This is a continuation of last week’s post of 10 easy guitar songs for beginners. Check those out if you haven’t already. Chords, lyrics, and videos of each songs are included so you can play them!

The best thing a beginning guitar player can do is to apply all the new chords they are learning to playing an actual song. After all, isn’t that why you’re learning how to play guitar in the first place?

So again, here’s my picks of some easy guitar songs for beginners that you should be able to pick up right when you are first beginning guitar (or even if you’ve been playing awhile! These are good songs still!). There’s a mix of some new pop songs and older classics on this list.

Click on the song title to view chords, lyrics, and a video.

Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners

1.) House of the Rising Sun by The Animals
2.) I’m Yours by Jason Mraz
3.) Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne
4.) I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash
5.) Viva La Vida by Coldplay

What would you add to this list?

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When you’re first learning how to play the guitar, the best thing you can do is practice learning a new song. However, it can be hard to find easy guitar songs for beginners when you’re first starting because you don’t know which songs are easy to learn on guitar and which ones aren’t.

Here’s my collection of some easy guitar songs for beginners that you can pick up right away when you are learning how to play the guitar. There’s a mix of some new pop songs and older classics in this list.

I’ve also written up the chords and lyrics. Click on a song to see the video, chords, and lyrics.

Top 5 Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners

1.) Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
2.) Free Falling by Tom Petty
3.) Yellow by Coldplay
4.) Come On Get Higher by Matt Nathanson
5.) Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynard

More Easy Guitar Songs for Beginners

6.) Clocks by Coldplay
7.) Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift
8.) Lost by Coldplay
9.) Realize by Colbie Caillat
10.) You’re Beautiful by James Blunt

When you get through these, be sure to check out five more easy guitar songs for beginners!

What songs are you learning how to play? What easy guitar songs for beginners would you add to this list?

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Fortunately, I’ve been able to put into practice something that’s really helped me to have a sense of progress. I’ve talked before about how to practice guitar and get the most out of it, and those are all very good tips, but something I failed to mention was the importance of engaging your mind in your practice times.

What do I mean by this?

Just recently, I was practicing some scales and triads up and down the fretboard. I found it to be really easy to play a scale pattern or a triad pattern without much thought. And this is good in a certain regard because you are committing these scales and triads to muscle memory, but what I’ve been wary of is only committing it to muscle memory and not having a real understanding of what I’m playing. I’m not engaging my mind in my practice.

How do you engage your mind in practice?

When I engage my mind in practice, I am not only thinking about the different scale or triad patterns I’m playing, but I’m thinking more importantly about how these elements relate to one another. How does learning a triad position build off of what I know about scales? How does learning a scale relate to the way I understand and play chords?

Perhaps this type of talk is kind of intimidating. You could very well not even know the definition of a guitar scale or a triad! But we can go even more simply. Just simply recognizing how a “D” major chord sounds so slightly but very different to a “Dsus” chord is engaging your mind.

It’s helpful to see how the elements of playing guitar overlap and interlock as we’re practicing. Learning your scales isn’t very much different to learning chords. Sometimes it is hard to identify these things right away, but it’s important that our minds are engaged and looking for these ways the elements of our guitar playing interconnect.

How do you engage your mind in your practice?

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Why Tension is Bad

Tension can have a lot of negative effects on your guitar playing. One of the most noticeable effects is that it can tremendously slow down your fingerpicking speed or how fast you execute a riff or lead line. Tension can also really limit the amount of time you can play your instrument in one sitting without experiencing soreness.

If you’re having a hard time with strumming, tension in the hand and the wrist can prevent you from strumming smoothly. It can also give you a hard time when it comes to playing a really fast strumming pattern.

What to do about Tension

There a lot of ways you can prevent and all together eliminate tension from your guitar playing. The more tension you can remove the better. Here are some things you can try.

1.) Warm Up

Think about this for a minute. You’re an athlete about to run a marathon. What do you do before the start of the race? Of course. You warm up!

In a sense, as a guitar player, you’re an athlete. Maybe not in the common sense of the word, but playing the guitar is a physically “demanding” activity. You are using muscles in your body. Because of this, it’s important that you warm them up.

