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You now have the knowledge needed to play some simple tunes, I think this would be a good time to let you know about olga.net. This is an excellent archive of guitar chord sheets, you can use this to find the chords to just about any song you want to play.Let It Be - The BeatlesUnder The Bridge - Red Hot Chillie PeppersMore Simple SongsLet it beI think we'll start with a simple song, Let it be by the Beatles. We'll start off with the chord sheet download and open that up first.Take a moment to look through it, it only contains major and minor chords, which you know! So the first step to playing this song would be to play through by simply playing the chords as I have done here.I am doing nothing more then playing the chords here with the occasional little run to transition between the chords. Take your time to work out the chords as you go along, it will take a long time at first but believe me you'll get much faster at it very quickly. Remember, look at the chord sheet, take a chord, work out how to play the chord, repeat for every chord in the song(Theres not that many, only about 4 or 5). If you're having trouble with this mabe you should go back over the common chords. If you want to sing along to this song then it would be best to play these chords in your right hand and play a bass note with your left hand. The bass note would be the same as the chord that you are playing, for example on G you would play G major chord in your right hand with a low G note played with your left hand. You could then sing the melody on top of this. If you're like me and you cant sing, then you might want to play the chords in your left hand and try adding a melody in your right hand. You might want to make it sound something like this. Let it be chords plus melody. (Please excuse the playing I've only got a tiny midi keyboard with three octaves and miniature keys) You might want to try something a bit more interesting in the left hand, mabe playing the top two notes of each chord together followed by the bottom note of the chord. It might sound like this. Let it be chords with changing lefthand. Try doing that with your left hand while playing the melody with your right hand and you'll have a decent version of the song! Congrats, that makes two songs under your belt now! Under the bridgeThis is another good song that works well with nothing more then a few simple chords. Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chillie Peppers Take a minute to look over the chord sheet for this song, notice that the chords are only given for one line of the verse and two lines of the chorus, this is because it is a very repetetive song. Every line of the verse has the same chords as the first line, and the second two lines of the chorus contain the same chords as the first two lines of the chorus. So really you only have three lines to learn to learn the whole song!Theres one chord in this song that you dont know yet, its the chord just at the end of the verse, an Emaj7(E major 7th), the Major 7th chord is very similar to the major chord. For the moment I will just tell you the Emaj7 has E G# B Eflat as its notes. Notice that this is different from the E7 chord which would be E, G#, B, and D. If you must know how I worked out the Emaj7 chord you can have a read of the advanced chords section.Apart from this the song is pretty straight forward, you can start with simple chords in the left hand as we did with Let it be, then practise the melody in the right hand. Once you are comfortable with both try putting them together as I have done below. You should probably listen to the original song rather then my dodgy version of it :)Under the bridge.midIf you wanted you could sing this one by playing the chords in the right hand while playing a single bass note in the left hand just as for Let it be. The bass note would again be the same note as the chord name, so with a B chord play the B note, an E chord play the E note, and sing the lyrics as you're doing it. Another thing you could try is playing the chords with both hands, so you would play B chord with your right hand while playing the same B chord with your left hand lower down on the keyboard. Again you could sing on top of this.You are now ready to try playing a whole host of popular songs armed with the three chords you know, the Major, Minor and the 7th chord. Have a look around on olga, search for you're favourite songs and if they contain chords you know, dont be afraid to give them a try. Remember, take it slowly, work out how to play the particular chords the song is asking for, then learn the melody, then put them together, and as always, dont be afraid to experiment!Congratulations! You now know three songs! Have a look below for some more simple songs!More Simple SongsWell I've compiled a small list of songs here that I feel are easy enough for you to attempt at this stage, if you dont like anything on here then feel free to head out on to the world wide web and find something you do like. You'll notice in some of these chord sheets that the lyrics are only partly given, this is because it gets the publishers of these chord sheets around copyright issues associated with hosting the chord sheet. This means that you need to listen to the original song to work out where the chord changes should happen. Check out Time Of Your Life to see what I mean.Time Of Your Life - Greenday. Really a guitar song, but it doesnt hurt to try it on the piano.Imagine - John Lennon. This is an excellent song to play on the piano, not too difficult but sounds quite nice. Just watch out for the Cmaj7 chord. Cmaj7 would become C, E, G, B. Try it out and see how it sounds. Be careful, this song has quite a few different chords, be sure to work them out correctly.Hotel California - Eagles. This is an excellent song which sounds quite ok when played on the piano, nothing too complicated in here, though again it does have quite a few chords so make sure to work them out correctly.Easy - Lionel Richie/Faith no more. Check out the midi for a cool way to play it, this midi wasnt created by me. A lot of sharps in this song, still theres nothing here you dont know, its all majors and minors.House of The Rising Sun - Animals. This song sounds great when played on a piano, if you've got a keyboard that can simulate an organ sound its even better! The melodies quite simple and the chords are great. Heres a way you can play the chords, though it will take a lot of work to get your left hand to be able to do this. Theres nothing tricky here, i'm just playing the given chords but instead of plonking them down at once, i'm breaking the chord up and playing each note separately. Learning to play a melody on top of this with your right hand takes even more practise.Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Ottis Redding. A great slow tune to relax you after a hard days work. I couldnt find a decent midi version of it so if you dont know how it goes you'll have to listen to the original version(or find your own midi).Continue on to the next section where i'll show you how to make your playing a bit more interesting even with these simple chords.This site is free and always will be. If you like my site, please support it by linking to it from your own website/blog or by sharing on Facebook, Twitter , youtube or any other website you have access to! |
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