Song suggestions for a 6 string newbie to jam along to

[Diablo]

My son is 11 and for the last 6 months been learning 6 string electric guitar. He has a half hour lesson once a week and has been learning basic chords, 4 bar riffs (smoke on the water, 7 nation army, knocking on heavens door, Beatles stuff etc) and some scales.

He seems to be losing interest in practicing and I can understand why, he cannot actually play any song through, just lots of bits of lots of songs. I thought it might motivate him somewhat to jam along to a full song with me on bass, but I don't play 6 string so would not know what works as an easy starter song, in the rock or blues genre, for me to work with him. Suggestions welcome, lead or rhythm!

Cheers,
Rich

[Judo Chop]

Crazy Little Thing Called Love- fun for you, quite easy for him if you ignore the guitar solo

[leschirons]

At 11 years old, is your son really into The Beatles, Knocking on Heaven's door and Smoke on the water? Blues? No disrespect but if you think he's losing interest, it may be because of the stuff he's learning. I assume he's taking lessons at school or from a private teacher. Sounds like he's being taught fairly easy numbers that are simply of an era that suits his teacher. There's loads of more modern stuff he can learn with just a few basic chords like "Use somebody", Chasing cars, Perfect, Price-tag. None of them current but still 40 years later than Knocking on Heaven's door and, they're all easy 3 or 4 chord jobs.

[Diablo]

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1397163725' post='2421463']
At 11 years old, is your son really into The Beatles, Knocking on Heaven's door and Smoke on the water? Blues? No disrespect but if you think he's losing interest, it may be because of the stuff he's learning. I assume he's taking lessons at school or from a private teacher. Sounds like he's being taught fairly easy numbers that are simply of an era that suits his teacher. There's loads of more modern stuff he can learn with just a few basic chords like "Use somebody", Chasing cars, Perfect, Price-tag. None of them current but still 40 years later than Knocking on Heaven's door and, they're all easy 3 or 4 chord jobs.
[/quote]

Private lessons, but now you mention it the teacher is about 60 years old, so of that era rather than this I suppose. I can't play 6 string so I don't know which chords are easy to change between, and which songs don't have insane chord changes every note, hence the question. He listens to CCR, AC/DC, Little Barrie, and that blasted Deep Purple song that gets played 10 times a day every day. I'll lookup the suggestions, and CLTCL which I play on bass anyway, just never really listened to the guitar part to see how easy/hard it was running through the D-G-C-G with the Bb-C-D turnaround.

Cheers,
Rich

[leschirons]

If he has (even just first position chords) G, D, Em, C & A under his belt, there are a huge number of modern rock and pop songs he could learn. I'm no teacher but when I have given guitar lessons to youngsters (usually as a favour to friends) I'll always find out what they're into musically and concentrate on that amongst all the other stuff.

Best of luck anyway.

[Grangur]

Have you asked the lad what music he wants to play?
Maybe you could also try out another teacher?

That said, I've a step son who plays 6 string. He plays only the "main riff" from loads of songs. It seems that's what a lot of kids want. Maybe you could talk to the teacher and explain the problem.

BTW, my Step son plays tabs and his guitar is strung in drop-C as he says that's how you need to string for most songs these days. He also doesn't have the slightest idea where any notes are on the FB. So there's a wide range of expectations out there amongst the players. The expectations of teachers will also vary too I guess.

[DorsetBlue]

I agree with the comments about playing music he want to. One of my daughters is a rock chick and the other one is a popster, so this causes me fun when trying to encourage them to play. However they both agree on Green Day, so a bit of reasonably simple power chord thrashing works well. Have you considered Rocksmith 2014, my youngest is on it all the time and although it does not replace proper tuition (they both have that too), it at least gets them playing for an additional couple of hours a week each and I can join in too sometimes. It also has a good selection of different music, ranging from 60s through to heavy metal with pop in there too.

Edited April 11, 2014 by DorsetBlue

[Diablo]

He does have RS2014, but we both agreed to give up on it. We tried to work out a few songs on the rhythm but there are huge errors in the software. For instance the chord names it shows up do not always match the finger positions it is displaying, and in turn those finger positions are not the same as the ones in the chord workbook, which are again different to the ones in his written notes from his teacher (which are correct from comparing online stuff) - so what on earth do you play? The difficulty also jumps from single root notes to 4 finger chords in just one step, so it just confused more than it helped.

I'll take all the above posted info and go at this again.... I sure wish I'd learned at his age.

Cheers,
Rich

[DorsetBlue]

Although I see your point, I do not view RS2014 as a tuition aid. I see it as a game which encourages the kids to play the instrument and have fun. Any time they are playing the instrument, building the muscle memory is good IMHO. The tutor is then there to teach them to actually play properly.

[Grangur]

Another thought I've had is this, would he be inspired more if he was able to play a few tunes without having to have an MP3 or other sound track playing?

Maybe he'd like to play a few familiar songs like Happy Birthday, the national anthem, Star-spangled Banner, or even London Bridge is falling down. Just anything he recognises as him playing a tune without playing over a pro-guitarist in the background?

[Gazza 2905]

Following on from Grangurs point, - maybe play a simple 12 bar blues progression together?
Start off very simply, then add little fills and fancy bits as his confidence grows.
Can't think of a better way of a father and son enjoying music and learning together.