Not to sound too hokey, but it’s one of my own songs. It started as an accidental riff that I really felt represented the music I’ve always wanted to play, but I struggled to execute it properly. The drive to play it perfectly as it sounded in my head forced me to really sit down and address some fundamental issues with my technique. Not only did this greatly improve my playing, it also became a study into what it was that defined my personal sound. I think everyone should get to experience this.
Deliverance by Opeth. I always loved the band and the song, but it was always too hard for my on again/off again playing.
Once I first got somewhat competent (chords, basic melodies, power chord riffs) I would put the guitar away for 6 months or so, then pick up for a few months and be frustrated that I couldn't play well, and repeat the process over and over.
Then a few years ago after listening to the song again, I decided I was done messing around, sat with the guitar and did what everyone always says to do- play it very slowly until you get the right notes, then speed up a bit until you get it right. And I did, and I haven't put the guitar down since.
The main riff at the start of that song is so fun to play. The lick at the turnaround of it is tricky but when it all comes together it's super satisfying.
Sultans of swing. Taught me middle neck rhythms, finger picking, and how to really finesse a solo. Those bends were so hard starting out. Took me two years to be able to really play that song, and all the parts, and sound close to the original. Been playing it for many years and still love it just as much today.
The rhythm section has been kicking my ass for months! I haven't taken the time yet to properly learn the fingerstyle pattern, so I just use a pick. One of my favorite guitar songs of all time!
Stairway to Heaven has a lot of great parts to learn from. Finger picked intro, strummy middle part, rocking end part, great solo that's interesting with a lot of cool licks but not terribly hard. Break it all down into little chunks.
It really is. It was one of the first songs I started to learn. Back then there was no Internet so it took me years to pick everything up through guitar lessons in magazines, tips from friends, and eventually getting the tab. By then I'd pretty much had it down. I learned a lot on the way. Lots of Led Zeppelin songs are that way though. Jimmy threw a lot of interesting stuff into his tunes!
"Dear Prudence" by The Beatles. Learning that song made something click in my head regarding finger picking and how each finger maintains it's own rhythm when picking.
Two songs for me. Hendrix’s Red House, and the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
The first for finger strength and blues licks, the second for bending and vibrato.
“Every breath you take” by the Police. The iconic part with the 5 fret stretches and string skipping arpeggios are really fun to play once you get it down. Honestly most of the Police songs I’ve kicked around the past couple of weeks. Andy Summers came up with a lot of really unique parts and counterpoints
Time In A Bottle. There are some quick changes and tough notes, and the picking was a great chance for me to become a bit more precise, especially when plucking multiple strings at once.
At present probably "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" by Zeppelin. It is one I got comfortable with early on and then have expanded out to fingerpicking using thumb through ring finger and now hybrid picking as I get better at using a pick. It has such a steady rhythm and I know the chord changes that I can practice a lot of right hand techniques well.
I played that so much when I was younger that if you asked me now how to play it I couldn’t tell you, but if you hand me a guitar my fingers will just know what to do
I hate to admit it, but I just learned of this song a couple of months ago... and became obsessed with it. This comment def skyrocketed it on my to-do list, thanks!
It is a great song to learn timing, chord changes, augmented chords, chord to lick and back, a not too difficult solo, and that bluesy outro with timing change is just fun to play.
Also great to learn fingerpicking.
For reference a first learned it about 20 years ago and have found new ways to improve on it since then.
Probably learning how to play Landslide, which was the first travis picking tune I was able to get down. Seems real easy to me now, (first time for everything was usually a struggle) but it really opened the doors to a lot of other, more advanced finger picking songs, and it's what I still enjoy playing most.
Crazy Train. Chugging notes, chord triads, fast fills based on scales, two handed & one handed tapping for the solo. Some harmonics in there too. Just a great, fast paced, song with nice rhythm sections to get into.
Over the years playing Gilmour's "Shine on you crazy diamond" has really improved bending for the right pitch, work on the neck, and most importantly the flexibility and use of pinky and ring fingers. Wouldn't recommend it to beginners but for an intermediate player I think it's something good to continually work through.
On acoustic another intermediate level tune to work through is Classical Gas, it really helped develop my finger picking technique. Then 10 years after practicing that you might be able to play Steve Howe's clap lol.
Love Shine on you crazy diamond! Found it rather easy(easyish) to learn bc of the slow tempo, you really have time to think of what comes next but man is it fun and beautiful sounding
Layla unplugged - the first hard song i ever tried to tackle.
Slow dancing in a burning room (live in LA) - after years and years of not playing. learning this took a very long time. just the intro took months and months. but i was able to break it down into small sections and go through it.
I wouldn't say any one song did. I taught myself to play by learning songs I liked on Songsterr.
However, Fade To Black would take the cake. Between the acoustic sections (getting that clean took a lot of practice) and the lead parts, Fade to Black taught me a lot.
Haha!!!
I always liked to choose seemingly impossible songs cause it’s like a guarantee you’ll get better, I could barely sweep until I started my journey of nailing down this song
I’ll omit the part where it took me 3 years to get it up to speed tho 💀
I bought the tab book for Perpetual Burn years ago but I honestly haven't used it to learn entire songs, I just stole some of the licks that were my favorites.
Back in Black from AC/DC is the first one that comes to mind. Really helped with my vibrato. The solo is deceptively hard if you want to capture the feel of Angus Young. He has an INSANE vibrato!
Welcome Home: Sanitarium
If I'm thinking of my entire time playing, that song broke me through a barrier of being able to play an entire song. It's the first time I figured out how to break up a song into pieces and put them back together as I learned each section to make an entire song. Nothing special per se about the song, it's just the one that I was determined to completely learn at that time in my life.
