Easy songs for my girlfriend to learn?

Smells like teen spirit?

Ah yes, that was the first song she asked to be taught by her teacher, so she's already learning that one.
Sorry, forgot to say that.

The first song I learned was a Bon Jovi one, Wanted Dead Or Alive. Nice intro riff, easy. And the rest of the song is mostly chords.

My teacher also learn me how to play Stairway to heaven, because you learn almost every basic techniques in that song. Fingerpicking, chords, pull-off, hammer-on, strumming pattern, etc.

But that may be too difficult if she's just starting.

Wonderwall by Oasis could be a great one too, Back in Black, Sweet Emotion, Layla

And other easy song from Nirvana:
Come as you are
Heart Shaped box
All Apologies

The first song I learned was a Bon Jovi one, Wanted Dead Or Alive.
That one's got some nice slide on a National biscuit resonator in it!

The first song I learned was the rhythm part to Pink Floyds Wish you Were Here. All easy chords.

You can provide the following suggestions -

'Wonderwall' by Oasis, 'Boulevard of broken dreams' by Green Day, 'Country Roads' by John Denver etc.

Any song with 3 chords and not too complex strumming pattern will do fine. The initial period of learning is difficult so advice your gf to hang on.

Good Luck.

hi mate

as I said in other threads simple is a relative concept, depending on the guitarist current abilities so of course what it is difficult one day it oculd become simple six months later.

Having said so no song is really simple for a beginner because to play it correctly he/she must have reached the ability to play with decent timing and learnt at least a few of the most common strumming patterns.

To me a relative simple song means

a) very few chords
b) simple strumming pattern

honestly the songs already suggested in the thread requires at least six months to one year of playing guitar to be played similar to the original ones.

To start with, go with some 2 chords songs like the ones suggested in the Easy songs for beginners and see if she's doing fine, then you can go to more complex ones.

If she's in indie rock Nirvana is a good place to start but please remember that their songs all include at least a syncopated strumming pattern, so could be played only after having learnt to deal with syncopation.

As others said at the beginning it is quite hard to play decently so she must be patyient

cheers

matteo

If she's in indie rock Nirvana is a good place to start but please remember that their songs all include at least a syncopated strumming pattern, so could be played only after having learnt to deal with syncopation.

What do you mean by 'syncopation'?

If she's in indie rock Nirvana is a good place to start but please remember that their songs all include at least a syncopated strumming pattern, so could be played only after having learnt to deal with syncopation.

What do you mean by 'syncopation'?

My understanding is that it refers to playing on the off-beat (The 'and' of a one AND two AND three AND four AND..... sort of beat). Its often used in reggae.

Cheers,
Simon

Oh thanks Simon I see what you mean. Does that mean playing a down stroke on an up beat though?

Oh thanks Simon I see what you mean. Does that mean playing a down stroke on an up beat though?
I try to mute the strings with my strumming hand on the beat and use mostly upstrums for the off-beat. In fact I almost slap my hand onto the stings for a nice percussive effect as my fingertips also contact the guitars body. Have a look at David Hodges lesson for 'I shot the Sherrif' for a much clearer explanation :mrgreen:

Its a nice sound if you can get your head round the strumming

Cheers,
Simon

hi isabel

syncopation does not mean to play on the off-beat, neither to play on off-beat only like in many reggae songs neither to play on off-beat with downstrokes, so i'll try to explain myself better.

Anyway let's start imagining that you play with alternate picking. If you play a downstrum and an upstrum for each beat in a 4/4 measure you'd strum like this (each slash identifies a beat)

du/Du/Du/Du

try to tap your foot while you play to count the beats and you will notice that, if you play in time, you'd play a downstrum when you tap your foot and a upstrum when you raise your foot.

syncopation means that sometimes in your playing you miss some downstrums (of course you decide when :-)!) to give a more interesting sound. So if I'd miss 3rd beat downstrum, I'd play

du/du/u/du

It is a very, very common way of playin and you could say that most songs (almost all of Nirvana's by the way) involve some kind of syncopation at least in a part of them. The trick to play like this is to never stop your strumming hand when you miss the strums

Of course you could also play with downstrums only (like in hard rock/heavy metal) and in this case a straight pattern would be

dd/dd/dd/dd

if you miss the 3rd beat dowsntrum, you'd play

dd/dd/-D/Dd

Let's remember that at the beginng it is more dificult to play with downstrums only since it is not natural for your hand to play a movement which opposite to the foot's one

Playing on the off-beat means to play only when you raise your foot, so with alternate picking it would be

-u/-U/-u/-U

Of course you could also play on the offbeat with dowstrokes like this

-d/-d/-d/-d

but it is very difficult for a beginner to play like this, so let's start with alternate picking

Cheers

Matteo