Choosing The Right Guitar Songs To Play to Play Vs. to Learn

Whether you are still in the beginning of your guitar journey or youre an advanced guitar player

, you should be aware of the fact the choosing the right guitar songs to play is vital for your development as a guitarist. This is a complex process and its not an easy one to learn, because you have to count solely on your self-assessment. Having a real good self-assessment of your personal skills as a guitarist is the foundation of choosing the right guitar songs to play or learn.

A common mistake that most beginners make is that they refuse to admit that they ARE beginners. They start playing advanced stuff without being prepared for it, without having the knowledge to understand it and thus without having the ability to take the most of it. But whats worse is that this way they are slowing their progress down and wasting valuable time not realizing their mistakes.

Now, theres nothing wrong in your main guitar influences being hard rock, heavy metal or jazz guitar virtuosos and in trying to learn their pieces. In fact thats very good, because learning even a single piece will expand your horizons in a big way. However learning is the right word to use and not playing. The learning process means taking an advanced guitar song and learning to play it slowly (many times at half speed or slower), but correctly, feeling every pick stroke, every change in fingering, every hand movement, until you feel comfortable at that tempo. Only then you can gradually increase the tempo and repeat, and increase, and repeat and continue like that until you finally reach the desired speed.

However, depending on the piece, this may take you months, even years, so you cant just count on learning hard songs to become a guitar virtuoso. Instead, you have to combine the learning process with playing easy guitar songs that correspond to your current guitar skills. And thats where good self-assessment and accepting the truth come to play. Basically said, if its hard for you, admit it Its hard for me. Im not going to play it, BUT Ill sit down and learn it, and then Ill practice it until I can play it. In the meantime Ill be playing easier songs when I get bored from practicing and vice versa.

At this point you may be asking yourself OK, but how do you actually choose the right guitar songs to play? Well, here are some practical tips for beginners that will guide you:

- Choose guitar songs with simple structure (e.g.: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus)

- Choose guitar songs without many chord changes (3-5 chords are fine, in fact youll notice that many contemporary hits are based on 3- and 4- chord progressions)

- Choose guitar songs without guitar solos or with slow and melodic solos that you can play with ease, BUT do learn songs with harder and faster solos in the meantime.

- Choose guitar songs without too much bending or with no bending at all, unless your hands are strong enough to handle it, but do learn harder songs that involve bending and keep making guitar exercises to strengthen your hands.

by: Harvey Mosley

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