Finger-picking/Acoustic songs to learn?

[JamieK]

Do you guys know any decent finger-picking songs i can start learning?

I really suck at playing acoustic and I want to get better at it, and im getting tired of playing the same songs on electric anyway. Plus i think it will help me when im composing etc.

I'm a huge fan of Tommy Emanuel but his songs are beyond my playing abilities at the moment (and probably always will be, lol) so i'm looking for something simple, but not ridiculously easy.

So you got any favourite artists/songs I can check out?

Cheers!

 

[ratsapprentice]

Dissection - Crimson Towers, Feathers Fell, Into Infinite Obscurity
Morbid Angel - Desolate Ways
Cynic - The clean sections from Veil Of Maya

 

[Boneman]

Blackbird

 

[Sloan]

http://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=17&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=elliott+smith

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Dust in the Wind baby!

 

[colonel kurtz]

it's cheesy, played out, and you probably already know it...but if not, learn the beginning of fade to black

 

[SentencedToBurn]

 

[006]

I actually learned how to play this one a long time ago:

 

[Charlie E.]

Morbid Angel - Desolate Ways

Hadn't heard this song in a years. Thanks for the reminder

To the OP:
Do you read notation? If so try working on some Carcassi/Sor/Sagreras studies.

 

[Metal Overload]

Dust in the Wind baby!

+1, also starway to heaven

I really like to play this song on acoustic

 

[AgentX]

The human abstract - Elegiac is a really nice piece to learn ()
Asturias - Isaac Albeniz is also great but hard as hell to get right ()

 

[JamieK]

Thanks guys

First on my list are blackbird and dust in the wind.

We'll see how it goes from there!

 

[Virgil.]

Bach's "prelude in Dm" is a great one to learn. Here's a clip of me playing it back when I was a classical guitar major in college:


Opeth - anything really. lol

White Lion - When the children cry:



Lita Ford & Ozzy - Close my eyes forever:



Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven:



Extreme - More than words:



Beatles - Blackbird:



Bob Dylan - Don't think twice it's alright:



Tesla - Love song:



Led Zeppelin - Going to california:



Led Zeppelin - Babe I'm gonna leave you:



Beatles - Here comes the sun:



Mason Williams - Classical gas:



Iron and Wine - (Youtube this guy, has a lot of good fingerpicking songs)



Also, in addition to the Bach "prelude" that I mentioned at the top of my post, any classical guitar stuff is great for getting more fingerpicking practice.
Just youtube any of these great classical players and watch and learn.

Andres Segovia
John Williams (guitarist)
Christopher Parkening
Villa-Lobos
LAGQ (Los Angeles Guitar Quartet)
etc...

 

[colton]

IF you go the classical route, you need to focus on planting properly and technique before you even think about learning a bunch of pieces, otherwise your tone is going to suffer. It's not the same as learning your average "cover" if you catch my drift. There's a lot of psychological work involved, but the Leo Brouwer Etudes are a great place to start if you're into modern sounding stuff. Etude VI is one of my favorites, but it's hard to find a really good performance of it on youtube. This guy has come a long way since this video and he's the only one I've seen that actually brings out the melody on the D string.



For those wondering, yes, this is the piece Randy Rhoads ripped off of for the intro to "Diary of a Madman".

 

[Virgil.]

IF you go the classical route, you need to focus on planting properly and technique before you even think about learning a bunch of pieces, otherwise your tone is going to suffer. It's not the same as learning your average "cover" if you catch my drift. There's a lot of psychological work involved, but the Leo Brouwer Etudes are a great place to start if you're into modern sounding stuff. Etude VI is one of my favorites, but it's hard to find a really good performance of it on youtube. This guy has come a long way since this video and he's the only one I've seen that actually brings out the melody on the D string.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HmQixA-fvM

For those wondering, yes, this is the piece Randy Rhoads ripped off of for the intro to "Diary of a Madman".

+1 about the proper technique. In addition to the Leo Brouwer etudes, I'll also recommend Andres Segovia's Fernando Sor's 20 estudios/studies:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15592372/Fernando-Sor-20-Estudios-Guitarra-Andres-Segovia

 

[Audio X]

Roundabout - Steve Howe

 

[JamieK]

Roundabout - Steve Howe

Already got that tab saved!

I've got all Steve Howe's acoustic tracks he did with Yes, cus they're amazing.

I'm learning Genesis - Horizons atm (well i was untill i got a huge blister on my picking hand - think thats enough practice for today!)


I can't get over how different this style of playing is.
I've been playing electric for about 11 years and i've played so many styles and genres, but this feels like a totally different instrument! It's such slow learning at the minute, but I shall persevere!