Beginner Guitar Lesson 08 - How to Play all the Famous Songs

If you are like most people learning to play the guitar, then you would probably love to learn how to play famous, well-known songs. There are dozens of great websites on the internet where you can download the guitar music for free, so you can play like Metallica, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Bob Marley, or whatever artist you choose to imitate.

This music is either in the form of musical lyrics with the chords above the words, or tablature. Tablature isn’t the official sheet music for those famous songs. Iinstead, it has been transcribed by other guitarists around the world, and sounds very close to the real thing. The great thing about both of these types of notations is that they are easy to learn how to read, even if you’ve never read music before.

Note: If you are looking for the 100% accurate, official sheet music supplied by the artists, and I highly recommend this to proficient guitarists, then you can buy it from sheetmusicplus.com or your local musical instrument store. The picture below illustrates the notation that includes musical lyrics with the chords above the words:

Try to play the above song with me – Play button here

Here’s what guitar tablature looks like:

e|-----0-------|--0--------------|------------------|--0-------------|

B|-----------2-|-----3-----0-----|--2-------2-------|-----3-----0----|

G|-------------|--------2--------|-----2-------2----|--------2-------|

D|-------------|-----------------|------------------|----------------|

A|--0-----0----|--------------0--|--------0-------0-|--------------0-|

E|-------------|-----------------|------------------|----------------|

e|-------------------|--0-----------|-----------------|------------------------

B|--2-------2--------|-----3-----0--|-----------------|------------------------

G|-----2-------2-----|--------2-----|--2--2--2--2-----|--1--1--1--1--1--1--1--1

D|-------------------|--------------|--------------2--|--2--2--2--2--2--2--2--2

A|--------0-------0--|--------------|-----------------|--2--2--2--2--2--2--2--2

E|-------------------|--------------|-----------------|--0--0--0--0--0--0--0—0      

This is an example of a piece of guitar tablature that includes finger picking. As you can see the strings are labeled above eBGDAE. So, when you see a number on a particular string, you pluck that fret on the guitar.

For example:

e | ---

B | ---

G | -0-

D | ---

A | ---

E | ---

In the above short tablature, you’d simply pluck the open G string. Here’s another example:

e | ---

B | ---

G | ---

D | ---

A | -3-

E | ---

In the above example, you’d simply hold down one finger on the 3rd fret on the A string, while plucking the A string with your pick. Here’s one final example:

e | -2-

B | -3-

G | -2-

D | -0-

A | ---

E | ---

Can you guess what you need to strum here? This is the D chord that we learned in a previous lesson, pictured below:

You place your fingers on the 2nd fret of the G string, another on the 3rd fret on the B string, and another on the 2nd fret on the e string, and then strum from the open D string right through.