Best song(s) to practise for a bloody beginner?
Aloha!
I recently started to learn how to play guitar and I can count the hours I played so far on two hands...
Anyway, I want to learn some JoCo songs, I started with Still Alive (big thanks to suuupadave for his YouTube lessons), but the chord progression in the chorus is way to fast for me so far.
So I'd like to know which songs are pretty easy to play, any suggestions are appreciated
For every guitar beginner (and intermediate and professional) who stumbles upon this thread looking for songs to play, I advise you to have a look at suuupadave's Lesson A Week JoCo Guitar Lessons, where he teaches you to play 21 of JoCo's song!
I recently started to learn how to play guitar and I can count the hours I played so far on two hands...
Anyway, I want to learn some JoCo songs, I started with Still Alive (big thanks to suuupadave for his YouTube lessons), but the chord progression in the chorus is way to fast for me so far.
So I'd like to know which songs are pretty easy to play, any suggestions are appreciated
For every guitar beginner (and intermediate and professional) who stumbles upon this thread looking for songs to play, I advise you to have a look at suuupadave's Lesson A Week JoCo Guitar Lessons, where he teaches you to play 21 of JoCo's song!
Comments
One of the first ones I learned was "Chiron Beta Prime." It's not all easy, but you might be encouraged by the walk-up/walk-down progressions: they sound cool and are not that difficult to play. You may find his B7 fingering hard to jump into, but it's a useful chord.
But JoCo does seem to have an allergy to truly simple guitar parts. Might I recommend trying some Paul and Storm parts? Not "Live," but "Nugget Man" or especially "A Better Version of You" -- that's almost a 3-chord song.
I will check into Pizza Day. But are there others that are easy?
But that's OK, Jonathan...you still need help with your theology! Although I must say, your giant squid is very forgiving and seems to have a pretty good sense of Original Sin. God bless his tormented beak.
Just because I happen to be working on it right now, Creepy Doll is Am, E, C, D, F, Fmaj7 and D7. It doesn't get any easier than that.
True, JoCo songs don't get much easier than that, but they are a lot harder than, say, I-IV-V progressions (C/F/G) like "Louie, Louie" and countless other garage band anthems, even ignoring the syncopations. And sometimes they get a lot harder (I have yet to tackle "Blue Sunny Day"...)
While I haven't tried it on guitar, you might be able to "cheat" and play an E7 instead of the Bm7b5. It doesn't sound to far off on ukulele if you aren't playing with other people. The key observation is that those chords both share the notes B and D, and the chord functions to lead into Am.
Other than that, I enjoyed learning Pizza Day, You Ruined Everything and Seahorse.
Millionaire Girlfriend is definitely a challenge if you want a good fingerpicking workout!
Weirdojace, you're right about chord vocabulary, but it is not just knowing the chords, it's the facility of being able to jump between shapes quickly. If you can do that (you mentioned "I Feel Fantastic" -- that song changes chords pretty damned quickly at concert speed, so if you can ace that, then you're not a beginner!)
Also, "Blue Sunny Day" goes up the neck, and a lot of beginners have not learned to get out of first position and jump around the neck horizontally. The chords are not full barre chords, which makes them easier, but you've still gotta move.
Update: with lots of caveats that this is rough, I'm not playing it in the same key, etc., etc., etc., here is my version of the guitar for "Blue Sunny Day." I'm playing my new Babicz acoustic. The webcam looks like it is starting to melt down, though...
Also, if we're going non-JoCo, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Monty Python is similarly made of mostly four chords: Am, D, G and Em and easy to play, too.
Elsewise for Coulton, his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" is pretty simple, slow of tempo and uses simple chords
"Gambler's Prayer" works, too. There's a bit of chord-variation and a diminished chord - another thing the Coulton is known to be quite fond of.
My advice would be learning chords and chord-shapes first, and then later get on the fingerpicking, as you can use a lot of chord-shapes during fingerpicking.
Hope it helps
BETTER
Also, it is very easy to strum. One doesn't have to do any finger-picking. I play the whole think strumming with a pick.
'Cuz I had a terrible time with that song -- not playing the chords, but singing it. There is something a bou t the ti ming of the phr ases that was dri ving me cra zy. I used to be O kay and Ilikemethat way... I just had a really difficult time getting the guitar and vocal synchronized! (It seems to be in 3/4, to start with... mostly it is probably just my lack of practice working in 3s, although being a Rush fan I'm used to playing in 5s...)
Try changing chords a little sooner or later than the way it is written above the lyrics and you may find a smoother way to play and sing it.
I must admit that I just stuck to the songs I actually wanted to play, that also being Still Alive... So far it works really good, just the not-silent verses are a bit hard to switch, but I guess that can be solved with just some more practice.
So my advice for anyone seeking easy JoCo songs to play: Pick one you really want to be able to play and just stick with it and don't give up. Even if they seem hard at first, just try and try. Over the course of time you will improve and it will sound better and better and in the same run you enhance your chord vocabulary and thus you are also able to play other songs.