Blog Resurrection

It's been a while since I last posted here and I'm quite embarassed, especially because I found some nice comments when I came back to think about posting again. Sadly I've been neglecting my guitar as well but I recently got inspired to pick it up again and get back into practice.

Now the weather is better here in the UK there have been regular barbeques and open air parties so naturally the guitars and bongos have had the cobwebs dusted off. There's nothing quite like a freshly cremated burger washed down with a nice cold beer followed by a jam session around the dying embers of a barbeque.

The pain of learning guitar chords for songs

When starting out it's not unusual to find that learning guitar chords for songs can cause quite a lot of discomfort and pain. Your fretting hand can cramp up and pressing strings will cause pain in the tips of your fingers. The only solution to this is regular practice to build up callouses and get the muscles in your hands used to the unfamiliar contortions.

There are a few things that will help ease the pain - if your hand cramps up then stop, lay your hand out flat and stretch your fingers. Don't start playing again until you can fret a chord without cramp setting in, it's better to practise in short sessions at first and build up as your playing develops. Some players paint their fingertips with a little superglue to help the callouses develop but be carefull if you try this one. Make sure you use the glue sparingly and don't touch anything until the glue is dry. The last thing you want is a visit to the emergency room to have your guitar removed from your fretting hand.

One other thing to bear in mind - it's not normal for your fingers to bleed when you're playing. If this happens then you're either pushing too hard or your strings need replaced. I once cut my index finger on an old E string while playing barre chords and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I couldn't play at all for almost a week after that and it taught me to clean the strings between sessions and replace them regularly.

Getting into the rhythm

When I'm playing songs by myself I usually get on pretty well - people like what I play and often sing along but I haven't really been happy with my ability to stick to a beat. It's easier with some songs than others but I have real trouble keeping the rhythm in the right place when I'm jamming with other musicians. I have the chords for songs we play down pat but that beat eludes me just at the wrong time and it's embarassing when you start heading into the chorus on the wrong beat.

Recently one of my friends suggested I should try using a metronome and structuring my practice time instead of just noodling around. After hunting around for a while I decided I'd quite like one that used drum sounds but that seems to be a feature you only get with full blown drum machines which aren't quite inside my budget right now. In the end I found a great piece of software called the that does the job and even added a cool feature I didn't think of - it has the ability to gradually increase the tempo so you can start off slow and build up speed to get more out of the scales practice I do to build finger strength. I've been practicing with the Ultimate Metronome for the last week or so and last night, at a local open mike night, we ended up having an impromptu jam session towards the end of the night. When we were finishing our beers before heading home one of the other musicians told me I had pretty good rhythm for a guitarist! Sarky sod! Still, I'll be practicing with the Ultimate Metronome a lot more in future, it's definitely improved my playing no end.

Easy guitar chords for songs that sound hard

I've always spent a lot of time trying to learn guitar chords for songs that I particularly like to show off at parties but I often suffer from a lack of time to practise or just being too lazy to put the work in. I really should put a lot more effort into improving the skills I have but I get more motivated by a bit of instant gratification which means that most of my repertoire is fairly easy to play. Easy to play doesn't mean they don't impress other people though, I've noticed that some of the songs I play get a bit more attention than the others. These songs just sound a lot harder to play than they really are.

One of my particular favourites is a song by Oasis called Wonderwall - it's a great sing-a-long classic with a nice driving rhythm that tends to go down very well at parties or the occasional open mike night that I attend. What's even better is that you don't really have to be able to sing well for songs like this - your audience will join in without much encouragement.

Since I've called this blog "guitar chords for songs" I really should put up a few songs I like to play so I'm going to start with this one.

The basic chords I use for this are Em7, G, Dsus4, Asus4and Cadd9 which might sound a bit complicated but they're really quite simple.



Normally I just play these open but to get the recorded key you'll need to stick a capo on the 2nd fret so you end up with F#m7, A, Esus4, Bsus4 and Dadd9.

Intro:  [Em7][G][Dsus4][A7sus4] x4

Verse 1:

[Em7]    [G]
Today is gonna be the day that they're

[Dsus4]                [A7sus4]
gonna throw it back to you

[Em7]    [G]
By now you shoulda somehow

[Dsus4]              [A7sus4]
realised what you gotta do

Verse 2:

Backbeat the word is on the street that the
fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
but you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody
feels the way I do
About you now

Pre-Chorus:

  [Cadd9]            [Dsus4]           [Em7]
And all the roads that lead us there are winding

  [Cadd9]             [Dsus4]           [Em7]
And all the lights that light the way are blinding

Chorus:

  [Cadd9]  [Dsus4]
Cos maybe

     [A7sus4]              [Cadd9]   [Dsus4]  [A7sus4]
You're gonna be the one that saves me

        [Cadd9]   [Dsus4]
And after all

        [A7sus4]  [Cadd9]
You're my Wonder    wall

Learning Guitar Chords for Songs

I've been looking around for sites that help with learning guitar chords for songs and I think I may have found an absolutely great one this morning. There seem to be a lot of sites pushing guitar courses and books that teach you interesting ways to learn but few of them give you any more of a brief taster of what's inside once they have your money. Justin Sandercoe has set up a fantastic site over at justinguitar.com with more free content than you can shake a stick at. In the last hour or two I've only scratched the surface of what he has to offer but I'll definitely be going back there to follow a few of his online lessons.

How to find Guitar Chords for songs.

I'm always looking for new guitar chords for songs to impress my friends with when I go to parties but I suffer a lot from not being good at playing by ear. Instead of sitting down and working out how a song is played I have to buy songbooks or look them up on the internet. Lately I've had a lot of trouble as many of the sites I used to visit are closing down due to the music publishers enforcing their copyrights. Personally I think it's a great shame that they're taking such a heavy handed approach, I'm sure many people are just like me - looking for the guitar chords for songs by their favourite bands.

I've started this blog to write about some of the sites I find when I'm surfing the net trying to find guitar chords for songs and maybe it'll even help you too. I know I get really frustrated when I think I've found a good resource only to see it shut down by the copyright police a few weeks later. Do they really think that us amateur musicians are costing them money? Can it really be a bad thing if the music we play reaches the ears of people who haven't paid? Last week I was at a party playing a new song I learned called Overkill by Colin Haye and two of the people there went out and bought Man at Work, the album it's on because they liked my rendition so much. I'm pretty sure it's hurting the publishers to get new sales :p

Anyway, my girlfriend is giving me grief for being up so late again fiddling about on the net so I'm just going to post this and get off to bed. I was going to add a few links to some good song sites I found but I guess it's going to have to wait until another day.