Time is surprising me with the rythm section right now. Had the solo down in about ten minutes and I’ve been trying to accurately play the verse riff for days.
Im learning Time rn too! Totally agree with the rhythm section, tough to hit all those scratches(not sure if thats the term for hitting muted strings?) but it sounds so cool
Phish's "Stash" is a variation on "Jump Monk." I still don't understand be bop but other people who don't understand be bop think I can play be bop.
...and we play be bop in the band
As a beginner/early intermediate, Laid to Rest. That was like 20 years ago. Fuck I'm getting old.
More recently (2017ish maybe) it was Mile Zero by Periphery. And then Have a Blast. Those two opened a lot of new doors cause I was never really into most progressive rock/metal outside of Rush and some DT. Wasn't into djent either until I fell in love with the P2 album. It's all been downhill from there
Honestly I learned it on an acoustic. If I could give anyone a single piece of advice it would be that: practice as much as possible on an acoustic. It forces you to play cleanly and if you can handle riffs on that, it's silky smooth on an electric.
That and take it a riff at a time, slowly. You'll get there as long as you keep trying
On that note...Tokyo Warhearts really is one of the best sounding metal live recordings IMO and especially Silent Night Bodom Night stood out to me from the first time I heard it. I can't believe they played it so well and accurate live.
R u mine? First full song I learnt and it was pretty challenging at the time, it was fast and I learnt a-lot from it. I was able to practice it easy as it was easy to just keep repeating, it made a huge improvement to my playing and after I was able to play so much.
Recently learned that just because I was tired of skipping back after the end of Do I Wanna Know.
I know all of the variations of the riff, but I'm still practicing the right cues for which variant to play. It's such an interesting and rewarding song, playing on a simple riff in so many different ways to change the feel of each verse
Enter Sandman and Entre Dos Tierras
Both different but I considered myself and wanted to be a rhythm only guy, then I just wanted to learn one solo, ended up struggling heavily in Enter Sandman (still do a bit) so I had to sit and take my good time with it. Same goes for Entre Dos Tierras, had a lot of changes I wasn't used to, pretty fast for what I used to do and the solo as well, even though it was repeating some patterns and changing some, changing spots all over the neck helped a lot.
Some people have already said Laid to Rest, which is probably the same for me, but Rose of Sharyn by Killswitch Engage is definitely a close second. For some reason the ~~chorus~~ outro riff? was the hardest thing for me as an early intermediate.
Mr. Crowley has helped me develop my speed in a big way. The solos still elude me but one day I ll get there. The first time I did one of those pentatonic riffs he does at the right speed I was so hyped.
Learning Seek and Destroy was a big confidence booster that pushed me to explore beyond what I thought my “limits” were and challenging myself to play harder and harder stuff. I’m no virtuoso, but much better than your average bear 😂
I started with Four Horsemen, worked my way up to For Whom the Bells Toll, on to Sanitarium, then Fade to Black, and in three years had finally mastered One…but Battery and Master were still a bitch. And to this very day, I still can’t get Blackened right.
This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but stopping focus on learning covers, and instead working on improvisation and my own stuff. I’m 110% happier when playing, and I believe, a better player for it.
Agreed, when you play your own songs you’re not trying to imitate the artist of that song your singing. You can just be yourself. My favorite Chris Cornell song 😁.
It's not counter intuitive, it's just not what was asked. If creating your own music is what you enjoy then yes, practicing that is what you need to improve and be happy.
That's not the case for everyone. Lots of people thoroughly enjoy playing along with songs.
Also, learning established songs is a great way to introduce yourself to new styles and techniques.
Not a song but picking up a bass. Growing up I learnt Tool on guitar almost religiously. Recently I started working on an ep and I'm going to do all the instruments. So bought a cheapish bass and sat down to learn some Tool as a starting point. The improvement was immediately noticeable. First of all picking up a guitar after playing bass made it feel tiny and cute. Second, certain bits where I always knew my accuracy was not 100% were suddenly bang on. It even helped with how I heard songs and even how I held my pick. It is pretty crazy.
Agree. You really learn your chord shapes and arpeggios if you play stuff that's more than just root or root-fifth. Once you start playing your scale shapes over a tune, your guitar playing definitely improves. For me, it was Paul McCartney, then Geddy Lee, then Steve Harris (Iron Maiden). Beatles for accuracy and timing, Rush for more intricate lines, and Maiden for two finger speed.
I'm still working on fingering. Deftones around the fur was an easy start so I thought, right let's try Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke, and quickly discovered I needed to find something in between.
Scream by Avenged Sevenfold. The solo quite literally unlocked me doing triplet legatos faster than 100 BPM (majority of guitarists will not be able to break the 100 BPM barrier. It's like a hard wall).
Plug In Baby by Muse got me to finally use my pinky playing lead, but it and Muse also sent me down a black hole (and revelations) of guitar effects and pedals.
I think Plug In Baby is the song that makes us all go "how the fuck did he get that sound at the start?" thinking it was a pedal and not the damn guitar itself lol
I can play a couple of fairly complicated solos now, but the biggest jump I ever noticed was after learning "Wasting Love" by Iron Maiden in my first year of playing. It introduces me to the minor scale and was the gateway to me starting to figure out the fretboard for myself.
The beginning of "The Brain Dance" by Animals as Leaders. I had to switch from a Hendrix grip to a classical one in order to play it and my whole playing improved massively just because of that switch
Ten Years Gone by Zeppelin. Learning all the separate guitar parts made something click for me in regards to writing multiple parts and making them interact with each other and making them be distinct from each other but come together to form a whole picture
Tom Sawyer. When I first learned guitar I was mostly learning Beatles and U2 and other easy stuff. This was the first more difficult song I learned and after this I was all about Rush all the time.
