Here are some songs for fingerstyle guitar that you can actually learn in a short time period.
Are you looking for fingerstyle songs that you can learn to play fast on the acoustic guitar?
I understand the feeling of slow progress and struggling to learn a song quickly. But learning an advanced, intricate fingerstyle song can take time. Plus, it can seem very frustrating when you see other guitarists learning complete songs in what seems like record time.
Not only that, most songs that are labelled easy are actually not so simple to play at first glance. So, you've probably realized that trying to learn an "easy" fingerpicking song which actually isn't easy can completely discourage you from playing guitar ever again.
That sucks! Let's speed up the process. In this resource, I'm going to give you 5 fingerstyle songs that you can actually learn to play fast on the guitar.
What Are Some Easy Fingerpicking Songs You Can Learn To Play Quickly On The Guitar?
Here's what we're going to do. Instead of struggling for weeks to play a song from beginning to end, I'm going to show you 5 songs that you can actually learn to play in a short time period.
The songs I've presented in this list are beginner to beginner-intermediate. That's why I've left out some of the more popular songs that you'll see in most lists of "easy" fingerstyle songs. I strongly believe that songs like Dust In The Wind, although they are amazing fingerstyle songs, really don't belong in a list of easy to play fingerstyle songs..
Let's now dive into the 5 songs you can learn quickly on fingerstyle guitar. The songs that you are going to learn here have several sections, including verse, chorus, bridge and outro. We`ll be looking at how to play the introduction of the song, which is nearly the same music as the verse.
1. Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
First up is a song that you can play finger picking, and you don't even need to pluck each string. In fact, Paul McCartney does a sort of strumming or flicking motion with his fingers to play the treble notes.
This iconic song Yesterday isn't featured as often in lists of fingerpicking songs as another song by the Beatles, Blackbird. But if you're looking for a well-known song that doesn't even require complex or complete chord shapes, Yesterday by Paul McCartney is a great choice for a fingerstyle song that you can learn quickly.
Here's how to play the verse to Yesterday.
Note that Paul McCartney plays this song on a guitar tuned a whole step down, so you'll have to adjust your tuning if you want to sound like the recording.
2. Safe And Sound (Taylor's Version)
Taylor Swift is actually a decent guitar player, and I'm happy she decided to include some fingerstyle songs amongst her repertoire. Unfortunately, when it comes to the song Safe And Sound, we don't get the chance to judge her fingerstyle skills.
That's because this song taken from the soundtrack of The Hunger Games features a fingerstyle guitar part which is played by the guitarist from The Civil Wars, John Paul White.
Here's how to play the intro (and verse) to Safe And Sound by Taylor Swift. You'll need the capo on the seventh fret to get this to sound like the recording.
By the way, if you want to transcribe a guitar song that uses a capo, I use this trick to transpose the song I want to transcribe into standard tuning, which makes it much easier & much faster for me.
3. Manos Rotas (Dellafuente)
I like to poke fun at rap and hip hop a lot, because these genres of music usually don't feature much guitar. But these genres are ultra popular, and one day while browsing the popular music charts I came across the song Manos Rotas that had an awesome guitar part, played on nylon string no less.
I didn't know either Dellafuente or Morad, but I went straight ahead and learned this easy guitar riff in the song Manos Rotas, and you can do as well.
If you want the tutorial you can check out on my YouTube channel.
4. Tears In Heaven (Eric Clapton)
I had to include this classic by Eric Clapton, the ballad Tears In Heaven popularized on the Unplugged album.
The slow tempo of this song makes it an easy hit for fingerstyle guitarists to master. Although there are some tricky legato playing passages, you can leave those out, and it's possible to play this song without using barre chords.
Here's how you play the introduction to the song Tears In Heaven and the verse. The rest of the song is the same difficulty.
5. Stop This Train (John Mayer)
I'll admit it: I'm not a huge John Mayer fan. His music is a little to chilled out for my style. But Stop This Train includes the right amount of drive to make me want to include it as the last song to round off this list.
One of the more simple John Mayer songs to play on fingerstyle, Stop This Train incorporates some simple thumb slaps, like I show in the online course Play Fingerstyle Guitar Now.
The song has relatively simple chord patterns, but has some tricky shifting and progresses at a decent clip. Practice slowly at first to get all the notes correct before adding speed.
Learn Songs Quickly: My Trick
We've looked at the introduction and verse to five songs, but I encourage you to learn the entire song and not fall into the trap of only learning a few riffs.
Before learning the song, you should be familiar with the sections of the song, and what order they come in.
One easy way to do this is through passive listening. Listen to the song in your free time, while doing other tasks like driving, doing chores, or working out.
By exposing yourself to the song repeatedly, you will become more familiar with its structure, melody, and rhythm. Then learning the other sections of the song will be easier.