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Easiest Song Of All Time?


borge

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ive just started teaching my first student about 1 1/2 months ago

a ten year old girl (gotta start somewhere)

what ive taught her so far

shes into punk unlike me

greenday boelevard of broken dreams

blink 182 dammit

acdc highway to hell :D

bob dylan knocking on heavens door

ccr down on the corner (bassline) :D

and a couple others

i showed her the easiest way/part possible to play them

she cant play power/bar chords

i havent bored her with any theory till its more important

she comes twice a week for 1/2 an hour usually ends up an hour though

her father is the biggest hendrix fan and wants her to be the next jimi (he insisted on twice a week)

ive never had a teacher myself so i dont know a awful lot about teaching

what are some really easy good songs for an absolute begginer ?

any other teaching tips would be helpful

cheers

fergus

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For those totally impatient I used Takin Care of Business by BTO as a 'you can learn this tune in 5 minutes or less' tune, now can we get back to 'learning how to play guitar?' thing!

Though the parent is a Hendrix fan doesn't change the context of your job. You are an musical instrument instructor, not a teach people how to wank over AC/DC person are you?

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First song I ever learned was "Happy Trails".

Some other easy, fun ones:

- Peter Gunn Theme

- All Along The Watchtower (non-Shawn Lane version for first timers)

Regarding 'current'/punk-lite ones:

- Anything Green Day (I think I figured out "When I Come Around" in about 3 minutes...and considering my ear & playing level, that's damn quick.)

- Any Blink 182. The liner notes are more difficult than the songs.

Slightly off-topic, but did anyone notice the Johnny Marr-type rhythm guitar track on "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"? Do you think that's a hat tip to Johnny/The Smiths, a blatant rip-off, or do you think they just plain don't have a clue and have never heard of Marr and/or The Smiths?

:D

I never did get around to learning "Smoke On The Water" or "Freebird".

Scott- that was you? You're at every show I go to.

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Slightly off-topic, but did anyone notice the Johnny Marr-type rhythm guitar track on "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"?  Do you think that's a hat tip to Johnny/The Smiths, a blatant rip-off, or do you think they just plain don't have a clue and have never heard of Marr and/or The Smiths?

:D

My guess is they didn't have a clue since the song itself is a direct ripoff of an Oasis tune! :D

Here is a mesh of the two tunes, tell me it's not a ripoff?

http://www.98online.com/photos/Mickey_Amelia/OASGRN.mp3

Edited by Gorecki
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Tenacious D, the one note song!!!! :D

Green day, time of your life. it's pretty easy. I find the easiest are songs with the fewest finger movements. When teaching absolute beginners I found that the hardest sequence was going from C to G. I usually try to get a song with Em and D in it cause they are easy chords. Any 2 finger chord come to think of it.

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ive allready taught her smoke on the water

is free bird G C D C ? havent heard it in a long time

she cant play three finger chords yet

im sure boelevard of broken dreams is a rip off on a thousand songs

E G D A (with capo)

hardly the most original progression

thanks for all the help keep it coming

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i just listened to the meshed song of bobd and that oasis song

yeah it is a pretty blatent ripoff

and no i dont teach people how to wank over acdc (not quit sure what that means)

but i do think acdc is one of the greatest bands of all time

i showed her that song because i was playing it when she turned up and she recognised it and said she liked it . i think learning songs you know/like motivates a person to practice more

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one of the first songs i learned was Purple HAze. So father wants hendrix, purple haze is great. and it improves a little right hand picking technique. another song i first learned was Kiss- Rock and Roll All Night (and party every day), but thats mostly powerchords. Good luck with the teachin

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marzo root + 5th= power chord reagardless of the octave

monkey yeah ill give puple haze a try (just worked out super easy way)

so far all ive been doing is showing her new songs, going though songs ive allready shown her, correcting her, trying to show her good technique(or what i think is good technique)

and trying to play things together to improve her timing eg

she likes to plays Em open string arp of nothing else matters while i play melody

or i play chords to crazy little thing called love d - dsus4 while she played the melody F# -G (ill show her the full chords when shes up to it)

she tries to play in time but does go out of time sometimes and i usually adjust to put her back in time. im thinking now that i shouldnt do this maybe i should play in ridgid timing and try to make her adjust into time

i just dont know any more help at all is much appreciated

cheers

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seek an destroy, metallica :D

not overly hard for a beginner, plus it will get her used to hammer on and pulloffs, vibratos, and palm muting

Brown Eyed Girl, get her doing chords!! G C G D if i remeber correctly

whole lotta love, led zep, thats an easy song

make up a real simple riff, inorprate scales though, like, a blues scale for example, make the theory and scales fun yea know, thats a good way they will learn

Curtis

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seek and destroy sounds good, though i can't get the solo! i'm not much of a soloer so i dont know where to start, any help please? PM me since i dont wanna hijack this thread.

If I Had A Million Dollars - Barenaked Ladies is a pretty easy chord song

Nirvana is as easy as it gets when it comes to powerchords

simple man - lynyrd skynyrd for finger picking but there's prolly easier ones.

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theres no way in hell she'll be able to play seek and destroy hammers/pulls seem really easy to ppl who can play but when u watch a 10 year old girl try them they look very very hard

as for the solo sepul are u learning it from tab or by ear?

im to lazy to wrk things out so i have alot of tab books including kill em all

either way dont move on to the next section until u have really nailed the current one or u will learn it halfasses and stumble through it makeing alot of mistakes (like i used to)

also if you start learning it and you know the notes well but just cant get the speed try a different solo go back to it later. i used to learn lots of solos way outta my league and go over and over them trying to get them up to speed but never could.

a few months after i would go through them and nail them 1st time

and regret wasting my time trying to learn them earlier

theres alot more satisfaction in playing an easy solo really accurately than playing hard one poorly

also you look pretty stupid doing a fast one badly. allot of people wont notice but other musos will and they will probably be the people whose opinions you care about the most

hope this helped

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hmmm, i took a very different approach in beginning guitar....

I didn't even bother with complete songs until i understood basics. Maybe it's just me, but i just wanted to have a working understanding of chords (open and barre) before i bothered with songs.

That said, the first song i ever played was Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce. Kind of a strange tune to start on, but it's actually quite easy, and if you like fingerpicking (which i do) it's a great place to start.

Keep up the good work mate, and tell us when that little girl of yours becomes the next Hendrix... We'll all be expecting tickets.

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Borge, the way I started was just to play the root note of all the chords in the song, literally just one string, one note, at a time. Get her to try to use all her fingers and to keep her thumb behind her index finger (don't let her "palm" the neck), and to stay in time. Also stress that she use the tips of her fingers rather than the pads.

If she can't get beyond this point, then at least she'll be able to play bass :D

Then move on to 2-note open-5th chords (index finger on the 5th and middle finger on the root octave, so that both fingers are on the same fret). Have her move that around the neck, then show her what to do with it when you encounter the B-string. Great way to play along with CDs.

3-note power chords will follow logically from that when she's comfortable enough, then full barre chords from there.

Also have her warm up with exercises to use all 5 fingers, and show her single-octave major & minor scales and how to slide them up & down the neck. Both of these are good for warm-up.

This is the plan I'm following with my 11yo son.

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