Looking for Easy Guitar Songs

Cafe Society
1

So two and a half years into guitar ownership, it has occured to me that I’m probably never going to be able to play any chord requiring barring or skipping frets (B, Fm, etc.), but I’d love to learn to play a few more somewhat modern, easy songs.

I can play the following chords with no issue: G, C, D, E, Em, A, Am, D, F (kinda).

So far I’ve learned the following songs:

Refreshments - Mekong
Gin Blossoms - Follow You Down
Greenday - Good Riddance

I can also play most of…
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers - Green and Dumb
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Melissa Etheridge - Angels Would Fall

And a just a wee bit of about 50 songs.

Now, I know we have some pretty heavy-duty guitar enthusiasts on this board and while I appreciate (and am quite envious of) your passion and ability, I am not looking to reach that level of playing and I can’t read tabs to save my life.

Basically, I just want a few fun songs I can learn and play to myself when I get some time alone with my guitar and the couch.

Any recommendations?

2

I always recommend Credence Clearwater Revival for these sorts of situations. Partly because they are what I learned to play when I was starting, so they spring to mind quickly, but mostly because they are fun easy and self contained.

Bad Moon Rising
Have you Ever Seen the Rain
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Lookin’ Out My Backdoor
Lodai
Down on the Corner

Each and every one a classic, and a fun easy to play song that sounds good as a solo acoustic piece.

Also, it will get you working on your F chords.

Don’t get down about barr chords, about 2 years in is about the time to really start worrying about them. I would say you are on the right pace. Keep at it and they will seem easy in no time.

3

With G, C, D, Em and Am you can play loads of simple songs in the key of G (or of Em). The first four are the important I, IV, V and vi chords, and Am is the also commonly used ii chord. It would help if you could learn D7, which is dead easy, because the V chord is very often a seventh.

Other simple songs, just transpose them into G! Like if it requires E-A-B, avoid the B by playing G-C-D instead. It’ll sound much the same.

4

Half the Eagles catalog can be played with the chords you’ve learned. Songs like ‘Best of My Love’ and "Lyin’ Eyes’ are very easy to learn.
“House of the Rising Sun” is easy and a good intro to fingerpicking.

Also, learning barre chords just takes practice. “Hotel California” is a good song to practice barre chords with - give it a try.

5

“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” - The Beatles

“American Pie” - Don Mclean

“Substitute” - The Who

6

“Yellow Submarine” - The Beatles
“A Horse with No Name” - America

7

::post snipped::

Are there any particular reasons you think you won’t be able to play barre chords or other types of chords? We’ve got a good bunch of players on the Board and I imagine if we knew what troubles you are having someone would probably have either exercises for it or good suggestions* on how to work around the issue.

Slee

I am ok at chord stuff, I tend to use some odd ones at times, but I know there are people on the board better than I at that kind of stuff.

8

Easy chords you should learn:

Dsus2, Dsus4 (“Free Fallin’” is D, D, Dsus4, Dsus4, D, A)
Dm
G/C (Lots of people play this instead of G)

Look up the Barenaked Ladies catalog. Their songs are universally easy, fun to play, and seem to be roughly in your generational timespan(?). Check out also Oasis (“Don’t Look Back in Anger” is all chords you can play plus an Fm, which isn’t hard).

But really, about three quarters of all songs ever are just Am, G, F, which you can play. (And the other quarter are all Pachebel’s canon in D.)

9

Okay, let me introduce you to the campfire 16 -
Major chords E, A, D, G, C
Minor chords e min, a min, d min and there’s an e-z version of b min
Dom. Seventh chords, usually just called ‘Sevenths’ - F# 7, B7, E7, A7, D7, G7 and C7.

with these 16, you can play tons of the guitar based rep in arrangement. Go to a place like Chordie.com (where they have a handy transpose button) and try shifting a piece up and down until every chord in it is one of the campfire 16.

There are lots of other chords that can be substituted - d min sounds in context like F6, for example.

Barre chords are something I advise you to hook up with a teacher or a mentor to learn properly. It’s easy to learn them wrong and go through a lot of effort to get them to be ergonomically sound. Some tricks - don’t put a lot of work into the standard F barred at the first fret. There are other, non-barred ways of doing F, and that position of F - Bb - Eb are the hardest barres on the instrument. I like to start students with the three string barred a min (at the fifth fret, 3rd or 4th finger on the seventh fret of the 4th string, open 5th string) or the d min (same thing at the tenth fret with the open 4th string.) If you must work on six string barres, do it at the 7th fret where it’s easier…

I’m none too sure what you mean by skipping frets - do you mean having more than one fret between any two fingers? Again, part of that is (gently) getting used to the stretch, and that’s easier up the fingerboard where the frets are closer together.

In Toronto, there are lots of places to take group classes in guitar, which can be an absolute blast, plus you get several different people sharing their ideas about what’s easy. There may be something available near you…

Hope this helps.

10

Power chords are super easy to play and are moveable pretty much anywhere on the guitar. Once you learn them, you can play most Nirvana songs, lots of White Stripes songs…actually most '90s alterna-rock songs.

