New Guitarist

[groogrux27]

Hey i'm a new guitarist, just started playing a few days ago. My brothers been playing the past couple years and i just started playin some dave stuff. Are there any recommendations, dmb, or non dmb, for good easy songs i could learn to play?? Thanks in advance!!

[solsburyhill]

grey street is one of the easiest DMB songs to play.

[WaltzingBack]

Ants Marching, Gravedigger, Spoon, and The Dreaming Tree are great for beginners. just basic chords with some basic Dave shit thrown in.

Don't Drink the Water, Bartender, and Proudest Monkey are also worth a shot. those are good songs to get you used to powerchords.

[DerekJTR2]

1st thing to do. LEARN SATELLITE. Keep at it, keep at it, keep it at. Once you get it down it'll open up your world and you won't believe your fingers work the way they do.

[rantingthespian]

1st thing to do . . . don't start with DMB! Dave has very unusual and hard chords, as well as strange riffs and strumming patterns (Two Step is a bitch to strum correctly).

One of the best songs to start playing are Bob Dylan songs. He typically uses many open chords (D, G, A, E, Em, C, Dm, ect.), and a capo is helpful too for he uses it quite a bit to give the open chords different voicings (you can get a decent capo from any guitar store). A great site to learn Dylan songs from is http://www.dylanchords.info .

I also recommend that you do not start with a pick. It is much harder to learn to play with your fingers and to finger pick if you start using a guitar pick right away. I've been playing for 10 years, and I am glad I started playing without a guitar pick. Trust me, you get a lot more control using your fingers.

[eido11]

When you're watching tv or something that doesnt require your hands go through the chords and just make them on the guitar without strumming... muscle memory!

[LivWarriors45]

I love the people in these threads (though there are none here) that always say stuff like "Oh, play So Much to Say and Tripping Billies first, they are the easiest!" They think it impresses people and makes them think they are some kind of guitar god.

In all honesty, the majority of DMB songs are going to be pretty hard for a beginner to play, even if you practice them a lot. So much of guitar is muscle memory and understanding music, so learn the very basics first before you get into Dave's complicated manner of playing.

Get a good grip on chord playing and chord changes. The hardest part of learning guitar for me was making chord changes quickly.

[WaltzingBack]

1st thing to do . . . don't start with DMB! Dave has very unusual and hard chords, as well as strange riffs and strumming patterns (Two Step is a bitch to strum correctly).

One of the best songs to start playing are Bob Dylan songs. He typically uses many open chords (D, G, A, E, Em, C, Dm, ect.), and a capo is helpful too for he uses it quite a bit to give the open chords different voicings (you can get a decent capo from any guitar store). A great site to learn Dylan songs from is http://www.dylanchords.info .

I also recommend that you do not start with a pick. It is much harder to learn to play with your fingers and to finger pick if you start using a guitar pick right away. I've been playing for 10 years, and I am glad I started playing without a guitar pick. Trust me, you get a lot more control using your fingers.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup :bounce

i was stoked to read your post because i learned guitar playing Bob Dylan. i played only Dylan songs for my first year of guitar, then i dove into DMB, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and everything else good. the first DMB song i learned, if i can remember correctly, was Dancing Nancies.

[mszorad]

If you are trying to learn DMB stuff, I learned most of the music from dmbtabs.com. I make video tutorials at http://www.youtube.com/mszorad. Got a few Dave songs up there. Maybe see if those help you along?

[groogrux27]

thanks so much everybody, ive started playing bartender, the intro to granny, and shake me like a monkey, im good at finger picking, but i cant for the life of me, do chords, its ridiculous, i hate it, any suggestions on how to make it easier???

[mszorad]

practice, practice, practice :)

[WaltzingBack]

practice, practice, practice :)

yup :thumbsup just keep doing them over and over, build calluses, stretch your fingers out. after about 2 years you'll start to notice that the fingers on your left hand are slightly longer than the ones on your right hand. also, practice your rhythm a lot. fingering the chords perfectly is useless without good rhythm on your other hand.

[rantingthespian]

practice, practice, practice :)

Yep, and again for Chord songs, Dylan.

[groogrux27]

i went to that dylan sight, but i dont know what songs to start with, or for a matter of fact, even to find the songs

[mszorad]

Hey,

The first song I ever learned was Wonderwall and it's all chords. Tab can be found here: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/o/oasis/wonderwall_ver4_tab.htm
I recommend playing along with the song to get the rhythm down, and keep practicing until you ace it. After that you'll find chords aren't so bad.

[WaltzingBack]

i went to that dylan sight, but i dont know what songs to start with, or for a matter of fact, even to find the songs

http://dylanchords.info/ look to the left and you'll find a button that says "Songs in alphabetical order"

i personally started with Desolation Row & Tambourine Man

[rantingthespian]

i went to that dylan sight, but i dont know what songs to start with, or for a matter of fact, even to find the songs

On the left of the screen is the album names and other stuff. Scroll through it to select an album, and the available tabs will be shown on the right.

I suggest to start with the album Highway 61 Revisited (the one with Like A Rolling Stone) and Bringing It all Back Home (which has Mr Tambourine Man)

Again, you might need a capo for some of the songs. Sometimes they do have transcriptions of multiple versions, and sometimes tell you how to play it with open chords. If not, and you can't get a capo, you can always just alter the chords to what they would be if they were open chords. If you have trouble doing that, then I could switch them for you.

[bila]

1st thing to do. LEARN SATELLITE. Keep at it, keep at it, keep it at. Once you get it down it'll open up your world and you won't believe your fingers work the way they do.

what u trying to do throw this dude the the firing squad

[groogrux27]

thanks for all ur help guys, ill get to work on wonderwall, im playin baby at the moment, pretty easy stuff, i might say haha

[rantingthespian]

Oh, here's a song that you can learn:

Am - G - F - G

Lather, rinse, repeat

Over and over again. It's called All Along the Watchtower.

[groogrux27]

^^^haha ya i was actually lookin at that tab and thought how easy it was, im having trouble with the rhythm of wonder wall right now tho, its probably cus im challenged haha