First Learned Song On Guitar?

[Tman5293]

I believe that the first song I learned was Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple when I was 9.

[G McBride]

Charlie Brown, Did your lyrics get banned from radio? I am sure that we made up some of ours because the old recordings were a little blurred.

 

And of course we played GLORIA. One of the first Stones songs I remember doing was Mothers LIttle Helper.

[pete c]

ac/dc shook me all night long, learned it by ear.

[Tman]

Down on the corner - CCR

[FirstMeasure]

Well, I started "Baby Please Don't Go" before "House of the Rising Sun", but I finished learning "House" before "Baby", so I guess it's a toss up.

[MedicBill]

About A Girl - Nirvana. I started playing in the early 90's when grunge was the "in" thing to play.

[Riverside]

House of the Rising Sun - a la The Animals.

 

[Jeff-7]

About A Girl - Nirvana. I started playing in the early 90's when grunge was the "in" thing to play.

Good one to learn on, still my favorite time period in music.

[Mr. Natural]

FIrst attempt at learning guitar, I think it was "my dog has fleas"....

 

If you can tune a uke, you're already playing "My Dog Has Fleas"!

[milod]

I really don't remember... it would have been some old "true" folkie thing that I'd known since I was really little. As soon as possible after that it was some "key of E" blues. Probably a local variation of the old "Backwater Blues."

 

RE: House of the rising sun. First version I learned had the same words, but you wouldn't recognize the old Leadbelly version as anywhere close to the same tune.

 

<grin> I heard very, very little rock 63-66 until there was money involved starting late '65-66. Horrid thing to say, but... the truth. Then in the early 70s it was country. Luckily most of the folks around wanted some of the 50s stuff I remembered a bit.

 

m

[cavsrock08]

I think my first song that I knew all the way through was Holiday by Green Day. Not the most challenging songs in the world but I learned it almost 3 years ago and I bet I still play it once a week. Its a comfort song for me.

[MojoRedFoot]

I'm pretty sure it was "House of the rising sun" when I started taking lessons in 1993.

[L5Larry]

I learned to play guitar from the Mel Bay book "Fun With Guitar". I'll have to find a copy to see what the first song in the book is (after the chord exercises). I believe it was a two chord song, and I'm pretty sure it was "C" & "G".

 

I'm thinking maybe "On Top Of Old Smokey".

 

I know I've said this before, I knew Mel Bay personally, we lived in the same little town outside of St. Louis, Missouri (I still live here, he's dead). While thousands of kids around the world were learning to play guitar from Mel Bay books, we were up at Mel's store tugging on his coattails. All you had to do was ask him any question about guitar playing and he would pick a guitar off the sales rack and give you a free 5 minute personal lesson right in the aisle of his store. I learned more about playing guitar from those 5 minute lessons than many people will learn in a lifetime. In fact some of what he was trying to teach me I didn't even understand until 30 years later.

 

Here's a photo of the sign painted over the front door of the building where he ran his business out of (publishing empire upstairs, retail music store downstairs).

 

[retrosurfer1959]

No idea can't remember at all - of course in my defense it was the 60's

[milod]

Larry...

 

Holy Moly... Lucky guy.

 

I'd say that for "folkie" stuff I had the advantage in that out of some 60 guys or so in the dorm, I think there were 45 guitars plus an occasional banjo and mandolin. Almost everybody played a little and there were folks to watch in those pre you-tube days.

 

But formal guitar stuff? You've got it all over most of us. Those "old guys" seemed to have talent to do about any kind of music any way you wanted. Heck, except for today's "jazzers" or borderline jazz country stuff, how many of "us" even think about passing chords. <grin>

 

m