Dude, What’s That Chord?

Gibson’s Top 10 Songs For Six-String Beginners brings back some memories.

It’s the list of songs all beginners start with, the ones that drive the music store employees and patrons nuts, they say.

Here’s the list:

Sweet Child O’ Mine – GNR

Eruption – Van Halen

Wild Thing – The Troggs

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Dylan

Rockin’ In The Free World – Neil Young

Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

Iron Man – Sabbath

Seventh Nation Army – White Stripes

Working Class Hero – John Lennon

No Rain – Blind Melon

Eruption?  Really?  For beginners?

Wild Thing would have been on the list when I started out.  As would House Of The Rising Sun, Satisfaction, Gloria, Twist And Shout, Blowing In The Wind, Spoonful, Whole Lotta Love and Purple Haze.

And, like Smoke On The Water, who ever learned all of Purple Haze?

Interesting that Lennon replaced The Beatles and Dylan replaced himself.

At my school, guitar players were a community, and we all taught stuff to each other – even if it was wrong.  There was no internet, there were no tabs, no YouTube lessons, and if you picked up the needle and dropped it too many times, you would toast the record.  If you could afford it you could buy sheet music and songbooks, but the riffs were always missing and the chords were usually wrong.

Still not sure about Eruption, but what I hear kids playing in music stores definitely reflects a higher level of skill than it was in my day.  Chalk one up for the internet. 

I hope the community thing is still going on, though.  That was the best part of learning.