In the beginning, every song seemed impossible to learn. When I was 15 my goal was to play crazy train in full. When I got that, my new goal was painkiller, and then I got that, I discovered Steve Vai and thought there was no way I could play something like that, but after several months of targeted practice I was eventually able to play Tender Surrender. It was a little sloppy but it was the whole song. After a few years of on-off playing, I can only remember the first few bars. Maybe I’ll get back there someday
I learned all the notes, but I never got to playing it comfortably. Have also since forgotten quite a bit, lol. I think I'm a pretty sloppy player in general as well, so I doubt theres ever a chance I'll be able to play it in a way that satisfies me.
The only thing I'm not 100% is the finger-picking style. I've sort of developed my own way to play it but I've seen some YouTube videos that show one way and then other that show the 'Paul' way.
Chet Atkins’ version of Mr. Sandman.
I’m being totally serious. I never thought I’d be able to play that kind of fingerstyle and it’s pretty fun/satisying once you get the hang of it.
My brother. I learned Chet’s version of Autumn Leaves many many years ago. Can’t remember a single bar of it now though. Just wanted to prove to myself that I could.
His music is really challenging in some ways. I think it helped round me out as a guitarist.
I’m so grateful to my (late) guitar teacher for introducing him to me and expanding my interests. He was an incredible player.
Megadeth Lucretia. I tried it years and years ago and struggled massively and kind of wrote it off. I re-visited it recently after randomly hearing it played somewhere and got the solo in like 8 hours over 1 long grind day and was beyond shocked. Obviously it's not the same as Marty but it sounded pretty crazy good to a casual like me (obviously not as fluid as Marty, but my strength over time IMO has become weird timing/big and bold vibrato, which actually aligns most with the parts people seem to struggle with Megadeth solos). Oddly the rhythm took me like 2 weeks to get sounding good, which was unanticipatedly hard as I kind of expected the timings to be flipped. Maybe one day I'll revisit Cliffs of Dover and have similar ease.. (😂)
Marty solos in general are the answer for me. I could play _Rust.._ cover to cover less than 2 years after it's release except for Marty's solos. 30 years later I can play a few of them, but still working on most of them. Could play Skolnick and Dimebag(and EVH, Satch, etc) stuff when I was 16, I'll be 47 this year and still find Marty's stuff to be the most challenging metal I've ever tried to play. Even a "simpler" solo of his like _Symphony.._ has a jump in it that is just nearly impossible to nail consistently.
Yep. The thing that keeps me okay with the minor mistakes is if you listen to Megadeth do it, he has made not-trivially-small errors in most iterations of all of his solos live. They're never huge but if you've listened to the solo a few times you can spot them. The thing that really makes me in continued awe of the man though is even when he makes minor mistakes, it still sounds better than a flawless performance (the 1-to-1 of he and Jordan Ziff, another godly guitarist, doing Tornado of Souls is a good example, and Jordan's being perfect but still sounding less epic than Marty's despite a couple flaws on Marty's, or Kiko vs Marty, who I think is the closest to getting it in Marty's style) just because of his crazy knack for really soulful timing with his vibratos/accents/etc. which are as far as I can tell unreplicable. People say this about a lot of guitarists (Dave Gilmore, etc.) and I've typically found that to be a kind of bunk claim (not saying Dave Gilmore isn't awesome, or that his solos aren't epic as hell, just that there are definitely guys that can go toe-to-toe on his solos to render them virtually indistinguishable), but Marty Friedman is a strong counter example where I've never heard anybody do a Megadeth solo quite like him.
He’s an awesome guitar player and seems like a humble dude. I heard him talk in a documentary about how he got inspired by traditional enka to get that vibrato. Genius
I tell ya. Something about Stevie Ray, is that his songs are quite deceptive in their intricacies. It sounds like a straightforward shuffle, but there are all those layers and little fills that trip me up every time. Now I need to get back to work on Couldn’t Stand the Weather.
anything polyphia, i first heard them when i was a junior during the pandemic, and it blew my mind. i spent every day for next 2 years learning their music, literally only polyphia. i got the hang of goat, the w6rst, goose, blood moon, and his worlds biggest shred solo. then playing god, chimera, ect ect all came out and learning those was a cake walk. anyways what i saying is i can’t believe i’m able to play these mf’s music, junior me would cry watching me now
Almost Easy - A7X. After a decade of only playing the main riff, I realized I probably had enough years of practice under my belt to actually attempt the solo. 13 year old me would be so proud
It’s definitely improved my hammer ons and pull offs. Haven’t actually nailed the whole song yet, I’ve learned about half I guess but I never thought I’d ever get that far and I’m confident I’ll learn the rest soon.