11

Woo, these are all great! I’m excited about learning The Eagles and Credence. I looove American Pie (who doesn’t?) and Horse w/ No Name. rubs hands together greedily

sleestak, I know I should learn barre chords but I’m a bit impatient and I want to be a rockstar nowNowNOW. :wink:

I’m going to throw a lot of effort into mastering “the campfire 16”, that sounds juust like what I’m looking for.

And yes, by skipping frets I mean stretching my hand from, say, the 2nd to 4th fret. My thumb pops over the top of the neck (I know, I know… I’m trying to curb that) and I can’t get enough pressure to keep the strings from buzzing like crazy.

Keep em coming, I’m building a spreadsheet! :slight_smile:

Nunavut Boy, I’ve heard of these power chords, but don’t really understand what they are or how they work.

12

This is all good - not much to add. I guess I would point to something - your right hand (assuming your right-handed - your strum/pick hand, either way)…

When I think back to my early days (a very long time ago :frowning: ) or when I am trying to show someone something, I find that the real difference between how they sound and how I now sound is the rhythm - picking or strumming, when you “lock into” the groove of the song (whether it is a slow waltz or speed metal, the song has it’s own groove) you sound better.

I tended to pick easy chord patterns such as:

E A D A - **That’s What I Like About You ** by The Romantics (it’s more complex, but this will do)

C F G F - **Good Lovin’ **

D G A G - La Bamba

G F C F - **Night Moves ** by Bob Seeger

And play them for hours. Speed them up and slow them down - insert breaks (e.g., in La Bamba, play the groove, end up on the A and hold it for a bit - it will make musical sense when you try it) then start the riff again. Use your strum hand to dampen the strings vs. whacking the strings wide open. If you actually want to the learn the song that these grooves are in, that’s fine, but that’s not my point - just play the freakin’ groove and rock out. :cool:

Mix it up and try to “sell” the rhythm and make it rock and roll.

Pick a few of these circular chord riffs that you like and play them as a warm up before you play other stuff. They can be really fun and your rhythm playing will benefit - you increase your muscle memory for how to lock into a groove…

13

Here’s a Wikipedia link on power chords.

14

Not much new to add.

Be sure you’ve memorized all of your chord shapings and that you can transition from any chord to any other chord smoothly and easily.

Start learning your minors, sevenths and minor sevenths -most of which are pretty easy.

Start learning to read tabs. Start with an easy song like “Pretty Woman” or “Blister in the Sun” more just to get a feel of how tablatures are set up. The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” isn’t too tough either just to name a few.

Lastly and most importantly, you didn’t mention whether you do this but you add a much more significant layer to your playing if you learn to sing as well. Whether you are on-key or not or self-conscious about it, start singing along as you strum and your enjoyment level increases exponentially.

15

Which is one reason that “folk music” is a good place to start. My singing might make the cat leave the room, but it’s lot of fun. And there’s that old folkie boast: “I know all three chords in all five keys.”

Those weird chords do get easier if you keep practicing.

16

Strumming is its own tragedy for me. I’m left-handed but purchased and learned to play on a right-handed guitar. This means that chord transitions were a bit easier for me to learn than I’d expected, but that strumming is challenging and picking/plucking is an exercise in futility. It’s coming along though and I appreciate your recommendations. I could really use a few songs to make me stretch my strumming ability.

Oh yeah, I’m all about singing. I was rocking the house (and cats) with Have You Ever Seen the Rain last night. My singing helps to mask some of the aforementioned strumtardation. :wink:

I’ll definitely try to work out tabs with Blister in the Sun and/or Pretty Woman. My initial foray into tabs was trying to play Man Who Sold the World and Pearl Jam’s Black.

17

Don’t worry about learning on a righty guitar. Guitar is a two handed instrument, I have personally never understood why there need to be two types.

For a nice simple song that get’s you some easy finger picking and a few simple barre chords (that could be played as power chords) I would go for The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes.

Also, take a look at the songs WordMan recommended. I know that personally La Bamba was a breakthrough song for me when I was learning to deal with strum patterns. The quick changes in it force you to learn to seperate the struming from the fretting and start treating them as independant actions. Again, going back to Creedence (I really do think Creedence is the ultimate band for beginers) Bad Moon Rising is a good one for working on a natural smooth pace, and Lookin’ Out My Backdoor will get you a good shuffle strum, which is a handly tool to have.

Keep at it and you will get there.

18

I hear you - that’s why I said hours at a stretch. Get an unplugged electric guitar - quiet and easier to fret chords - sit in front of the TV (I watch baseball) and mechanically go through your chord patterns. I sat there and mindlessly played La Bamba, etc. - before I knew it, I had the mechanical act of forming chords and transitioning between them down, then I got a regular strum pattern down - and THEN I could groove. At that point - w00t! You’re in bidness, my friend!

19

Well, I’ve been playing on a lil’ Fender Squire, I love baseball and I have a couch so I’m all set. :cool:

20

The chords you have will allow you to become the johnny cash superstar. no campfire is complete without Folsom Prison , Cocaine Blues, and Long Black Veil. I mix it up with some EZ PZ Dylan selections off of the Basement Tapes. Chordie.com has become a source of nigh eternal happiness to me.