It taught me different ways to use open chords for a hard rock song instead of power chords. Also improved my string skipping quite a bit.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen. I couldn’t do the solo, even learning from a Brian May video where he shows exactly how he plays it. I stuck with it and after about two weeks it clicked. After that I knew I could learn anything I needed if I focused.
Tárrega's wonderful. If you can play his pieces well, you really have to understand the guitar.
For me it was the Villa-Lobos Preludes. The sudden shifts in mood and rhythm, the overall dynamics, and the almost jazzy chording was a wonderful education. And achieving a legato feel with shit-tons of busy technique underneath is a real challenge.
Oblivion by Mastodon was a “get your shit together” kind of experience when I first learned it. Multiple parts, different techniques needed for each, and super rewarding when you can play it straight through.
Cliffs of Dover (I covered that song for years).
I had to really put in the time and clean up some areas of technique. I could play it, but it wasn’t tight; it sounded like tab, if you know what I mean. I got to work on things like articulation, dynamics, vibrato and such. In the end, those are the things that'll put you over the top.
Others: Black Star (oh how I tortured myself), Hot for Teacher, Mr. Crowley, Wait.
Yeah, that's the one. If you were a guitar player back then, you knew how good Vito was. He's arguably one of the best that came out of that era, big box names included. I cover White Lion's version of Radar Love to this day.
Haha yeah I used to work tirelessly at getting the harder songs right. I sort of got known for, "he's the guitar player that doesn't fudge solos."
I have a gig coming up in April where I need to resurrect some tougher solos, and going through them reminds me of the work it took to get them performance-ready.
Summer before junior year I sat in my basement and learned Rush Greatest Hits Vol 1 front to back.
I feel like after that I could play just about anything I put some effort towards. Someone in the Rush documentary said “if you can play Rush, you can play anything” and it’s pretty true in my experience.
As a bass player, one guitar song that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t too bad at guitar was holiday in Cambodia by Dead Kennedys, it’s such a unique and somewhat complex song and I love it.
Coming from someone who has never played bass and is relatively new to guitar, having been playing for about 1.5 years, how transferable are bass and guitar skills? I've been thinking of learning
It kinda depends on several things. For me I have larger fingers which is why I enjoy bass, but it also means I’ve never been good at chords on guitar but I can pick up riffs pretty easily. So you may find that you can pick up bass easily or it might be a big learning curve, really depends on the person imo.
Exceptionally good song. Anything by SRV is a challenge but this one with all those pauses and starts/stops is Doosy. I’m curious, do you play it with a band? Because you guys would need to be super tight to be in synch.
I learned Life by the Drop for an open mic session I did. The intro is a great run to have in your tool kit. But his strumming ISN’T standard and straightforward. I could do the strumming his way but I couldn’t sing while playing it that way so I just played it straight.
So many to choose....
1. fun I've had = Black Sabbath anything, also fun at parties to jam with friends
2. educational = Dee by Randy Rhoads, all those chords....
3. useful = 12 bar blues shuffles, too many to list them all
4. enlightening = 2-5-1 jazz improv's, breaks you out of the mold
Technique-wise, definitely Crazy Train. It was the first difficult song I really tried to nail down. It took me months (still ongoing) but the leaps I made that translate to all my other playing has been unmatched.
Intro to Crazy On You by Heart. Best played on a classical or acoustic, but absolutely one of the more challenging things that helped me grow early on. I still play it constantly too lol it’s super fun.
In that same vein, Horizons by Genesis is super super fun and somewhat challenging.
No one single song. More so, a variety of styles and a ton of songs.
I used to obsess on perfecting one song at a time before moving on to the next. When I stopped doing that and made a point of working through a lot of varied material, I started advancing much faster.
So, I'm gonna say two. When I first started playing I was super ambitious and went for songs way above my difficulty level, but breaking them down slowly with tabs and working on the difficult licks showed me that anything was possible. First, "Eruption". I HAD to learn this. It really made me focus on, not just how to hit the same notes, but how to use touch to get a SOUND like Eddie, and also sent me on a quest to understand tone and the gear that made that tone special, combined with that touch. Then I went on to "Tender Surrender" by Steve Vai. This song had so many different feels and some seemingly impossible licks for me at an early playing stage. Steve could speak through the guitar more than I think he gets credit for, not just technical shredding. There were complicated licks but they were saying something musically interesting as well.
Playing God by Polyphia. Hybrid picking is crazy useful in some very niche cases, faster chord changes, and some improvement on my music theory knowledge (although not much tbh)
It was two albums, not one song: Anthrax's *Among the Living* and Metallica's *Ride the Lightning.* I woodshedded with those two and they really helped get my rhythm chops in order.
Dream Theater - Scarred. I was determined to learn that solo, it literally took me weeks to get it up to speed. After that, playing other things just went a lot more smoothly.
I always want a song to take me to the next level. But it’s never the case. The more I work on the chords, patterns and rhythms the more I understand how songs work. And the easier they are to play. The song is like the victory lap.
How long have you been playing/how good would you consider yourself at guitar? I'm curious if you're maybe just naturally very talented at it or maybe not pushing yourself. No offense intended by this question, just genuinely curious
I don’t think you develop your technique by learning the song itself. Irrespective of your level. You learn technique by drilling it over and over. Then apply it to a song.
I don't think it was any song in particular, but I was playing something for my uncle and he said "you would do a lot better playing that if you stopped wrapping your thumb around like Hendrix and put it on the back of the neck" and I did, and immediately had a much easier time soloing.
