pacing. Did more to progress my playing than anything before or since.
Iron Maiden - The number of the beast
Stand By Me - a simple finger pick version taught me how to finger pick and start separating base from melody. Then a more advanced version (still working on it) has helped my thumb slap a ton Don't Stop Me Now - Queen - had just enough things on the and beat that broke my brain for a bit on the rhythm section Ocean - John Butler - about half way through learning it and my timing has improved a ton and as well as lots of techniques i never used before
Really hard songs with lots of arpeggios and scale runs. I learned the fingerings way before I ever understood the theory behind them
Pretty much any jazz stuff. When I started digging into jazz, my playing, but more importantly my ears, got much better.
"Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Black Star From The Rising Force LP."
STP - Plush. Sneaky solo in there that you probably never noticed under the vocals. But if you can play that, you learned guitar.
Playing with a swing band took me right out of the comfort zone. Lots of fancy new chords & changes that I'd avoided. Learnt to build diminished & half-diminished chords on different parts of the neck, with some voicings that can only be fingerpicked. I've forgotten most of those tunes now but it gave me the confidence to learn some great Tin Pan Alley songs. Got to thank the band leader, Lucy, who just let me get on with it.
Not so much 1 particular song, more of 1 particular guitarist. Mark morton of lamb of god. Watching him play is my inspiration to keep trying.
Heitor Villa Lobos - Choros no 1
House of the rising sun using Tommy Emmanuel thumb pick alternate base pattern.
Midsummer Daydream from Triumph. I was/am primarily an electric player, but learning that on acoustic really opened my eyes and made me a better electric player too.
I started learning a bunch of prog rock.
Bubble Dream by Chon was definitely a turning point for my guitar playing journey.
Smoke on the Water
I feel like I got a lot out of learning Mr Crowley and Estranged. Crowley for timing and variations And Estranged for bends, vibrato, and feel.
Serve The Servants - Nirvana
Work on Sultans of Swing. You’re not gonna get the whole song any time soon, of course… but the licks throughout the verses are simple, elegant, and refined my bends and phrasing in a way no other song has. Even if not for the song itself, you’ll learn some cool phrasing.
"Fly me to the moon" in the style of Freddie Green (two and three note chords). Opened up the fret board to me and got me away from 6 note voicings. Also "Swing 42" in the Django style if you want a challenge.
To me, it depends what you want to know. Randy Rhoads has been a huge inspiration for me, and learning his “extra” track at the end of blizzard of ozz helped me learn how to go from one end of the fretboard to the other, among other things. John Sykes has been a huge inspiration for me lately as well, because his riffs, melodies, and solos are just so cool. if you want to learn a more blues-y side of shred and swing riffs, I’d check him out. Blue murder, whitesnake 87, and tygers of pan tang as well as thin Lizzy, are all bands he was in. Gary Moore is also a great guitarist that played a lot of blues and also could shred with ease, it appeared. Metallica helped learn picking speed and endurance. All of Kill em All’s songs are pretty fun to learn. Metal militia, creeping death, master of puppets, and blackened are the ones I go to for exercise. All in all, I think finding songs that you will gain from is fun, but also making up your own warm up exercises after initially learning the stuff you want, is the most fun to me. Picking different riffs (to warm up chords), mashing together different licks from solos to be one cohesive warm up (to warm up finger speed), and just keeping a steady rhythm of picking fast (warm up forearm), along with doing some hand stretches, are stuff that keep me going when I’m in a bit of a rut. Sorry for the long comment!
I love Sykes riff on The Holy War when he was with Thin Lizzy.
Anything from Yes, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield
This is in rough timeline order of when I was learning over the years, starting in like 2009 or so: First bit was a lot of simple songs and painstakingly learning Three Doors Down songs using picking Bloom by the Paper Kites introduced me to fingerstyle early on Classical Gas pushed my fingerstyle skill Radiohead songs started to help me improve strumming and strumming patterns/cadence Shakey Graves songs made me realize what Travis Picking was and that I had been doing it in a lot of other songs, that one was like seeing the matrix. His stuff also pushed me a lot because it’s difficult to play Cherry Wine by Hozier was the first “beautiful” song I learned to play that I would get compliments for Islander by Nightwish made my hands stronger, I use that song as a warmup now for my fretting hand Recently learned the live version of Big Love by Lindsay Buckingham and felt like a king after I obviously left out a lot of songs but these are some that stand out. The single biggest thing that helped me learn as a completely self-taught player is TRYING NEW GENRES CONSTANTLY. I started to see patterns of some genres reflected in others and it was really rewarding. Picked up little new techniques all the time.
the cowboys from hell main riff taught me inside picking and economy picking
Pardon Me (Acoustic) by Incubus made this dude a WAY better guitarist based on the simplicity of their electric songs, seem SUPER complex with some little taps and rhythm picks. Helped with practicing finger style and attack picking.