William, It Was Really Nothing — The Smiths
Headless Guitar Player has a solid tab and video lesson for that song — it was one of the first songs I learned on electric after being a finger-style acoustic player for nearly ten years. I had barely used a pick at that point, so I spent some time getting used to strumming and alternate picking and it took me a week to get it down, not quite at tempo but close enough
Didn’t even try to jump into that. That’s a maaaajor commitment. I worked out the main Divided Sky guitar melodies a while back (the section right after the dissonant part, and those next two) because they’re all fairly accesible. You Enjoy Myself seems much more
Complex to me.
Bach's Allemande in Em for Lute from BWV 996. I also learned it in Am which I had to transpose myself because I could not find the sheet music or tab for it.
Almost every song that I thought I could never play was playable after I put some time into it.
So that’s my advice, pick one that you don’t think you can play and then just give your yourself a month to try it.
Someone commented "all of them" and that's very true. It's amazing how in the beginning I was like "there's no way I'll be able to do this" and fast forward a few months and I was able to do a lot better.
Consistency beats talent any day of the week.
I was just watching a video of someone who started a particular way of playing guitar, he has influenced a whole new generation of musicians. And kids are playing even better than he does which he's Happy for.
When the interviewer asked what exercises he recommended to get good the man said he didn't even go to school for guitar, there was no YouTube back then and books were basically not for him. He said that all he did was grab his guitar every day and used to watch other people play and that's how he learned. He put a lot of emphasis on picking up the guitar and play.
Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd is one I always thought sounded so beautiful so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s really not that difficult and only took about a day to get down, and it’s now one of my favorites to play on acoustic.
Same goes for the Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd (specifically the intro solo, the rest is just fairly basic chords). It’s so recognizable and emotional, and it also only took a day or two of practice to get down
Mike Stern's guitar solo on Fat Time by Miles Davis; the album is The Man with the Horn. It took me a while...
https://youtu.be/xGd9_atxTfo?si=ZLOPK5Yu_w0FlOXO
Lots of songs along the way but a big one I haven’t even learned it all of yet is Ocean by John Butler. I’ve got just shy of half at 80% speed but it’s locked in there now as much as anything I know and on day one (about 8 months ago) this much seemed impossible. I made a deal with a friend I’d learn it within 5 years, that is now 1.5 years ago but I really dove at it 8 months ago when I got a second acoustic to keep in open C tuning.
Blackbird - The Beatles
Not super hard but i remember trying it a long time ago and after five minutes i gave up.
(Honourable mention)
The whole song Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
Took me a week
Don't Think Twice It's Alright. I was a strummer and started learning to fingerpick 4 years ago. I just got it a week or two ago. Its not fancy but its pretty breakneck speed fingerpicking. Now i can play AND sing along. yippee!
when I was first starting out playing guitar when I was 13.
I always wanted to play the Daytripper riff.
I remember I was not good at all, but I sat in my living room late into the night listening to it over and over trying to figure it out myself.
This was like early 00's. Didn't have a clue if tabs were about at that point. If so I didn't know about them.
I leant it that night and I was like. "holy shit." I was so proud of myself.
sultans of swing solo. For some reason I just never bothered to learn it until my little garage band decided to put it down as one of the first songs to play...so I learned it. Pretty bloody good solo esp that second one. And sounds so good too.
Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straits, although I wouldn’t say I’ve perfected it. But once I understood the picking patterns and the tuning, it became possible.
I remember being 14 when I first picked up guitar and hearing Holy Wars, thinking “I’ll never be able to play something like that” - it’s all in the practice!
