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Learning to Play Songs on the Guitar

By chris | June 27, 2009

There is perhaps nothing more rewarding for a beginning guitar player than learning to play all or part of one of their favorite songs. For intermediate to advanced players, who have already mastered basic chords and manipulating their fretting hand to change notes and chords quickly, learning to play songs on the guitar is not such a difficult thing to do. However, for beginners, it can seem like a daunting — if not impossible — task.

The key as a beginner trying to play a song, is to keep your standards low at first. Don’t expect to sit down for two hours and be slaying the song note-for-note by the time you’re done. It’s just not realistic. Rather, take the song one riff at a time.

First, go online and find a tab of the song you want to learn — and if you’re just starting out, do yourself a favor and keep it simple. Think Every Breath You Take not Master of Puppets. You can also find what are called “easy tabs,” which are simplified versions of songs tabbed out especially for beginning guitar players. If you are a stickler for detail, no, you won’t be playing every note. But these easy tabs allow you to at least sound like you’re playing a more complicated song.

It also helps to pick a song that matches your guitar. Rock songs with distortion, for example, won’t sound all that great on an acoustic guitar, and acoustic ballads might lack some character if strummed on an electric. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but it will likely make for a more enjoyable experience. When choosing a song to learn, make sure it’s one that you have in your CD or digital music collection. You’ll need to be able to listen to the song on decent speakers and have easy controls so you can move quickly back and forth over the section you’re trying to learn.

Before you begin trying to play the song, listen very closely to the intro several times, paying close attention to the guitar and what it is doing. Then look at the first bar or two on the guitar tab and slowly try to put the notes and chords together in your mind.

Again, I must stress: Lower your expectations. The first two, three, 20 times you try to play that intro riff, it might very well not sound like music at all. You’ll likely have to play the notes very slowly at first. The key is going to be – even if you are playing slowly — to play at a steady rhythm.

Try to get to a point where you can play the entire riff by memory, even if you are taking three full seconds between notes to get your fret hand where it needs to be. Just keep playing it and playing it some more. Once you can comfortably and smoothly play it at a slow speed, try to play it a little faster. Then faster still. When you can get through the entire riff without missing a note, at a reasonable speed, try playing it with the song itself playing in the background. If you can keep up, pat yourself on the back and move on to the next riff.

Go through the same process with each riff in the song — most songs have verse and chorus riffs that repeat, so it won’t take as long as you think. Each time you complete a riff, go back and play the full song up to that point so you can get comfortable with the transitions between riffs.

Don’t get discouraged, and don’t give up. Learning to play songs on the guitar can be very challenging. Just keep in mind that the harder a song is to learn, the more rewarding it will be when you finally master it.

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