Before playing your guitar, rotate and move your wrists around. When I had problems in my right wrist a couple years ago, one exercise that my chiropractor taught me was to put your fingers together like your holding a pen, and then “invisibly” write out the alphabet in cursive. It seems weird, but it does a good job of stretching out the muscles in your wrist.

Next, on both hands, move and bend your fingers around. Stretch out your fingers like you are trying to palm a basketball. The looser your fingers are the more help you will have with increasing fingerpicking speed and dexterity in your fingering hand.

2.) Slow it Down

I mentioned this earlier in my post about how to play the guitar fast, but the same can apply to eliminating tension. 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed yourself doing this, but I’ve noticed that sometimes, especially in my attempt to try to play a more challenging or faster guitar part, I concentrate really hard, but then tense up in my attempt to try really hard. For whatever reason, I think if I try to the point of tension that I’ll somehow get it.

This becomes really counterproductive. Really, what I need to do is simply relax.

Slowing it down can help with this. If you’re playing a really fast guitar part and you notice yourself tensing up, either in your picking hand or fingering hand, slow it down to a speed where you can play it without any tension. Then, as you feel more comfortable, gradually kick up the speed.

3.) Enjoy the Ride with No Pressure

I’ll kind of bounce back to what I just said about trying really hard. I often times find that I perform the best when I’m not putting unnecessary pressure on myself.

Don’t get so caught up in thinking, “Oh man, I wish I sounded like “so-and-so,” that you stop enjoying the journey and process you are on in your own guitar playing. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by another guitarist, but come on let’s be realistic… you’re not going to sound like them overnight!

You’ll have good days and bad days. And it’s quite alright.

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Perhaps, you remember the video lessons on strumming patterns where I stressed over and over again (probably more than you had hoped for!) the importance of playing with consistent tempo and rhythm. You might know the sickest guitar riff or the most rockin’ strumming pattern, but if you’re timing is all off, then what good is that guitar riff or strumming pattern?

For some, a good sense of timing and rhythm comes very naturally to them. For others, this isn’t the case. However, no matter who are, we can all improve at keeping good time. Let’s look at some exercises we can do to improve our timing.

Meet the Metronome

First off, in case you don’t already know, a metronome is a nifty little device that sets a straight tempo to a click or a tick-tock. The picture on the left is an old-school metronome. Now days you can get an electronic metronome that looks just like guitar tuner. In fact, there are some guitars tuners that have built in metronomes.

Harnessing the Power of the Metronome

This might seem obvious, but simply setting the metronome to the tempo of a song you want to practice, and then playing along with the metronome, will definitely help you develop and further improve your sense of timing. 

Metronomes can also be very helpful with learning new strum patterns. This is because the metronome pushes you to create your strum pattern within the boundaries of good time. This is why on the videos about strumming patterns I counted out loud in my demonstrations.

If you haven’t, first start to simply play along with a metronome. This is a good starting point. But while just playing along with a metronome can be helpful, there are specific exercises we can put to practice with the metronome that will provide a further challenge. These exercises are focused on songs that are written with 4 beats per measure (4/4). (So if you are trying to apply this to a song or a strumming pattern with a waltz feel, this probably won’t work as well for a variety of reasons…)

Exercise #1
Once you find yourself comfortable practicing a song with a metronome, try this exercise.

First, find the tempo of a song you want to practice. Then, slow down the tempo to half of what it is normally (half time). For example, if your tempo is at 120 BPM (beats per minute), slow it down to 60 BPM. But while doing this, keep your “internal clock” beating at 120 BPM, but then make the clicks of the metronome at 60 BPM be beats 1 & 3 of the measure.

What you are essentially doing is removing beats 2 & 4 from the count of 120 BPM. So it’ll be up to you and your internal clock to keep in time with the beats you don’t hear.

Exercise #2
This is practically the same principle behind exercise #1, but instead of removing beats 2 & 4, remove beats 1 & 3 instead. So really you’ll only be hearing beats 2 & 4. I think you’ll find this one much more challenging.

