Happy Independence Day

There are few things more synonymous with Independence Day than fireworks, food, music and fun. We here at Guitar Noise want to wish all of our American readers (that’s about 51% of you) a happy and safe long weekend. We also want to help bring more music to your 4th of July celebrations.

While we don’t have any new content to share, we would like to dig up some older lessons that are worth checking out again. If acoustic guitar playing is your thing, we have dozens of easy songs for beginner lessons that might be right up your alley. Given this weekend’s big holiday, there is no better named band to showcase that than America, the 1970s rock band featuring Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peak, and Gerry Beckley.

VENTURA HIGHWAY
This single-guitar arrangement of America’s “Ventura Highway” focuses on strumming but also adds little fills to give it a similar style to the original recording. As always, we’ll walk you through it step by step and the lesson comes complete with standard notation, guitar tablature, and MP3s. Song Lesson by David Hodge

SISTER GOLDEN HAIR
“Sister Golden Hair” is a great song to practice shifting back and forth between barre chords and open position chords. This song also a great example of why obsessing on finding a “strumming pattern” is pointless. Includes tab, standard notation and MP3s, of course. Song Lesson by David Hodge

A HORSE WITH NO NAME
“A Horse With No Name” by America is one of the easiest songs for you to learn. We’re going to teach you how to play it while throwing in some music theory. Song Lesson by David Hodge

Also don’t miss part 2 of “A Horse With No Name,” which continues with advice on how to spice up your strumming as well as a look at the solo from the original recording.

AMERICA – Music Bio
Want a little history lesson this holiday weekend? Read up on the band America who won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1972. Music Bio by David Hodge

And that’s all for now. Have a great weekend!