Acoustic Guitar Players - Question!

So my MC plays guitar. I want her to be good at it, without being super phenomenal; to show that, early on I want her to play a short piece around a proverbial campfire that shows she's skilled but not one that makes her out to be like some kind of massive prodigy. Since I don't play myself, I only know what sounds hard to play, and what sounds easy to play, but have no real clue which is actually which.

Hell, I don't even know for sure what can and can't actually be played acoustically.

YouTube didn't really help me (other than by letting me cross Joe Satriani's "Midnight" off the list, since that's exclusively electric), neither did a brief perusing of internet guitar forums.

I've got a few ideas, but what I'm looking for is a piece that wouldn't make an actual guitar player who might be reading my book somewhere down the line say "Pshaw, that's super easy!" or "Seriously? Like, almost NOBODY can play that!"

Right now, I'm leaning towards Joe Satriani's Tears in the Rain, Annihilator's Crystal Ann, or Eric Johnson's Song for George. If none of those are appropriate for what I'm trying to get across, I would love love love other suggestions.

Thanks!

 

It really doesn't matter if it's easy or hard ... nobody's looking for virtuoso performances around a campfire. Most of the stuff I play around the campfire is by songwriters like John Prine or Bob Dylan or Tom Paxton ... simple chords, but great lyrics.

If you want to get a feel for what amateur acoustic guitarists like to play, go to the Acoustic Guitar Forum's "Show and Tell" section:

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=20

There are probably a few songs there that you can pick out and use.

 

The song isn't important. You can take a really complicated piece of music with all sorts of fancy riffs, finger picking, solos, and whatnot and just play chords that correspond to the vocals to get the "campfire version." I do it all the time with rock and metal songs I couldn't play otherwise. Like the campfire/chords version of a song isn't always how a song is performed on the album, but it's great for performing casually with friends who want to sing along.

Your character could start by playing "just the chords" for a difficult song and work her way up to playing it as performed on the album.

 

The Grand Bar F and Bb on the first fret are generally considered to be the hardest to play of the less exotic chords. The easiest way to mis-play these chords is to "Buzz" them which means that the strings are not fully depressed behind the fret and that's usually the fault of the bar "Index" finger. Also the partial bar Eb on the third fret is kind of tricky and avoided buy most self taught and beginners. Another facet that might be overlooked but could add some color to your story is that the guitar is physically painful to play. After a while the mind just tunes the pain out but it's still there even through the callouses.

Generally speaking, camp fire guitarists are afraid of going up the neck. A hard song to play might be Amos Moses by Jerry Reed. I'd say "God rest him" but I'm sure he kicking up dust somewhere.

 

I used to sing in a band and have been hanging out with rock musicians since I was 15 (amateur to Grammy-nominated pros), and when the acoustics come out, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai et al isn't what's played, no matter how big a fan the person playing is. (That would be like busing out a difficult Beethoven piano concerto at a Christmas party instead of "Jingle Bells".) Also, you want the song to be at least somewhat familiar in the average reader's head. The ones above are a little too obscure for the average person who's not super-into music.

At a casual gathering when people get out their acoustics it's going to be one of these scenarios:

If it's a jam where people who don't usually play together pair off and play and sing, the songs will be easy classic rock or easy singer-songwriter stuff because both people either have to know the song already or the person joining at least has to be able to pick it up quickly. If a guy and a girl are singing together, (as was the case with me because I was always the only girl musician in the room), there can't be gigantic high or low notes because it has to be comfortable for both voices. (I always went for the Stones or early Elton John, but the guitar playing wasn't the goal of my jam partner in that situation so that won't work here.) If there are a bunch of songwriters in the room, someone will usually play a Beatles cover, even if the musicians attending are into hard rock, because most songwriters study the Beatles at some point.

"Here Comes the Sun" by George Harrison would probably serve your purpose because it would allow for some finger picking and improv so she could show off her stuff, and a lot of readers would know the song even if they don't know the Beatles because it's been used in TV commercials. She could either sing it with someone, sing it by herself, or just play it with no vocal and it would work.

If it's a "get up and show us your stuff" kind of gathering where people get up solo, it will either be an unusual arrangement of something they listened to growing up, or something everyone knows that's currently on the radio. I'd avoid the current on the radio stuff because it will date your story. "Here Comes the Sun" would probably a fairly safe choice here.

Whatever you choose has to age well, not be trendy, and it can't be obscure for readers who aren't into music, because they're not going to put down your book to look it up. (ETA: I feel your pain, by the way. My MC is a classical pianist and composer.)

 

When playing a guitar by itself, you tend to not really play the tabs that the artist played because in this situation, you’re not trying to emulate the guitar, your trying to emulate the whole band. You usually end up playing a simple bass rhythm on the lower strings and a simple strum or plucking of the beat of the song with the higher ones.

It they’re really good they also may beat on the face of the guitar itself for a drum beat. They may also tap their string sometimes rather than plucking them, it greats kind of a drum snare effect.


MTV used to have artists “unplugged” (am I old?). You can find many amazing guitar players using only an acoustic guitar in that series. Check out how Eric Clapton played “Layla.” They have bands behind them most of the time but occasionally there is a great solo performance.

As for other performers to look up for inspiration, what about Trace Bundy?


The thing about mastering an instrument though isn’t about being able to play any particular song. I can play some pretty complicated songs, but I’m certainly not good. It’s about being able to hear something in your head and having your fingers just be able to do it. Great guitar players aren’t even thinking about the instrument in their hands, they’re brain is as connected to their instrument as a vocalists is to theirs. It’s muscle memory and trained neural pathways. Similar to how if your good at a video game or something, you don’t think of yourself as pressing buttons on a controller, you ARE mario. If you want to show someone is a real prodigy, have them hear something once then immediately play it back.