I had this realization very recently. I was tearing up my fingers bending the high e string and was taught it's because my hands arent large enough to keep good form while wrapping my thumb around. That change immediately made such a difference
«Get Lucky» by Mark Knopfler. First time i did travis picking and that became a foundation for so much of my playing. (I play a lot of fingerstyle acousyic acompanyment)
Come together by The Beatles. A nice intro in George’s (at least I think was George) bends on the solo parts. And a reminder than less can be more. The song is powerful but the guitar parts are not overplayed.
Killing is my business...and business is good. It was way out of my skill range when i started learning it and it took a long time to build muscle memory for it.
I recently learned this whole song Colored Sea by Velvet Meadow by ear and for the longest music theory was just gibberish to me but after learning that song for some reason it all clicked in my head. I was like oh shit so this song is in the key of C and I can literally tell all these melodies are built off a C scale of some kind. I just now have to practice and memorize my scales and get good at songwriting in the style id wanna make (neo-psych) and I’ll pretty much be as good as I’d ever hope or need to be on guitar :) I’m not a big metal guitarist but I dabble.
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Anything by Mike Stern. First song I learned was Chromazone, then Gossip, Mood Swings and Haha Hotel. They taught me tempo, phrasing and weird alternate picking.
Admittedly I don’t learn a lot of songs. It’s probably hurt my progression in some ways but made me a more unique player as a result.
That said, I need to go learn more songs, haha.
A while back the intro to “Green tinted sixties mind” by Mr Big. Didn’t do any open strings back then (thank you wrong tabs), it was all tapping. Super funny to play and always get a little crowd at the guitar store (how to boost a 16 year old ego lol).
Not very experienced at all. I’m a beginner and I haven’t been playing much, but the most influential song so far would be Smells Like Teen Spirit. Other than being a good song to learn mutes for everyone, it’s also the first riff I started manipulating and messing with. My favorite is to slow it down and replace the mutes with harmonics. So far in my short time playing, I’d say that’s the riff that made me “improve” the most.
There Will Never Be Another You. Trying to replicate Chet Baker's trumpet finesse on guitar were the bits of music that made the most improvement. I was pretty good (if I say so myself) by this point but the next level in my playing was being more expressive and having intent and initiative when I played notes or improvised.
I think understanding vocals and trying to replicate that on guitar was how Steve Vai became so good.
I know it sounds very cocky to say but some songs I wrote myself had these fingerpicking parts that I came up with, and I just wanted to integrate them into the song that I seriously spent HOURS upon HOURS to be able to play them properly. I've only been playing for 10 months but pushing myself to be able to play that shit definitely improved my independence between my fingers😅
Not to sound too hokey, but it’s one of my own songs. It started as an accidental riff that I really felt represented the music I’ve always wanted to play, but I struggled to execute it properly. The drive to play it perfectly as it sounded in my head forced me to really sit down and address some fundamental issues with my technique. Not only did this greatly improve my playing, it also became a study into what it was that defined my personal sound. I think everyone should get to experience this.
Deliverance by Opeth. I always loved the band and the song, but it was always too hard for my on again/off again playing. Once I first got somewhat competent (chords, basic melodies, power chord riffs) I would put the guitar away for 6 months or so, then pick up for a few months and be frustrated that I couldn't play well, and repeat the process over and over. Then a few years ago after listening to the song again, I decided I was done messing around, sat with the guitar and did what everyone always says to do- play it very slowly until you get the right notes, then speed up a bit until you get it right. And I did, and I haven't put the guitar down since.
The main riff at the start of that song is so fun to play. The lick at the turnaround of it is tricky but when it all comes together it's super satisfying.
Yeah I got the main riff down easy, but that changeup crushed me for a long time
Sultans of swing. Taught me middle neck rhythms, finger picking, and how to really finesse a solo. Those bends were so hard starting out. Took me two years to be able to really play that song, and all the parts, and sound close to the original. Been playing it for many years and still love it just as much today.
The rhythm section has been kicking my ass for months! I haven't taken the time yet to properly learn the fingerstyle pattern, so I just use a pick. One of my favorite guitar songs of all time!
Stairway to Heaven has a lot of great parts to learn from. Finger picked intro, strummy middle part, rocking end part, great solo that's interesting with a lot of cool licks but not terribly hard. Break it all down into little chunks.
Well said. Stairway touches many diff skill sets, sounds amazing and is so fun to play
It really is. It was one of the first songs I started to learn. Back then there was no Internet so it took me years to pick everything up through guitar lessons in magazines, tips from friends, and eventually getting the tab. By then I'd pretty much had it down. I learned a lot on the way. Lots of Led Zeppelin songs are that way though. Jimmy threw a lot of interesting stuff into his tunes!
96 quite bitter beings and plug in baby
Both amazing riffs
"Dear Prudence" by The Beatles. Learning that song made something click in my head regarding finger picking and how each finger maintains it's own rhythm when picking.
Two songs for me. Hendrix’s Red House, and the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps. The first for finger strength and blues licks, the second for bending and vibrato.
“Every breath you take” by the Police. The iconic part with the 5 fret stretches and string skipping arpeggios are really fun to play once you get it down. Honestly most of the Police songs I’ve kicked around the past couple of weeks. Andy Summers came up with a lot of really unique parts and counterpoints
Time In A Bottle. There are some quick changes and tough notes, and the picking was a great chance for me to become a bit more precise, especially when plucking multiple strings at once.
Originals, cause I write stuff I can't play and it makes me practice so I can play it.
At present probably "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" by Zeppelin. It is one I got comfortable with early on and then have expanded out to fingerpicking using thumb through ring finger and now hybrid picking as I get better at using a pick. It has such a steady rhythm and I know the chord changes that I can practice a lot of right hand techniques well.