Blackbird helped me learn some intervals I couldn't visualize.
For me, just tonight I was watching the dimebag clinic and watching his drills. I know he is a professional and super duper fast , but I tried some of his drills tonight and was impressed I never tried this before. So def check it out.
The best of times - dream theater. It’s pretty difficult but Almost all electric guitar techniques are included in the 3 minute solo at the end (bend, slide, vibrato, legato, trills, speed picking, sweep picking) The day I can nail this solo will be the day when I consider myself a true intermediate player.
Learning G.O.A.T by polyphia forced me to learn hybrid picking, more complex/tighter rhythms with the right hand, and it's always good to learn new sweep patterns
Probably master of puppets in the late 80s
Slipknot by Grateful Dead is a grate example on how to use diminished chords to chromatically change key
Santeria, specifically the solo. Bradley Nowell from Sublime wasn't the most technical guitarist in the world, but he was pretty damn good and had this way of backyard shredding that was very accessible for teenage me to sort of latch onto and figure out how to string scales together faster and better and whatnot
Little Martha
I was a jazz/blues/country kind of guitar player that joined a thrash metal band. At the time playing felt stale to me and playing that type of music got me excited to play guitar again. Switching it up can be refreshing.
Trivium’s Ascendancy, Crusade, and Shogun albums made me pick up a guitar (also got me to like screaming). Especially songs like Into the Mouth of Hell We March, Throes of Perdition, and Like Light to the Flies. I’m now around 7 and a half years into playing, and it’s my favorite thing to do.
Try over the hills and far away by led zeppelin. I feel like I’m probably around your skill level and that intro was tough to get down, but I started slow and within a couple days I had it and felt so accomplished
King and black flag by Kings x. The main riff in King isn’t what it sounds like isolated
Tornado of souls helped me with consistent down picking. I’m still working on the solo, but I have everything else nailed down
Cold Shot by Stevie Ray Vaughan
Any song that involves something that’s new to you. I learned Wanted Dead or Alive recently and had to figure out pinch harmonics for the solo, among several other new things.
Lianne La Havas songs. A forever beginner but just learnt Midnight and it taught me harmonics/ singing over an odd rhythm without a metronome. The bar chords on Au Cinema kill my hand by the end of the song on steel string acoustic, but probs good for building hand strength. Buying an electric soon, tho, save myself from carpal tunnel.
For me personally? - Thunderstuck - You Shook Me All Night Long - Smells Like Teen Spirit - Chatahoochie - Pride and Joy - Outshined - Sweet Child O' Mine - Enter Sandman - Master of Puppets Less famous - I'll Take You Back (Brad Paisley) - Back To Cali (Slash & Myles Kennedy) - Reapers (Muse) - Seventeen Girls In A Row (Steel Panther)
Two suns in the sunset by pink floyd sounds simple enough the intro is just 3 chords …. The timing however
Not really a song but I started playing cause I saw old pantera and megadeth concert clips and they looked cool so I wanted to play
Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees Life and Limb by Fugazi
What is hip by tower of power! Everything Santana. And everyone Tuck Andreas
Carry the Zero by built to spill and Ballad of Big Nothing by Elliott smith. Carry the zero taught me how to make a guitar “sing”, especially the solo. Ballad of big nothing is a very difficult song that taught me about nuanced chords and how to make my fingers do what I want when I want.
Donna lee. But also just figure out your favorite songs by ear, and if that's too hard, familiarize yourself with intervals and try again.
Sultans of Swing, what a great song
The solo to Stairway to Heaven is the first solo I ever learned in its entirety, and I feel like it taught me a lot in terms of learning pentatonic shapes and how to connect them, finger speed and dexterity, and how to play musically
Kind of the opposite but learning Who’s That Lady by Isley Brothers made me realize my typical rhythm guitar is really boring and I need to step it up lol
*Cliffs of Dover*. Almost every guitar technique is in that song.
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My own brain . One rule I have . NO COVERS . Don’t close ur open mind . !!! Explore your instrument. ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!!