Solo Guitar Songs Worth Learning?

Off Topic
21

[quote]Hagar wrote:
Good to see where the other guitar players are at on here. Nice Buckethead avitar. I’ve been playing over 20 years with a shit load of practice. I’m also presently getting my music degree and working as a teaching assistant playing guitar for the other students. I just had to say that to let you know I’m not your average joe in guitar center. Playing guitar is my life.
I’m not sure where your skill level is at or what you like so I’m not sure what I could recommend. If you can you read music (not tab) I would recomend you go here.

http://www.gspguitar.com/

My guess is you haven’t had years of classical training and solo jazz guitar might be out of the question so I highly recommend Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennent. I got the book and the DVD. This will help you develop your technique. It will also help out your electric playing. I’d start out with some etudes at first.

BTW the ladies love it when you play them some classical guitar. Here’s some inspiration from one of the best.
Tango en skai - YouTube [/quote]

Hey, thanks for the advice. No, I’m not the best guitar player out there (I’ve been teaching myself for about 5 years), and it’s definitely an instrument I wish I started earlier (as opposed to the piano and saxophone…), but I’m having fun doing it and am fortunate enough to go to a school with a decent enough music program to attract some fine musicians to help.

Good luck with your degree, you definitely sound like someone who’s put in enough time to earn it.

[quote]JBomb wrote:
If you like classical style acoustic guitar, you should check out Phil Keaggy. That Rolen Dyens song was interesting, but Phil’s stuff is more melodic, and easier to listen to for most people. This was the first classic guitar song I learned to play, it’s surprisingly easy.

If the link doesn’t work, just go to youtube and type in Phil Keaggy County Down.

Another reason Phil is awesome is that he plays like that and he’s missing a finger on his picking hand (me too).

The tapping stuff at the end is heavily influenced by Micheal Hedges.[/quote]

Once again, some really good stuff. Actually, stumbling across a record of Classical Gas in my attic was one of the things that prompted me to start learning guitar, and since then I’ve always had a soft spot for classical acoustic stuff. I don’t listen to as much of it as I probably should, but it’s definitely fun to play.

22

[quote]ReklaW wrote:
Before you went off on that very long and waaaaay too thought out rant about his comment maybe you should have put some effort into reading his post.

His link was to a website that you can play riffs in a flash program. So when he typed that he was referring to the link and making a JOKE. Yes, a JOKE.
[/quote]

Actually, I’ll confess I didn’t look at the link.

I’ll also confess that I spoke to soon, and that I am a horse’s ass, and offer up my apologies.

Thank God we have you policing these threads, though, otherwise who knows how many Internet slights will go completely unavenged by people who may or may not have brought my quick-draw conclusions on their posts to my attention on their own.

23

[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
“Fuel To The Fire” by Rory Gallagher
“Red Alert” by Allan Holdsworth
“Where Were You” by Jeff Beck
“Crossroad Blues” by Robert Johnson
“Out of Love Again.” by Eddie Van Halen
“Superwoman” by Buzzy Feiten (from Stevie Wonder’s band)

Some of my favorites, from all genres, both acoustic and electric. Have fun![/quote]

You know, when I was writing this thread I was thinking about some of the people here whom I know play guitar (or, in your case, bass) and I was hoping you would jump in here and toss out some suggestions.

I’m glad you did- those are some gems. Thank you.

24

To everyone who posted suggestions: thanks a ton, this thread was definitely better than I thought it would be.

I’m heading up to a lake house for the next few weeks for some family reunion, and, as there won’t be anyone there remotely my age, and no gym that I know of, I figured I would use this time to brush up on my guitar playing, which, admittedly, I’ve been slacking on so far this summer.

I’m rolling out pretty soon, but thanks again, and enjoy your Fourth.

25

“Acoustic Medley” In Flames
“Benighted” Opeth
“Song For George” Eric Johnson
“Dee” Randy Rhodes-Ozzy
“Cemetery Gates” Pantera
“The End of Everything” Trivium

26

Sh!t, forgot LZ.

“Braun-yr-Aur Stomp”
“Over the Hills and Far Away”

Also
“In Loving Memory” By Alter Bridge

27

That guy might have not come back to this thread cause he has nothing else to offer and it bugged me that you were so smug in your reply and told him to shut the fuck up and stop being clever. Truth is his joke was quite clever. But your clever reply was out of line.

Internet or real life i’ll step in and defend someone who was in the right when they are being told they were wrong. Even if it was you.

[quote]conner wrote:
Actually, I’ll confess I didn’t look at the link.

I’ll also confess that I spoke to soon, and that I am a horse’s ass, and offer up my apologies.