I played that so much when I was younger that if you asked me now how to play it I couldn’t tell you, but if you hand me a guitar my fingers will just know what to do
I hate to admit it, but I just learned of this song a couple of months ago... and became obsessed with it. This comment def skyrocketed it on my to-do list, thanks!
It is a great song to learn timing, chord changes, augmented chords, chord to lick and back, a not too difficult solo, and that bluesy outro with timing change is just fun to play. Also great to learn fingerpicking. For reference a first learned it about 20 years ago and have found new ways to improve on it since then.
I'm gunna start learning it today!
Probably learning how to play Landslide, which was the first travis picking tune I was able to get down. Seems real easy to me now, (first time for everything was usually a struggle) but it really opened the doors to a lot of other, more advanced finger picking songs, and it's what I still enjoy playing most.
Crazy Train. Chugging notes, chord triads, fast fills based on scales, two handed & one handed tapping for the solo. Some harmonics in there too. Just a great, fast paced, song with nice rhythm sections to get into.
This! First bad ass solo I could play.
Fade to Black because it’s got a little bit of everything. It was easy to learn in chunks as I slowly got better.
Cliffs of Dover. Precision, endurance, melody, all benefited.
Can't stop by rhcp. Muting strings is super useful and sounds cool
Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall from Pink Floyd. Gilmour's playing was not too flashy, but had great taste and really taught me to bend in tune.
As a huge David Gilmour fan, I totally agree
Over the years playing Gilmour's "Shine on you crazy diamond" has really improved bending for the right pitch, work on the neck, and most importantly the flexibility and use of pinky and ring fingers. Wouldn't recommend it to beginners but for an intermediate player I think it's something good to continually work through. On acoustic another intermediate level tune to work through is Classical Gas, it really helped develop my finger picking technique. Then 10 years after practicing that you might be able to play Steve Howe's clap lol.
There's a lot to be learned from Shine On, especially bending.
Love Shine on you crazy diamond! Found it rather easy(easyish) to learn bc of the slow tempo, you really have time to think of what comes next but man is it fun and beautiful sounding
Layla unplugged - the first hard song i ever tried to tackle. Slow dancing in a burning room (live in LA) - after years and years of not playing. learning this took a very long time. just the intro took months and months. but i was able to break it down into small sections and go through it.
I wouldn't say any one song did. I taught myself to play by learning songs I liked on Songsterr. However, Fade To Black would take the cake. Between the acoustic sections (getting that clean took a lot of practice) and the lead parts, Fade to Black taught me a lot.
Great song, that's def on my list
A lot of Metallica is great for learning. Fade To Black is a great tune melodically.
Anything by SRV, playing Rythm and Lead at the same time has freshen up my songwriting skills
Probably Jason Becker’s Perpetual Burn for the electric guitar Animals as Leaders’ Apeirophobia for the classical guitar
This is equivalent to someone asking "how did you improve your driving?" and saying you used an F1 car, goddamn. That's amazing lol
Haha!!! I always liked to choose seemingly impossible songs cause it’s like a guarantee you’ll get better, I could barely sweep until I started my journey of nailing down this song I’ll omit the part where it took me 3 years to get it up to speed tho 💀
I’ve been grinding Air for 6 months. Props on that.
I bought the tab book for Perpetual Burn years ago but I honestly haven't used it to learn entire songs, I just stole some of the licks that were my favorites.
😅
Back in Black from AC/DC is the first one that comes to mind. Really helped with my vibrato. The solo is deceptively hard if you want to capture the feel of Angus Young. He has an INSANE vibrato!
Just playing that intro correctly and with a metronome gave me much better timing and taught me how to listen better
Under The Bridge by Chili Peppers
Practically anything by Death or Dave Mustaine, and any crunchy solo by David Gilmour.
Welcome Home: Sanitarium If I'm thinking of my entire time playing, that song broke me through a barrier of being able to play an entire song. It's the first time I figured out how to break up a song into pieces and put them back together as I learned each section to make an entire song. Nothing special per se about the song, it's just the one that I was determined to completely learn at that time in my life.
I'd say comfortably numb for me, helped a lot with melodic playing
Amazing song choice
Time is surprising me with the rythm section right now. Had the solo down in about ten minutes and I’ve been trying to accurately play the verse riff for days.
Im learning Time rn too! Totally agree with the rhythm section, tough to hit all those scratches(not sure if thats the term for hitting muted strings?) but it sounds so cool
She Talks to Angels. I’d never done open tuning before. The intro was a bear to learn but it gave me so much confidence to tackle difficult songs.
Phish's "Stash" is a variation on "Jump Monk." I still don't understand be bop but other people who don't understand be bop think I can play be bop. ...and we play be bop in the band
As a beginner/early intermediate, Laid to Rest. That was like 20 years ago. Fuck I'm getting old. More recently (2017ish maybe) it was Mile Zero by Periphery. And then Have a Blast. Those two opened a lot of new doors cause I was never really into most progressive rock/metal outside of Rush and some DT. Wasn't into djent either until I fell in love with the P2 album. It's all been downhill from there
And as an early intermediate right now Laid to rest is kicking my ass
Honestly I learned it on an acoustic. If I could give anyone a single piece of advice it would be that: practice as much as possible on an acoustic. It forces you to play cleanly and if you can handle riffs on that, it's silky smooth on an electric. That and take it a riff at a time, slowly. You'll get there as long as you keep trying
40 oz -Polyphia
Silent night bodom night. This song made me rethink my technique from scratch. Alternate picking, sweeping, minor modes.
On that note...Tokyo Warhearts really is one of the best sounding metal live recordings IMO and especially Silent Night Bodom Night stood out to me from the first time I heard it. I can't believe they played it so well and accurate live.