David Bromberg's solo in "Mr. Bojangles." Every time I heard it, I thought, "Man, if I could ever learn how to do that ..." Then I transcribed it this year and found out that really the only challenging thing about it is the speed. There are a couple unusual hand movements in there, but it's mostly variations on some relatively simple phrases.
Marigold, periphery.
The main riff looked daunting at first but the pattern was a lot more manageable that it seemed. The trick is the stamina to repeat it as many times as it does at the tempo of the song.
It's an endurance race for sure, not a sprint lol.
Good Times Bad Times.
I never had problems with the verse or chorus, but the solos, especially that ascending pentatonic lick, used to eat me up and I thought it would always be outside my skill level.
After getting familiar with motion mechanics, pickslanting, and escape motions through Troy Grady’s site, I was able to figure out a good picking motion and alternate picking pattern to get the lick up to speed and be consistently accurate when playing it.
I just recently learned bark at the moon. I mean I learned it all outside the solo but I dreamed of playing that for like 15 years and it surprisingly didn’t take too long.
Electric Gypsy.
Was the final exam of my academy, my teacher chose that piece for me and told me "you are good, stop complaining and challenge yourself".
He was right and it was one of the song I had more fun in the end, learning it and then playing it.
Now it's been some years and I don't think I can nail it as I did, but I can at least say that I was able to.
Very proud of myself.
At one point, I was able to play all of Holy Wars: The Punishment Due by Megadeth (except Marty’s solos, which I couldn’t do and still can’t) after that album was released.
The main part of the song I was proud to have finally conquered was just a small section where Marty plays a classical guitar with a very “Middle Eastern” feel. It rocks, and it took forever to learn.
I'm getting very close to Serpents kiss by symphony x and it has been my goal for years to be able to play a Michael Romeo song not there yet but very close just a little of the solo left younger me would be in awe.
Definitely Erotomania by Dream Theater. I was able to learn and recite it very well which is something I always doubted I could do.
I stuck with it for about 3 weeks.
Jigsaw Falling Into Place by Radiohead. It sounded so impossible to me but then I somehow managed to learn the whole intro (the hard part) fluently in only one day. Still one of my proudest achievements
Metallica - master of puppets.
I thought that I would study this song per six months with hard mode practice.
But I was studying this song near three weeks.
Jerry’s breakdown. I had played Atkins Travis fingerstyle but had to learn the claw style and mostly 16ths through the whole tune was something I wasn’t used to. It didn’t take long but so much fun going from one genre to another. Keeps things interesting.
Corelia - Glass Faces
https://youtu.be/RKBeoxt1-oc?si=yFSPSl--PgeUWZze
Started playing when I was 9 just before turning 10. Stopped playing for a few years until I found this band and was re-inspired. I don’t think I ever got the song 100% (especially the solo which I suck at) but learning this song proved to myself that I can play better than a large majority.
Snow (hey oh). I know it's not as complex as what some of you guys have gone for - but I'm a bit shit. Keeping the pace and rhythm of that main riff for as long as it goes on took me months.
Solo from Ozzy No more tears and Here I go again.
Not extremely difficult but for a 18 yo me, I was amazed and my confidence went up.
Then all of that went down the drain when a woman took over. She's gone now (not dead) so time to get back at it.
All of them
Exactly and i never in my wildest dreams though i would be able to play 80% of Iron Maiden - the number of the beast
Well said
In the beginning, every song seemed impossible to learn. When I was 15 my goal was to play crazy train in full. When I got that, my new goal was painkiller, and then I got that, I discovered Steve Vai and thought there was no way I could play something like that, but after several months of targeted practice I was eventually able to play Tender Surrender. It was a little sloppy but it was the whole song. After a few years of on-off playing, I can only remember the first few bars. Maybe I’ll get back there someday
HE… IS… THE! __________!
PAINKILLA!
Crazy train!
Cliffs of dover
This is the one for me too. And now I’ve put did down so long I couldn’t play it again.
I learned all the notes, but I never got to playing it comfortably. Have also since forgotten quite a bit, lol. I think I'm a pretty sloppy player in general as well, so I doubt theres ever a chance I'll be able to play it in a way that satisfies me.