Thank God we have you policing these threads, though, otherwise who knows how many Internet slights will go completely unavenged by people who may or may not have brought my quick-draw conclusions on their posts to my attention on their own.[/quote]

28

This thread makes a lot of sense, coming from a man with a “Buckethead” avatar.

I recommend, for starters, any song with simple timing. Those are great for building up your chops. If the timing is 5/4 and some quarter notes are divided into quintuplets or septulplets, or something even more confusing, I don’t even bother.

I still have a LOT of work to do with my Parker Fly, so I’m sticking with simple 8th, 16th and 32nd notes with some triplets here and there. That’s just some practical advice that might apply to you.

What is more, eat, sleep, live, and die by Symphony X. I talk about them all the time and they make up 100% of my musical diet and they are the coolest thing to ever happen to me. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, then I’m afraid I have nothing to say in their favor.

29

[quote]Chewie wrote:
Sh!t, forgot LZ.

“Braun-yr-Aur Stomp”
“Over the Hills and Far Away”

Also
“In Loving Memory” By Alter Bridge[/quote]

Zeppelin’s been playing on my iPod pretty much nonstop the past few weeks. I feel in love with Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp from listening to How The West Was Won, and Over The Hills And Far Away is more often than not the song I choose to play on acoustic when someone asks me to just “play something”.

When you need to please a crowd in a hurry, you really can’t go wrong with a little Jimmy Page.

30

Metallica - To live is to die
Metallica - One
Joe Satriani - Searching (mainly any song from Joe Satriani)

I suppose there are a lot more songs but for now the songs I picked are some of my favorites loaded on to my MP3 player.
If I had to pick only one song to learn how to play it would have to be “One” from Metallica. I assume that you are familiar with the song and yes if you remember they do sing unfortunately. I hope you find what you are looking for.

31

[quote]Chewie wrote:
Sh!t, forgot LZ.

“Braun-yr-Aur Stomp”
“Over the Hills and Far Away”

Also
“In Loving Memory” By Alter Bridge[/quote]

I love “Braun-yr-Aur Stomp” used to play that all the time. That C tuning page uses is something else. Not to hard to play either.

32

Of course any song you can sing along to gets all the chicks… :stuck_out_tongue:

Ok seriously, Overkill by Colin Hay from the Scrubs soundtrack comes to mind…

33

I think anything by John Frusciante is a good thing to learn. I love the way he plays, makes the guitar sound slippery, almost wet somehow.

My all time favourite is Randy Rhoades. I don’t know about the technical side of guitar playing, I’m just a singer. Adrian Smith and Dave Murray of Maiden… hell just listen and play all of Maidens solos. Can’t go wrong there. I <3 Revelations.

34

Led Zeppelin- The Rain Song

Ozzy (Randy Rhodes)- Mr.Cowley (especially played like the live tribute CD)

Just to give you a couple that I loved playing

35

[quote]conner wrote:
scrooge wrote:
The Tea Party - Winter Solstice

The Tea Party - The Badger

great instrumentals. solo acoustic. You will need to change tuning though.

for vocals as well, I am more than a little partial to Kristin Hersh’s solo work. Very different guitar work.

Wow, those two pieces are pretty awesome. Thanks, dude.
[/quote]

No probs. if you have trouble with either of them, send me a PM.

[quote]Chewie wrote:
“Acoustic Medley” In Flames
“Benighted” Opeth
“Song For George” Eric Johnson
“Dee” Randy Rhodes-Ozzy
“Cemetery Gates” Pantera
“The End of Everything” Trivium
[/quote]

I heartily second “song for george”. It is amazing.

36

You got a lot catching up to do.

37

John Martyn, anything by him will do.

38

Autodiadect- Between the Buried and Me
Eternal- POD
pretty much anything by Pantera

39

Amos Moses by Jerry Reed

Freaking awsome song.

40

Learn every solo from Django Reinhardt. He practically wrote every lick worth knowing. Interestingly enough, he was not trained in music theory and could not even read or write–period. This man was a musician’s musician. He played rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically no matter what we was playing.

If you were to go and find every recording you could of this man and happen to come across two of the same pieces you’d notice that the solos were different–he never in his entire career played the same solo twice!

A few of the ones worth searching for (my favorites):
Dark Eyes (Yeux Noirs) – Dark Eyes, Amazing Guitarwork - YouTube

Djangology – Djangology - YouTube

Sweet Chorus – "Sweet Chorus" Clearwater Hot Club June 14 2006 - YouTube

Nuages – - YouTube

Minor Swing – - YouTube

PS Modern guitarists got nothing on Django.