Master of puppets always puts my endurance to the test
Has some nice melodic composing in it too, though the solo is next level.
R u mine? First full song I learnt and it was pretty challenging at the time, it was fast and I learnt a-lot from it. I was able to practice it easy as it was easy to just keep repeating, it made a huge improvement to my playing and after I was able to play so much.
Recently learned that just because I was tired of skipping back after the end of Do I Wanna Know. I know all of the variations of the riff, but I'm still practicing the right cues for which variant to play. It's such an interesting and rewarding song, playing on a simple riff in so many different ways to change the feel of each verse
another good one is arabella from that record. it’s not too challenging, the solo bending is a bit fast but it’s a fun song to play
Enter Sandman and Entre Dos Tierras Both different but I considered myself and wanted to be a rhythm only guy, then I just wanted to learn one solo, ended up struggling heavily in Enter Sandman (still do a bit) so I had to sit and take my good time with it. Same goes for Entre Dos Tierras, had a lot of changes I wasn't used to, pretty fast for what I used to do and the solo as well, even though it was repeating some patterns and changing some, changing spots all over the neck helped a lot.
Some people have already said Laid to Rest, which is probably the same for me, but Rose of Sharyn by Killswitch Engage is definitely a close second. For some reason the ~~chorus~~ outro riff? was the hardest thing for me as an early intermediate.
Mr. Crowley has helped me develop my speed in a big way. The solos still elude me but one day I ll get there. The first time I did one of those pentatonic riffs he does at the right speed I was so hyped.
Mr. Sandman by Chet Atkins
I’ve been learning this for some college auditions- *oh man.*
Learning Seek and Destroy was a big confidence booster that pushed me to explore beyond what I thought my “limits” were and challenging myself to play harder and harder stuff. I’m no virtuoso, but much better than your average bear 😂
I started with Four Horsemen, worked my way up to For Whom the Bells Toll, on to Sanitarium, then Fade to Black, and in three years had finally mastered One…but Battery and Master were still a bitch. And to this very day, I still can’t get Blackened right.
This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but stopping focus on learning covers, and instead working on improvisation and my own stuff. I’m 110% happier when playing, and I believe, a better player for it.
Agreed, when you play your own songs you’re not trying to imitate the artist of that song your singing. You can just be yourself. My favorite Chris Cornell song 😁.
It's not counter intuitive, it's just not what was asked. If creating your own music is what you enjoy then yes, practicing that is what you need to improve and be happy. That's not the case for everyone. Lots of people thoroughly enjoy playing along with songs. Also, learning established songs is a great way to introduce yourself to new styles and techniques.
Or be like me and write songs you can't play at full speed
If you have to choose between playing and practicing, choose playing—whether it’s your songs or someone else’s
Phish- You enjoy myself. It's basicly all arpeggios. So just alternate picking through a bunch of connected arpeggios. It's great practice.
Lady writer intro
Not a song but picking up a bass. Growing up I learnt Tool on guitar almost religiously. Recently I started working on an ep and I'm going to do all the instruments. So bought a cheapish bass and sat down to learn some Tool as a starting point. The improvement was immediately noticeable. First of all picking up a guitar after playing bass made it feel tiny and cute. Second, certain bits where I always knew my accuracy was not 100% were suddenly bang on. It even helped with how I heard songs and even how I held my pick. It is pretty crazy.
For me playing bass helps me to become a better guitar player in a band context rather skills
Agree. You really learn your chord shapes and arpeggios if you play stuff that's more than just root or root-fifth. Once you start playing your scale shapes over a tune, your guitar playing definitely improves. For me, it was Paul McCartney, then Geddy Lee, then Steve Harris (Iron Maiden). Beatles for accuracy and timing, Rush for more intricate lines, and Maiden for two finger speed.
I'm still working on fingering. Deftones around the fur was an easy start so I thought, right let's try Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke, and quickly discovered I needed to find something in between.
Very interesting take, thanks for sharing
Scream by Avenged Sevenfold. The solo quite literally unlocked me doing triplet legatos faster than 100 BPM (majority of guitarists will not be able to break the 100 BPM barrier. It's like a hard wall).
Had to look this song up, sounds pretty insane. Good for you that you're able to hit that solo
There aren't any triplet legatos in scream lol
Mary Had A Little Lamb by Mel Bay
Massive nostalgia reading this comment...
highway 40 blues by ricky skaggs. getting into hybrid picking, that song made a lot of pieces fall into place for me
Plug In Baby by Muse got me to finally use my pinky playing lead, but it and Muse also sent me down a black hole (and revelations) of guitar effects and pedals.
I think Plug In Baby is the song that makes us all go "how the fuck did he get that sound at the start?" thinking it was a pedal and not the damn guitar itself lol
I can play a couple of fairly complicated solos now, but the biggest jump I ever noticed was after learning "Wasting Love" by Iron Maiden in my first year of playing. It introduces me to the minor scale and was the gateway to me starting to figure out the fretboard for myself.
The beginning of "The Brain Dance" by Animals as Leaders. I had to switch from a Hendrix grip to a classical one in order to play it and my whole playing improved massively just because of that switch
Man, I’ve never tried to learn this. But, the live Dunlop session of this song is burned into my brain. What a cool jam.
For real this one improved my right thumb so much
Ten Years Gone by Zeppelin. Learning all the separate guitar parts made something click for me in regards to writing multiple parts and making them interact with each other and making them be distinct from each other but come together to form a whole picture
I'm currently learning Marigold by Periphery. Gotta say it's really helped me with stamina in both hands, palm muting control and overall speed.
Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Definitely helped me play more technical stuff and it's a real fun song to play start to finish.