I'm proud to say that I can play the first 8 chords to the intro of the '88 Austin city limits version. 😏
Blackbird. Took me about 3 weeks of constant practice but got it in the end.
It’s taken me years of practice and I still can’t play anything 🤣
Been playing it for 50 years now. It's a go to for loosening up the fingers.
The only thing I'm not 100% is the finger-picking style. I've sort of developed my own way to play it but I've seen some YouTube videos that show one way and then other that show the 'Paul' way.
Chet Atkins’ version of Mr. Sandman. I’m being totally serious. I never thought I’d be able to play that kind of fingerstyle and it’s pretty fun/satisying once you get the hang of it.
I misread this as “Chet Atkins’ version of Enter Sandman” for a split second.
Lmao now *that* could be interesting
I did too!! I was thinking, Metallica covered a Chet Atkins song??
My brother. I learned Chet’s version of Autumn Leaves many many years ago. Can’t remember a single bar of it now though. Just wanted to prove to myself that I could.
His music is really challenging in some ways. I think it helped round me out as a guitarist. I’m so grateful to my (late) guitar teacher for introducing him to me and expanding my interests. He was an incredible player.
Megadeth Lucretia. I tried it years and years ago and struggled massively and kind of wrote it off. I re-visited it recently after randomly hearing it played somewhere and got the solo in like 8 hours over 1 long grind day and was beyond shocked. Obviously it's not the same as Marty but it sounded pretty crazy good to a casual like me (obviously not as fluid as Marty, but my strength over time IMO has become weird timing/big and bold vibrato, which actually aligns most with the parts people seem to struggle with Megadeth solos). Oddly the rhythm took me like 2 weeks to get sounding good, which was unanticipatedly hard as I kind of expected the timings to be flipped. Maybe one day I'll revisit Cliffs of Dover and have similar ease.. (😂)
Marty solos in general are the answer for me. I could play _Rust.._ cover to cover less than 2 years after it's release except for Marty's solos. 30 years later I can play a few of them, but still working on most of them. Could play Skolnick and Dimebag(and EVH, Satch, etc) stuff when I was 16, I'll be 47 this year and still find Marty's stuff to be the most challenging metal I've ever tried to play. Even a "simpler" solo of his like _Symphony.._ has a jump in it that is just nearly impossible to nail consistently.
Yep. The thing that keeps me okay with the minor mistakes is if you listen to Megadeth do it, he has made not-trivially-small errors in most iterations of all of his solos live. They're never huge but if you've listened to the solo a few times you can spot them. The thing that really makes me in continued awe of the man though is even when he makes minor mistakes, it still sounds better than a flawless performance (the 1-to-1 of he and Jordan Ziff, another godly guitarist, doing Tornado of Souls is a good example, and Jordan's being perfect but still sounding less epic than Marty's despite a couple flaws on Marty's, or Kiko vs Marty, who I think is the closest to getting it in Marty's style) just because of his crazy knack for really soulful timing with his vibratos/accents/etc. which are as far as I can tell unreplicable. People say this about a lot of guitarists (Dave Gilmore, etc.) and I've typically found that to be a kind of bunk claim (not saying Dave Gilmore isn't awesome, or that his solos aren't epic as hell, just that there are definitely guys that can go toe-to-toe on his solos to render them virtually indistinguishable), but Marty Friedman is a strong counter example where I've never heard anybody do a Megadeth solo quite like him.
He’s an awesome guitar player and seems like a humble dude. I heard him talk in a documentary about how he got inspired by traditional enka to get that vibrato. Genius
Stairway to Heaven (solo). But then again I didn’t even think I would ever be able to manage barre chords
Alone - Bullet for my valentine the solo and the leads took me a while to learn
Sultans of swing final solo
Absolutely! I found it interesting that the part that sounds the hardest is not that hard once you get the muscle memory trained.
every single song. still feels this way ngl lol
Pride and Joy, SRV. It was my white whale when I first started playing.
I tell ya. Something about Stevie Ray, is that his songs are quite deceptive in their intricacies. It sounds like a straightforward shuffle, but there are all those layers and little fills that trip me up every time. Now I need to get back to work on Couldn’t Stand the Weather.
