Last week I wrote about hobbies to master before you die, one of them being to learn the guitar. I'd like to reiterate first, LEARN IT. If you have access to an acoustic, an electric, any type of six stringed guitar-like instrument, pick it up and run your fingers over the nice little strings. YouTube seems to want to keep yelling at me about this app called YouSician, which is supposed to easily teach you guitar. But I digress...SHOULD you learn guitar, here's the ten best songs that I've encountered as the most fun or most popular to play!
1. Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker: This was one of the first ones I learned how to play, it only uses three chords, AND it gets you used to the strumming patterns. It IS a country song, which for some of you might be a huge turn-off but, it's worth it. The old Hootie and the Blowfish fans will remember Darius as one of the leads, and this song kind of samples some of their old tunes, so it's definitely at the top of my list.
2. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac: I JUST finished learning this, and although I went for the "easy" version, it's still pretty complex for a beginner. BUT if you've been working at the ole six string for a while and you want to learn something called Travis Picking (which is weird sounding but awesome), check this one out. YouTube has a lot of really good tutorials for it!
3. Meet Virginia by Train: I haven't learned this one yet, but being a child of the early 90s and a proud owner of NOW! That's What I Call Music 4, it's on the list. The beginning riff is something that the crowd will always love.
4. I Want it That Way by The Backstreet Boys: Literally JUST today I heard this song on the radio and HAD to learn that opening riff. You know the one I'm talking about, dum dum dum dum dum du-um dum DUM DUM. I know you hummed it in your head, I know you did! Admit it! YouTube has a lot of tutorials around for this, and it's pretty easy to learn, even for a beginner.
5. First Day of my Life by Bright Eyes: It's not a super popular song, but it's got a lot of chord changes that make the song sound really cool.
6. Blackbird by the Beatles: Definitely a technically hard piece to learn because it requires a lot of moving and picking up and down the fret-board. BUT even just learning the intro is worth it because you can impress just about anybody with only about twenty seconds of song.
7. More than Words by Extreme: This song goes the same as the one above, it's a small riff that will impress just about anybody. BUT this is just a bit easier to learn because it's only chord shapes and not a lot of movement. I would recommend learning this before Blackbird.
8. American Pie by Don McLean: An oldie but a goodie! Lots of quick chord changes but DEFINITELY a good one for learning the shapes of about eight differnt chords and how to transfer in between them.
9. Free Fallin' by Tom Petty: Just...learn it. It's super easy and super fun and everyone loves a good free fallin'.
10. Wonderwall by Oasis: Wonderwall is a super super easy song to learn, as it's only about three chords. BUT guaranteed, you start playing this at an open mic or at a party, you'll have everyone's attention and everyone would be singing along.
There's definitely more, and learning songs is really about what you enjoy and how much time you're really willing to invest in learning an instrument. The ones above are pretty easy, with a couple exceptions, but all worthy of a look-see.