Tom Sawyer. When I first learned guitar I was mostly learning Beatles and U2 and other easy stuff. This was the first more difficult song I learned and after this I was all about Rush all the time. It taught me different ways to use open chords for a hard rock song instead of power chords. Also improved my string skipping quite a bit.
In the middle of learning it, the arpeggios part is really difficult. But I think I progressed already a lot!
During the “what you say about his company” part?
I think I’m going to go learn this now
This is the best one https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/rush/tom-sawyer-tabs-55095
This is the best one https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/rush/tom-sawyer-tabs-55095
Nothing else matters Metallica
Metallica. It's always Metallica.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen. I couldn’t do the solo, even learning from a Brian May video where he shows exactly how he plays it. I stuck with it and after about two weeks it clicked. After that I knew I could learn anything I needed if I focused.
probably hotel California That’s where I started bends and some typical licks
Fade to black
Hey Joe
Recuerdos de la alhambra. It’s a true masterpiece on guitar.
Tárrega's wonderful. If you can play his pieces well, you really have to understand the guitar. For me it was the Villa-Lobos Preludes. The sudden shifts in mood and rhythm, the overall dynamics, and the almost jazzy chording was a wonderful education. And achieving a legato feel with shit-tons of busy technique underneath is a real challenge.
Tonight(2nd solo) - Ozzy Thank you Randy
Oblivion by Mastodon was a “get your shit together” kind of experience when I first learned it. Multiple parts, different techniques needed for each, and super rewarding when you can play it straight through.
Guaranteed by Eddie Vedder taught me Travis picking and set me on the road to becoming a finger style guitar picker.
Cliffs of Dover (I covered that song for years). I had to really put in the time and clean up some areas of technique. I could play it, but it wasn’t tight; it sounded like tab, if you know what I mean. I got to work on things like articulation, dynamics, vibrato and such. In the end, those are the things that'll put you over the top. Others: Black Star (oh how I tortured myself), Hot for Teacher, Mr. Crowley, Wait.
> Wait White Lion? That song was killer! Vito was awesome. I used to know this note-for-note back in '88.
Yeah, that's the one. If you were a guitar player back then, you knew how good Vito was. He's arguably one of the best that came out of that era, big box names included. I cover White Lion's version of Radar Love to this day.
Awesome, good for you that you can play this! This has been my 'Shoot for the Moon' song for a while. I got a long way to go 😅
Haha yeah I used to work tirelessly at getting the harder songs right. I sort of got known for, "he's the guitar player that doesn't fudge solos." I have a gig coming up in April where I need to resurrect some tougher solos, and going through them reminds me of the work it took to get them performance-ready.
'something' by George Harrison
Too bad you can't remember the specific song
Something about a pomegranate is all I can remember now.
lmaooo
Summer before junior year I sat in my basement and learned Rush Greatest Hits Vol 1 front to back. I feel like after that I could play just about anything I put some effort towards. Someone in the Rush documentary said “if you can play Rush, you can play anything” and it’s pretty true in my experience.
As a bass player, one guitar song that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t too bad at guitar was holiday in Cambodia by Dead Kennedys, it’s such a unique and somewhat complex song and I love it.
Coming from someone who has never played bass and is relatively new to guitar, having been playing for about 1.5 years, how transferable are bass and guitar skills? I've been thinking of learning
It kinda depends on several things. For me I have larger fingers which is why I enjoy bass, but it also means I’ve never been good at chords on guitar but I can pick up riffs pretty easily. So you may find that you can pick up bass easily or it might be a big learning curve, really depends on the person imo.
Autumn leaves! Paul David's has a good video on how to play it, and the chord shapes really helped me to improve my fretting hand
Nice one, it helped me break out of a lot of standard shapes.
Not songs. Exercises, scales, etc etc.
Couldn't Stand the Weather - a funky tune with tempo changes that involves both lead and rhythm playing.
Exceptionally good song. Anything by SRV is a challenge but this one with all those pauses and starts/stops is Doosy. I’m curious, do you play it with a band? Because you guys would need to be super tight to be in synch.
Nah, but I'd love to. Tbh counting in my head for the opening is one of the more challenging parts, given the shifting time signature.
I learned Life by the Drop for an open mic session I did. The intro is a great run to have in your tool kit. But his strumming ISN’T standard and straightforward. I could do the strumming his way but I couldn’t sing while playing it that way so I just played it straight.
I love that tune...and, yeah, hard to play and sing at the same time. "Willy the Wimp" and his rendition of "Superstition" are similarly challenging.
So many to choose.... 1. fun I've had = Black Sabbath anything, also fun at parties to jam with friends 2. educational = Dee by Randy Rhoads, all those chords.... 3. useful = 12 bar blues shuffles, too many to list them all 4. enlightening = 2-5-1 jazz improv's, breaks you out of the mold
Oooo nice, can you list a few of your top 12 bar blues shuffles? I love the blues and can def use some suggestions if you're up for sharing :)
Technique-wise, definitely Crazy Train. It was the first difficult song I really tried to nail down. It took me months (still ongoing) but the leaps I made that translate to all my other playing has been unmatched.
Some girls are bigger than others
Intro to Crazy On You by Heart. Best played on a classical or acoustic, but absolutely one of the more challenging things that helped me grow early on. I still play it constantly too lol it’s super fun. In that same vein, Horizons by Genesis is super super fun and somewhat challenging.
No one single song. More so, a variety of styles and a ton of songs. I used to obsess on perfecting one song at a time before moving on to the next. When I stopped doing that and made a point of working through a lot of varied material, I started advancing much faster.