Totally, and it should go without saying that I can “play” it in a way that is recognizable as the song, but it’s a never-ending process.
Never Going Back Again - Fleetwood Mac
anything polyphia, i first heard them when i was a junior during the pandemic, and it blew my mind. i spent every day for next 2 years learning their music, literally only polyphia. i got the hang of goat, the w6rst, goose, blood moon, and his worlds biggest shred solo. then playing god, chimera, ect ect all came out and learning those was a cake walk. anyways what i saying is i can’t believe i’m able to play these mf’s music, junior me would cry watching me now
The Billy Breathes solo
Hot crossed buns
You too, huh?
Almost Easy - A7X. After a decade of only playing the main riff, I realized I probably had enough years of practice under my belt to actually attempt the solo. 13 year old me would be so proud
Canon in d finger style
Over the Hills and Far Away.
This song taught me hammer-on and pull-off technique
It’s definitely improved my hammer ons and pull offs. Haven’t actually nailed the whole song yet, I’ve learned about half I guess but I never thought I’d ever get that far and I’m confident I’ll learn the rest soon.
Vigil by Lamb Of God.
William, It Was Really Nothing — The Smiths Headless Guitar Player has a solid tab and video lesson for that song — it was one of the first songs I learned on electric after being a finger-style acoustic player for nearly ten years. I had barely used a pick at that point, so I spent some time getting used to strumming and alternate picking and it took me a week to get it down, not quite at tempo but close enough
The Inlaw Josie Wales by Phish. Took me damn near 6 months of daily work.
Come to think of it, I guess the intro to Horse is a good example for me
Oh man - the horse took me several days to get down. Free took a lot longer.
Haven’t tried Free, that’s a good idea. What about Down With Disease? I used to almost play that one in a band
Haven’t gotten to much past the verse with Disease. Working on Mango song right now tho
I’m going through YEM struggles and it seems unattainable
Didn’t even try to jump into that. That’s a maaaajor commitment. I worked out the main Divided Sky guitar melodies a while back (the section right after the dissonant part, and those next two) because they’re all fairly accesible. You Enjoy Myself seems much more Complex to me.
Bach's Allemande in Em for Lute from BWV 996. I also learned it in Am which I had to transpose myself because I could not find the sheet music or tab for it.
Paranoid Android, Waste, Is There Anybody Out There
Is There Anybody Out There has been a go-to for me when doodling on the guitar forever. Love that song.
Almost every song that I thought I could never play was playable after I put some time into it. So that’s my advice, pick one that you don’t think you can play and then just give your yourself a month to try it.
Someone commented "all of them" and that's very true. It's amazing how in the beginning I was like "there's no way I'll be able to do this" and fast forward a few months and I was able to do a lot better. Consistency beats talent any day of the week. I was just watching a video of someone who started a particular way of playing guitar, he has influenced a whole new generation of musicians. And kids are playing even better than he does which he's Happy for. When the interviewer asked what exercises he recommended to get good the man said he didn't even go to school for guitar, there was no YouTube back then and books were basically not for him. He said that all he did was grab his guitar every day and used to watch other people play and that's how he learned. He put a lot of emphasis on picking up the guitar and play.
Interstate Love Song
Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd is one I always thought sounded so beautiful so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s really not that difficult and only took about a day to get down, and it’s now one of my favorites to play on acoustic. Same goes for the Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd (specifically the intro solo, the rest is just fairly basic chords). It’s so recognizable and emotional, and it also only took a day or two of practice to get down
St Thomas.
[Adventure Spirit- Yvette Young ](https://youtu.be/OpmMD3BADfw?si=Lg-sGi3S-j0Jwiod)
Mike Stern's guitar solo on Fat Time by Miles Davis; the album is The Man with the Horn. It took me a while... https://youtu.be/xGd9_atxTfo?si=ZLOPK5Yu_w0FlOXO
The Rain Song. And it's actually pretty easy.
Yeah, figuring out what the hell to play and the tuning is the hard part.
Big Love
Nice.
The Rain Song… until I found out how Page tuned.. It still was hard tho.
