Whether learning riffs or chords, Rock is a great place to learn your way around the guitar neck. Sometimes Rock Music can seem intimidating to beginning guitarists, I mean they don’t put it in any of the method books so it must be hard right? If you are new to the guitar and have been nervous about breaking out and just learning a song, I have made modifications to several songs that can be more difficult and I’ll give you a plan to build up to playing it quickly.
If you are currently paralyzed by what to learn first on guitar and you like Rock, this is the place for you. These songs are not only fun to play, but are great building blocks to your growth as a guitarist.
I am going to stop talking now because the best way to learn is not by listening to me, it’s by playing, BUT if you have a question for me, leave a comment or send an email and I’ll get back to you!
Anyway You Want it
Any Way You Want It, like many rock songs, doesn’t necessarily need you to play full chords or even partial chords for the verses so It’s a great song for beginners to use to learn new notes. It may seem like you aren’t doing much by just learning a few notes, but if you keep it up you will know your way around the guitar neck surprisingly fast.
The riff is extremely fun to play and not insanely challenging. To start slow it down and slow pick up speed as you get used to the notes.
Back in Black
Back in Black was one of the first songs that I did for my channel. The video is a little lower quality, but it’s a great song to show how you can break a song down to simpler parts before you are ready to play the full song.
This song works really well as a song to start with for smaller children that are still getting used to playing the open strings. It’s also a great song if you are still getting used to playing chords since the chords in this song only use an open string and one finger. TABs coming soon.
Believer
Imagine Dragons has been all over the radio lately so I had to throw a song by them in the list. With Believer you can keep it easy by playing along with single notes on the E string, you can play the barre chords, or you can do the slightly tricky lead part that only uses two strings.
Centuries
Centuries can be played with single strings just like all the other songs on this list, but it is a good one to practice your open chords.
If you struggle with chords, you can always do a hybrid method of playing the chords you find easy and playing single strings on the chords you find harder. Once you get used to that, try adding one of the harder chords at a time until you have them all.
Crazy Train
Crazy Train is on many peoples’ list of songs they’d like to learn, but luckily it’s easy (except the solo).
As always slow down the fast parts, but maintain a constant tempo and don’t pause between changes. If you find yourself pausing a lot, slow down more! Once you have it at a slow tempo, try it a little faster and gradually build to the full tempo.
Intro Rhythm Guitar Easy
Intro Riff
Easy Chorus
Chorus Full Chords
Don’t Stop Believing
I’ve played this song for years, but it never occurred to me how easy it could be for beginners until this year.
Grab a few of your friends and play this one together or if you have children, divide up the parts based on what they can play and learn it together.
Don’t Stop Believing Chords
Don’t Stop Believing Piano for Guitar
Eye of the Tiger
Eye of the Tiger helps with your alternate picking, which means following a downstroke with an upstroke. Once you get that opening riff the rest of the song is not quite as intimidating.
Guitar 1 Intro
Guitar 2 Intro
Guitar 3 Intro
I Love Rock n’ Roll
I Love Rock n Roll uses some of the same chords as Back in Black so all you have to do to play them is use one finger and an open string.
The riff between the chords can be a little tricky at first, but slow it down and gradually speed up to full tempo.
Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn was one of the first songs I learned as a beginning guitarist and it made me feel so cool. It only uses one string and is a good intro to moving up and down the fretboard.
TNT
I know you are thinking I must be the biggest AC/DC fan and I listen to them on Spotify all the time, but I don’t. AC/DC is great for fun, energetic, and easy (for the most part) songs and TNT is no exception. It is very similar to I Love Rock n Roll and Back in Black with the chords it uses and you should be able to pick it up quickly!