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What was the first song you learned on the Acoustic Guitar


kelly campbell

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500 Miles. "If you miss the train I'm on..." My wife still laughs about the number of times she heard that song.

 

 

Same for me, as I said a bit earlier. It's ironic, since you and I are the same age within four days. Must have been something in the water........

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I remember learning Peaceful Easy Feeling by the Eagles and My Sweet Lord by George Harrison kind of at the same time. Then as soon as I learned the B7 I learned Folsom Prison Blues.

This was the mid 90's and none of my friends new any of those songs, but that was the music I was into. When the Howard Stern movie Private Parts came out Smoke On The Water was on the sound track, someone had the sound track and we figured out the chords, so that was the first song I ever learned to play on electric guitar. We went away for a week end church retreat and our little worship band played Smoke on the Water all weekend. It was a blast and I don't think our grown up chaperons liked it too much. That same weekend I learned a song based on the chord progression of The Needle and the Damage Done, but the words were the words to Amazing Grace and Jesus Loves Me.

 

Needle and the damage done....My favorite Neil song....was it difficult to learn?

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500 miles? I'm not absolutely sure this was my first, but it sure might have been. I remember playing a version by Cisco Houston, though.

 

Whatever is first in the Jerry Silverman guitar book may have been my first, although anything by Woody Guthrie is also a possibility. It's a little hard to remember 50 years back.

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The first song I ever learned (by ear no less) was "Love Me Tender". I was an Elvis fan at age 11. This would be 1955.

 

 

Ironically, that was one of the first songs I played when I picked up the guitar again a few years ago after a 25-year absence. It's a simple tune, but you can make it a sweet one without much work.

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Amazing Grace followed closely by Peaceful Easy Feeling. I play them as a hybrid a lot nowadays. Amazing Grace verses, Peaceful Easy Feeling Chorus all to tune of Peaceful Easy Feeling. It's a big hit at the homeless church (under a highway overpass) where I lead worship sometimes.

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As a beginner I started with electric guitar, then electric bass, added acoustic guitar later, then drums, and finally upright bass for a short period.

 

I have to confess that the first songs I learned on all of these instruments except upright bass were written by myself.

 

On electric guitar, after about one year I learned "All Right Now" by The Free for an instant cover band so to say. ;)

 

On drums I learned "Cocaine" by J. J. Cale after occasionally playing for four years when starting a cover band which still exists.

 

On upright bass it was a piece of Alpine folk music for a dance and show band I joined then for making money. I hadn't played upright bass for a single moment before, and never again since about a year later. Our first gig was two days after this first rehearsal and comprised four times the material I ever had practiced with them. It went nicely and smoothly though by using my ears as well as my hands. It was as crazy indeed as my memories about it. How could I ...? Still don't conceive that, and I guess I would never dare doing so again! [biggrin]

 

Then I learned "Something" by The Beatles as first song not written by myself on acoustic guitar after seven years of playing.

 

Finally, after thirty-one years of occasionally playing electric bass when recording my own songs, I again learned "All Right Now" by The Free for the cover band I joined in early 2013, this time on bass.

 

I never owned drums or an upright bass until today.

 

This is the naked truth. Rather weird history, huh? [scared] And over what a long time it spans. Boys and girls, I'm getting old! [biggrin]

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Heart of gold - Neil Young , when the harvest album came out I was all over it , a rank beginner at the time , I was determined to learn a bunch of Neil Young material . I took some lessons but not very many , money was tight . I hung around with a few guys that played , house parties and campfires is where I made the most progress , when alone I'd be listening to music and figuring out how to play songs .

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Heart of gold - Neil Young , when the harvest album came out I was all over it , a rank beginner at the time , I was determined to learn a bunch of Neil Young material . I took some lessons but not very many , money was tight . I hung around with a few guys that played , house parties and campfires is where I made the most progress , when alone I'd be listening to music and figuring out how to play songs .

 

I've been playing for 23 years or so & even done a degree in Music, but I still love playing Neil's tunes. The one's from Harvest I like the most to play are Words, Alabama and Old Man. I think Zuma is my favourite album to play along to though

 

PS, my first song was Greensleeves I think...

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That would be Wildwood Weed by Jim Stafford. Poster might have meant that, or Wildwood Flower, the old Carter Family tune.

 

Carter Family. My dad taught me that one. I started playing in '62. I did like Jim Stafford's song when it came out in '74

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Pretty sure it was Wildwood Flower. Three chords and a cloud of dust. It wasn't long after I found out that so many of the R&R, Folk, and Johnny Cash songs I liked were 3-5 chords with a few hammer-ons and pull-offs. Each time you learn a little bit, it kind of edges another door open a little bit. It's a sweet journey.

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