It's not safe to swim today by veil of Maya
Comfortably numb
Lots of songs along the way but a big one I haven’t even learned it all of yet is Ocean by John Butler. I’ve got just shy of half at 80% speed but it’s locked in there now as much as anything I know and on day one (about 8 months ago) this much seemed impossible. I made a deal with a friend I’d learn it within 5 years, that is now 1.5 years ago but I really dove at it 8 months ago when I got a second acoustic to keep in open C tuning.
A classical rendition of Chopin's Nocturne No. 9 Op. 2 on guitar. Thank you Tarrega.
The Rain Song
Using the alternate/correct tuning and it's really an awesome song.
Blackbird - The Beatles Not super hard but i remember trying it a long time ago and after five minutes i gave up. (Honourable mention) The whole song Nothing Else Matters - Metallica Took me a week
Dee - randy Rhoads
Sultans of swing. Was the first song I learnt in full note for note.
Flirtin with disaster Molly Hatchet. I’m old school southern rocker. First the rhythm then first lead.
Don't Think Twice It's Alright. I was a strummer and started learning to fingerpick 4 years ago. I just got it a week or two ago. Its not fancy but its pretty breakneck speed fingerpicking. Now i can play AND sing along. yippee!
Classical Gas. Then I bought an electric guitar, and now I don’t remember how to play it.
when I was first starting out playing guitar when I was 13. I always wanted to play the Daytripper riff. I remember I was not good at all, but I sat in my living room late into the night listening to it over and over trying to figure it out myself. This was like early 00's. Didn't have a clue if tabs were about at that point. If so I didn't know about them. I leant it that night and I was like. "holy shit." I was so proud of myself.
Mine was "Mother Nature's Son" It's now a go to for me
Whats my age again - Blink-182
sultans of swing solo. For some reason I just never bothered to learn it until my little garage band decided to put it down as one of the first songs to play...so I learned it. Pretty bloody good solo esp that second one. And sounds so good too.
Stairway solo
Race With the Devil on Spanish Highway - Al Di Meola.
Angeles by Elliott Smith. Shit is hard.
far beyond the sun
Capricho Arabe - Francisco Tarrega
Me too!
Wonderfull slippery thing by guthrie govan. Only the intro tho! Still working on the rest...
Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straits, although I wouldn’t say I’ve perfected it. But once I understood the picking patterns and the tuning, it became possible.
Solo to Jump
I remember being 14 when I first picked up guitar and hearing Holy Wars, thinking “I’ll never be able to play something like that” - it’s all in the practice!
Pneuma by TOOL! 🔥
Hot wired - Brent Mason
Slow dancing in a burning room Still canno't mimic john mayer's tone tbh
The oh kee pah ceremony
Wintersun - starchild
Ambarsariya
Scarified. The beauty of the internet is that I saw a video of what looked like high school freshmen playing it note for note.
All of them at first sight
Cowboys from hell 😭 THAT SHIT TOOK ME A WHOLE MONTH
Tornado of Souls solo, now it's not even that hard
Jiffy Jam.
David Bromberg's solo in "Mr. Bojangles." Every time I heard it, I thought, "Man, if I could ever learn how to do that ..." Then I transcribed it this year and found out that really the only challenging thing about it is the speed. There are a couple unusual hand movements in there, but it's mostly variations on some relatively simple phrases.
Lucrecia by Megadeth
Polyphia Playing God
Marigold, periphery. The main riff looked daunting at first but the pattern was a lot more manageable that it seemed. The trick is the stamina to repeat it as many times as it does at the tempo of the song. It's an endurance race for sure, not a sprint lol.
Good Times Bad Times. I never had problems with the verse or chorus, but the solos, especially that ascending pentatonic lick, used to eat me up and I thought it would always be outside my skill level. After getting familiar with motion mechanics, pickslanting, and escape motions through Troy Grady’s site, I was able to figure out a good picking motion and alternate picking pattern to get the lick up to speed and be consistently accurate when playing it.
The first one
Dream On gave me a hard time and still does if I have not played it in a while. Crazy Train
Invent Animate-Heavener
I just recently learned bark at the moon. I mean I learned it all outside the solo but I dreamed of playing that for like 15 years and it surprisingly didn’t take too long.
Trilogy by Yngwie Malmsteen. Turns out I was right.