 

There's the question of "How good is good?" When a person is just learning there is a tendency to think of the guitar as the enemy, something to be overcome. Once you get passed that stage, the sky is the limit. You stop playing the guitar and start playing the music. The music isn't a set piece unless you're a classical player, it's your music.

 

This is awesome, folks! Exactly what I was looking for!! Thank you so much!

 

Yeah, you can play pretty much anything on acoustic. Well, it can be played, whether your character has the skill is another matter. Making them too good at things overall may make them feel OP, so if you make them too good at one thing you guitar, then you might have to show being them far worse at some other skills.

Bonus video, just for kicks:

 

On an acoustic guitar, for a crowd pleaser that's fun to do on an acoustic guitar; Kurt Cobain/Nirvana
Joe Satriani? IDK, around a campfire? I'm not saying it won't be cool, but it won't be so warm or as cool as saying she sang a hit song that rocked and rocked it on the guitar around the campire fire and everyone was impressed and she got to shine doing what she did.

You could say she used her Snark

and tuned it to how she liked it and let rip singing and hitting Come As You Are followed by Lithium as, she her self was exploring her own guitar playing that week and stumbled across D tuning so used this opportunity at the campfire to get in some practice & perform at the same time (what she's been practicing in D) - followed by an encore of this British song she heard on the internet called Every You Every Me (by Placebo) and rocked it like she owned it, in D tuning.

I'd rate such a story and write into to guitar publications if your story gets published and rave all about this guitarist story I saw if you could make your guitarist do this, and have it be from the guitarist's p.o.v for this campfire thing.
?

Make it vocals and guitars...

You could even have her singing Adele

Since in your story, she could rock it and passionately perform it around the campfire like she's breathing if you get the tuning right, anything's possible on guitar like she's Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain.

 

Singing and playing guitar is one thing, but to do lead guitar and lead vocals and to play the song how it was recorded (there's various ways to play songs), the most impressive thing a guitarist can do is to own a song, which means, doing it how it was recorded or better.
That's impressive and can shine in any moment be it electric guitar or acoustic.



Have her perform something that sounds like this, because it's just guitar, and having her sing as well makes you let everyone sing a long and maybe have her quite organically interacting with the audience/her peers as she's singing and playing and everyone's clapping along singing keeping time.

 

If she whipped this song out, could turn some heads.

This girl singing and playing this at the campfire, could rock.

Because your arrangement is acoustic guitar only, may as well have her singing it and learning both parts (vocals and guitars), because that's impressive and everyone likes a hit song or a soulful heart felt tune.

 

Just my two cents, since you've got plenty of great suggestions and at this point anything new is going to start getting too much - as a guitar player (but not a great one) I find that I can't remember a whole lot of songs, so I stick with the ones that feel good to play and play them all the time. Absolute favourites are I Believe I'll Dust My Broom (Robert Johnson), Nothing Else Matters (Metallica), and Tears In Heaven. They're pretty entry-level stuff, but if you know the songs you'll know that they sound more complicated than they are. I always thought the Metallica song was multiple guitars, until I found the music for it. Like I said, you've got plenty of choices here already, but these are the ones I always play when I get the chance.

 

If a guitarist played Nirvana or Oasis around a campfire the hippies would beat him up. You need some folky credentials. This is mini-Wolf. Apols for that eccentric gargle on the vox but nice guitar, eh?

 

"Blackbird" (Beatles) --

Throw in the word "arpeggios" if you want a descriptive.

 

I would say Over the Hills and Far Away for the level of difficulty you've described. Not too hard, but probably not for a beginner either.

 

I agree, it actually sounds more complex than it is.

 

Many people have asked me to play over the hill and far away, but I don't think they meant the song.

 

Have her play a set, but make all the songs hit songs, and make them the same tuning.

So, IDK, take a tuning, D, and write about this young guitarist branching out into other sounds and tunings and using this moment, for her, as an opportunity to sneak in some practice, so she tunes the guitar to what she's been working on.


I'm still saying 2 Nirvana hit songs followed by a Placebo hit from 1999 all recorded in D so have this guitarist tune the guitar to D with a Snark she had on her.

and then of course, let her sing and play it how it was recorded or better, no compromise, only owning the song.

 

would be a fine set to whip out if you had it in your arsenal/repertoire, since it's all in the same tuning, so can be played one after the other if you wanted with no breaks.
This is a whole tone lower than standard tuning, these are songs recorded with guitars tuned to D and not E.

 

Truth be told, any guitar virtuoso may have a guitar tuner/Snark nearby by and might pack such a thing for camp just in case someone brings a guitar and they get to play on it, and probably, any guitar genius may decided to change the tuning to another because they may prefer a song recorded in one tuning or learned in one tuning, in another Flat tuning instead, so, like Eb instead of E.
A great guitarist might decide to play it their way, like Hendrix, and own it, come up with something better.

If you wanna film it, I can teach your guitarist you cast some guitar hacks I know to pull off stuff, you know, some of my trade secrets.

 

For something off the wall, you could have them play peer gynt suite no 1 op 46, or as it is more commonly known 'in the hall of the mountain king'. There are guitar tabs of this online so it would be easy for your character to find and it is all single notes vs chords so fairly easy to play.

 

landslide by stevie nix fleetwood mac. might be appropriate for a female singer

 

That's a good one.