What are the Best Guitar Songs to Learn?
That’s easy to answer. The best guitar songs to learn are the ones you like. That’s why I take song requests. That means if you want to learn a particular song, I’ll write it out for you, guitar solo and all.
I don’t mind doing this in my own time. Some teachers do mind. In fact, some won’t lift a finger if they’re ‘off the clock.’ I once had singing lessons and asked the teacher to listen to my songs before the lesson. She refused to do it outside of paid work time. As you can guess, that didn’t go down too well with me.
To my mind, song requests are win-win. I get to build up my repertoire, and you get to learn songs you like, which you mightn’t be able to get anywhere else. New material also keeps me interested.
One of my students is into indie rock, some of which is pretty obscure. We’ve probably done more than fifty songs by now, just from his requests. I’ve also got a lady who learns bass and guitar, and whenever she hears a good song on Spotify, she adds it to her song request list.
YouTube makes it a lot easier these days, not just because most songs are on there, but you can also slow the videos down to hear them better. This makes transcribing songs a lot easier, especially fast guitar solos. Two or three decades ago, you’d be working with cassettes, rewinding the same bit of tape over and over. Nowadays you just slow the YouTube video down to 75%, or 50% if it’s a really fast part!
I have a couple of quirks. First, I try to never go over one page for a song transcription. (Don’t you hate those song tabs that are five or six pages long?) 90% of the time, that works. Second, I don’t like writing high fret numbers like 19, 21, etc, so I’ve evolved my own method of writing out solos which use the higher frets. It’s much easier to follow.
But my main goal is to write out the song as clearly and succinctly as possible, so it’s easy to read and play.
So let me know what songs you want to learn? Make a list of your top five song requests, then come in for a few lessons and we’ll learn them one by one. Online lessons can also be done over zoom if you live too far from Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Remember, the best guitar songs to learn are the ones you like.