Exercise #3
We’re going to take it a step further here. Let’s set the count of our metronome to 120 BPM and then cut that in half to 60 BPM (like the above examples). But then, let’s take it even further, and cut 60 BPM in half to 30 BPM (you’re metronome might not go that low!). This will only provide us with the first beat of the measure. It’s then up to you and your internal clock to stay on time with the other “beats” you don’t hear!

Metronome Alternatives

Instead of practicing with a metronome, you might also want to consider buying a little drum machine. I personally prefer this over a metronome because it’s not so boring! However, the above exercises are harder to do with a drum machine. Plus, drum machines will cost much more than a little metronome.

What Works For You?

How do you go about developing better rhythm and timing? What have I missed here?

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1. Guitar Strumming Lesson: 6/8 Strumming Patterns

Let’s be real.  If you want to become a better guitar player (or better ‘anything’ for that matter), you must practice!  While this is really important to understand, I’d say it’s equally important that we have productive practices.  Here are some ideas for the way you approach practicing guitar:

1.) Schedule it

If there is one thing I’ve learned, it is that the busyness of life won’t be sensitive to my music.  In other words, if you don’t schedule a time to practice guitar, it probably won’t happen!  Try to find consistent times in your week (half hour or hour blocks) that you can dedicate to practicing guitar.  Personally, I’ve found that if I do this, I end up practicing a lot more than I would otherwise.

2.) Create a practice space

Don’t just find a time to practice, but also find a place to practice.  Get away from distractions.  Lock yourself away.  Get to a place where you won’t feel self-conscious about making mistakes or trying new things.  I’m a college student and I’ve found that the dorms aren’t the best place to practice!  Too much chaos.  Get away from it!

3.) Set goals and have a plan

One of our readers, John, made a great point in a comment to a previous post, which was also on practice and about my encounter with a guitar sage.  Here’s what he said:

This is so true.  One question you might be asking though is, “I don’t know what to practice in order to get better!”  I know I’ve asked myself this many times.  I want to get better or increase my skill, but I don’t really know how to go about it.  Something that can help with this is to look into private lessons or online guitar lessons that have a curriculum or lesson plan laid out for you.  

4.) Be patient and persevere

This is the thing.  While practice can be fun, sometimes it is just plain hard work!  If you find yourself getting bored with what you are practicing, make sure you are throwing in a healthy amount of variety into your guitar practicing.  But do expect those times where you don’t really feel like it.  I encourage you to press on though.  You’ll be glad in the future that you stuck through it.

5.) Play what’s familiar

As important as it is to be challenging yourself in new ways on the guitar, do rejoice in what you already know how to play.  Play what’s familiar and what you can play well.  You’ll feel encouraged because it is the fruit of your hard work!

What are ways that help you maximize the effectiveness of your guitar practice times?

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1. Engaging Your Mind in Guitar Practice
2. Thoughts on Practice from a Wise, Old Guitarist

His reason for selling his guitars was simply, “I’m just getting too old.”  Bill was 81 years old.  In talking to him, I found out that he actually played professionally all throughout his life.  He ended up showing me some of his recordings, and man, they were impressive!  Bill played guitar at lightning speeds with flawlessness.

So I said to him, “What advice do you have for me to increase my guitar speed?”

He just kind of stared at me with deep, pensive eyes.  I half wondered if he heard or understood my question because of the amount of time that passed before he said anything.  He thought for awhile, smiled slightly, and then said confidently, “Practice. Practice. And, practice. Then,” he went on with an increased smile, “you must develop a slight nervous twitch in your picking hand.”  

We both laughed, but inside I was kind of disappointed that all he told me was to “practice.”  It seemed so elementary.  But then, as I was leaving, I realized that his words contained deep wisdom.  Time that is diligently spent in practice is the only way we’ll ever grow as musicians.

On a similar note, if you are wanting to hone in on different skills and techniques on guitar, then check out my reviews on some splendid online guitar courses.

Now, with that being said, go practice!

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1. How To Play Guitar Fast! 5 Tips to Increase Speed
2. Engaging Your Mind in Guitar Practice
3. How to Practice Guitar and Get the Most Out of It