Easy Songs for a Newbie

[Eric***]

Funny, I was just looking at this for songs to work on with a teen I know. I thought "Let It Be" would be a good one. Four chords and you're there.

If others have good suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

[Bassman uk]

Thanx For the idea will look at tab.

[sunvalleylaw]

Funny, I was just looking at this for songs to work on with a teen I know. I thought "Let It Be" would be a good one. Four chords and you're there.

If others have good suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

How are you doing on the timing on that one Eric? I like that song and tried it last night. A good one, but you have to rip through three chords between verses as a transition.

Brown eyed girl, most any Eagles song (Hotel California, Peaceful Easy Feeling), Jimmy Buffet songs, lots of others like that are good for beginner fodder as well.

Slower Pearl Jam (Crazy Mary for instance), If I had a Million Dollars, by Bare Naked Ladies, Keep on Rockin in the Freeworld, and many other Neil Young songs. Some of the acoustic Neil songs have some funky rhythm things you have to watch out for.

I am sure there are many others. If I had my first few years to do over again, I would keep the material easier (rather than reach for this or that song I wanted to learn), and work more closely with a metronome in addition to backing tracks or playing with songs, to really nail down my timing and accuracy.

[Eric***]

How are you doing on the timing on that one Eric? I like that song and tried it last night. A good one, but you have to rip through three chords between verses as a transition.

Well, the kid I picked it out for still has trouble making the C chord (I transposed it to G to make it easier for him), so it was slow going. I just chopped out those quick chords at the end of the verse, since it sounds fine without them.

One of my favorite songs to learn when I was starting was "Wonderwall" by Oasis. SUPER simple, since you can just lock in your pinky and ring finger on the third frets and leave them there. The only challenging part was the strumming pattern.

[sunvalleylaw]

Funny, I was just looking at this for songs to work on with a teen I know. I thought "Let It Be" would be a good one. Four chords and you're there.

If others have good suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

I figured out a good beginner's workaround to those transitional chords. You can do a walk down from the G chord, playing B on the A string second fret then open A string to the C chord. That would be a good beginner intro concept in itself.