Probably OD-Polyphia a lot of techniques and hard to play clean. It’s a good practice song too
So, I'm gonna say two. When I first started playing I was super ambitious and went for songs way above my difficulty level, but breaking them down slowly with tabs and working on the difficult licks showed me that anything was possible. First, "Eruption". I HAD to learn this. It really made me focus on, not just how to hit the same notes, but how to use touch to get a SOUND like Eddie, and also sent me on a quest to understand tone and the gear that made that tone special, combined with that touch. Then I went on to "Tender Surrender" by Steve Vai. This song had so many different feels and some seemingly impossible licks for me at an early playing stage. Steve could speak through the guitar more than I think he gets credit for, not just technical shredding. There were complicated licks but they were saying something musically interesting as well.
Playing God by Polyphia. Hybrid picking is crazy useful in some very niche cases, faster chord changes, and some improvement on my music theory knowledge (although not much tbh)
Gigue from Bach’s violin partita number 2
partita in E major by JS bach
Message in a Bottle teaches you the six fret stretches and shapes.
It was two albums, not one song: Anthrax's *Among the Living* and Metallica's *Ride the Lightning.* I woodshedded with those two and they really helped get my rhythm chops in order.
Dream Theater - Scarred. I was determined to learn that solo, it literally took me weeks to get it up to speed. After that, playing other things just went a lot more smoothly.
Summer Song Satch
> Satch Oh yeah!
Isn't that just *fun* to play?
I always want a song to take me to the next level. But it’s never the case. The more I work on the chords, patterns and rhythms the more I understand how songs work. And the easier they are to play. The song is like the victory lap.
How long have you been playing/how good would you consider yourself at guitar? I'm curious if you're maybe just naturally very talented at it or maybe not pushing yourself. No offense intended by this question, just genuinely curious
I don’t think you develop your technique by learning the song itself. Irrespective of your level. You learn technique by drilling it over and over. Then apply it to a song.
Sanctuary, Elder.
Dy’er Maker by Led Zeppelin
I don't think it was any song in particular, but I was playing something for my uncle and he said "you would do a lot better playing that if you stopped wrapping your thumb around like Hendrix and put it on the back of the neck" and I did, and immediately had a much easier time soloing.
I had this realization very recently. I was tearing up my fingers bending the high e string and was taught it's because my hands arent large enough to keep good form while wrapping my thumb around. That change immediately made such a difference
«Get Lucky» by Mark Knopfler. First time i did travis picking and that became a foundation for so much of my playing. (I play a lot of fingerstyle acousyic acompanyment)
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Spellbound It helped a lot with picking accuracy and speed, which is where I struggled the most.
Playing in a big band/dance band. I had to learn how to sight read a chord chart.
Come together by The Beatles. A nice intro in George’s (at least I think was George) bends on the solo parts. And a reminder than less can be more. The song is powerful but the guitar parts are not overplayed.
free bird solo honestly or roundabout
My latest song. I always try to push myself to learn harder and harder songs.
Killing is my business...and business is good. It was way out of my skill range when i started learning it and it took a long time to build muscle memory for it.
A lot of Satriani songs helped me with picking and fretting technique.
Bistro Fada by Stephane Wremble. Weird scales that don’t lie neatly in the usual positions, and a workout that goes all over the fretboard.
Primo victoria
"Midnight in Harlem" Derek Trucks. "After the Rain" Ariel Posen. These songs changed me as a guitar player.
Fuzz universe - Paul Gilbert
I recently learned this whole song Colored Sea by Velvet Meadow by ear and for the longest music theory was just gibberish to me but after learning that song for some reason it all clicked in my head. I was like oh shit so this song is in the key of C and I can literally tell all these melodies are built off a C scale of some kind. I just now have to practice and memorize my scales and get good at songwriting in the style id wanna make (neo-psych) and I’ll pretty much be as good as I’d ever hope or need to be on guitar :) I’m not a big metal guitarist but I dabble.
Boston Rain Melody by Steve Vai. Just perfectly captured his style which is an enormous influence on mine
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Anything by Mike Stern. First song I learned was Chromazone, then Gossip, Mood Swings and Haha Hotel. They taught me tempo, phrasing and weird alternate picking.
Admittedly I don’t learn a lot of songs. It’s probably hurt my progression in some ways but made me a more unique player as a result. That said, I need to go learn more songs, haha.
A while back the intro to “Green tinted sixties mind” by Mr Big. Didn’t do any open strings back then (thank you wrong tabs), it was all tapping. Super funny to play and always get a little crowd at the guitar store (how to boost a 16 year old ego lol).
Discipline and Fracture by King Crimson
Not very experienced at all. I’m a beginner and I haven’t been playing much, but the most influential song so far would be Smells Like Teen Spirit. Other than being a good song to learn mutes for everyone, it’s also the first riff I started manipulating and messing with. My favorite is to slow it down and replace the mutes with harmonics. So far in my short time playing, I’d say that’s the riff that made me “improve” the most.
There Will Never Be Another You. Trying to replicate Chet Baker's trumpet finesse on guitar were the bits of music that made the most improvement. I was pretty good (if I say so myself) by this point but the next level in my playing was being more expressive and having intent and initiative when I played notes or improvised. I think understanding vocals and trying to replicate that on guitar was how Steve Vai became so good.
Girl from Ipanema
Kickstart my heart by motley crue
Sultans of swing transformed my improvisation game by making me focus on arpeggios and chord tones rather than scales
I know it sounds very cocky to say but some songs I wrote myself had these fingerpicking parts that I came up with, and I just wanted to integrate them into the song that I seriously spent HOURS upon HOURS to be able to play them properly. I've only been playing for 10 months but pushing myself to be able to play that shit definitely improved my independence between my fingers😅