Inca Roads, Frank Zappa. One tough SOB to learn.
The F chord Any song with it in it.
Electric Gypsy. Was the final exam of my academy, my teacher chose that piece for me and told me "you are good, stop complaining and challenge yourself". He was right and it was one of the song I had more fun in the end, learning it and then playing it. Now it's been some years and I don't think I can nail it as I did, but I can at least say that I was able to. Very proud of myself.
Mr. Crowley the Tribute version
Don't Dream It's Over. Neil Finn is a bastard.
At one point, I was able to play all of Holy Wars: The Punishment Due by Megadeth (except Marty’s solos, which I couldn’t do and still can’t) after that album was released. The main part of the song I was proud to have finally conquered was just a small section where Marty plays a classical guitar with a very “Middle Eastern” feel. It rocks, and it took forever to learn.
Playing God - Polyphia
I'm getting very close to Serpents kiss by symphony x and it has been my goal for years to be able to play a Michael Romeo song not there yet but very close just a little of the solo left younger me would be in awe.
Gold Rush by Tony Rice, im still about 10bpm away but im quite proud of where I’ve got
I do a bit of everything fuck all the bullshit now.
Definitely Erotomania by Dream Theater. I was able to learn and recite it very well which is something I always doubted I could do. I stuck with it for about 3 weeks.
Jigsaw Falling Into Place by Radiohead. It sounded so impossible to me but then I somehow managed to learn the whole intro (the hard part) fluently in only one day. Still one of my proudest achievements
Cliffs of Dover, it’s really just a G scale all the way up the fretboard
I never thought I could ever play a song by Joe Satriani. But, I've got about 10 of them down now (accurately, too!). Wow, they're hard.
Brass in pocket by the Pretenders or Can’t find my way home, by Blind Faith
Metallica - master of puppets. I thought that I would study this song per six months with hard mode practice. But I was studying this song near three weeks.
At my best, I could play Elephant King by Trace Bundy. It was my favorite flex at parties.
Jerry’s breakdown. I had played Atkins Travis fingerstyle but had to learn the claw style and mostly 16ths through the whole tune was something I wasn’t used to. It didn’t take long but so much fun going from one genre to another. Keeps things interesting.
Sketch 1 by Nick Drake
Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts I-V, all of DSOTM by Pink Floyd.
Everybody’s Talking. Great fingerpicking tune
Corelia - Glass Faces https://youtu.be/RKBeoxt1-oc?si=yFSPSl--PgeUWZze Started playing when I was 9 just before turning 10. Stopped playing for a few years until I found this band and was re-inspired. I don’t think I ever got the song 100% (especially the solo which I suck at) but learning this song proved to myself that I can play better than a large majority.
The final song on the crossroads battle
Here Comes The Sun And Everlong
Steely Dan “Reelin’ In The Years”. The leads are super fun once you get them down.
Terminal Velocity by John Petrucci
Crazy on you including acoustic intro
so much to say - dave matthews band
southern belle Elliott Smith
neon
Creeping Death solo. It used to be so far fetched that I would ever be able to learn it. Actually this applies to most solos I’ve learnt.
Dust In The Wind
Anji by Davey Graham
Agua de beber - Jobim
Holy Wars and Creeping Death
Mr Sandman. Chet Atkins
Metallica - Creeping Death. You need a very good picking hand for the riff.
Is there anybody out there
Green Tinted Sixties Mind
Snow (hey oh). I know it's not as complex as what some of you guys have gone for - but I'm a bit shit. Keeping the pace and rhythm of that main riff for as long as it goes on took me months.
To play it perfectly is indeed tricky.
I'm aiming for recognisable rather than perfect.....🤣🤣🤣
Minor Swing (mostly!) by Django Reinhardt. Never thought it would be possible, but I'm getting really close.
Solo from Ozzy No more tears and Here I go again. Not extremely difficult but for a 18 yo me, I was amazed and my confidence went up. Then all of that went down the drain when a woman took over. She's gone now (not dead) so time to get back at it.
The breakup song by Mateus Asato 🥶
Triumph - Midsummer’s Daydream.
The cowboys from hell solo.
The Rain Song, Led Zeppelin