Good albums for beginners to play along with . . .

[Chewy_B_i_T_s]

Post your opinions on which albums beginners should buy and play along with. State your reasons and your lesson plan!. I'll start . .

Bob Marley, Legend

• Basslines are loud enough for the untrained ear to easily pick out.
• Easy songs and more difficult songs all on the same album.
• Heck, the basslines are unique and just sound COOL.
• Reggae will force beginners to develop their internal timing.

Lesson 1: Stir it Up (Simple but sounds good. Lets the player find his/her groove and keep it)
Lesson 2: One Love (Really fun bass part. More involved than Stir it Up)
Lesson 3: I Shot the Sheriff (This song probably had more impact on my timing than any other song that I learned as a beginner.)

Your turn.

[Baryonyx]

Wrong forum.

Oh, and an album? "A Show of hands" by Victor Wooten...hohoho...

[GlennW]

Booker T and the MG's Greatest Hits. (hope you like F)

[Baird6869]

A few easy ones....

Rush - 2112
Yes - Fragile
Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
Weather Reoprt - Night Passage
Stanley Clarke, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Al Di Meola - Rite of Strings

Shouldn't take more than a few minutes to learn these.

Seriously..... almost anything by U2.

[SurrenderMonkey]

Like many, I started on Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Some of the songs are easy, some are hard, so you can progress nicely.

Reason?
Great bass lines, very diverse, from slap, funk, to rock and punk. You need to be good on timing and left hand / right hand technique.

Plan?
- I could have lied. Easy slow stuff. Good start. Builds up to impro bass lines during the guitar solo.
- Under the bridge. Easy, not very fun to play, bit harder on timing. but good song, popular with chicks.
- Beaking the girl. Change of tempo, not very hard, need faster hand technique.
- Blood Sugar Sex magic. Chord Practise. Rest is pretty easy.
- Give it away. Great tune, not very hard. Needs spot on timing, needs to listen to the drums and the voice too. Guitar follows everything else.
- Funky Monks. Easy to play for the most part, needs great timing. Some parts will test your dexterity a little bit. Good for impro.
- Suck My Kiss. Faster rock track, but not too difficult.
- Apache Rose Peacock. Similar to Funky monks. Slow, funk track, with room for impro and improving technique. Needs great timing too.
- Mellowship Slinky. Not very hard. Needs accurate timing, and great interplay with the drums.
- Sir Psycho Sexy. Easy track. Same slow funk number, with lots of room for impro.
- Naked In The Rain. Slap. Easy intro to slap and sounds great. Have a look at the Flea + Chad youtube RHCP clinic video.
- If you have to ask. This is a tricky number to play right. There is a possibility to learn and practise three-finger plucking on the main riff, or increase the right hand dexterity. The lines are getting more intricate.
- The Greeting Song. Fast number. Great work for dexterity and warmup. Better played slowly first. I recommend you watch the youtube with chad and flea video regarding that song. Once you get it, start playing faster and faster.
- My lovely man. Easy intro riff. The fun starts with the bridge and the funky drum-bass interplay. Needs great timing with the drums.
- Soul To Squeeze (not really BSSM, but anyway). Nice song, technically easy, but will get you working on impro and melodies.
- The power of equality. This starts getting serious. The slap is pretty hard to keep in sync and requires good technique. Porbably left out until you get really good at slapping, it's a struggle for a beginner and sounds 'weird' on its own.

[Eric Killinger]

squarepusher - hard normal daddy

[Kosko]

Beginner stuff? are you guys serious? holy crap...

i'd say more along the lines of Green Day and Deep Purple...

[meanspirit]

The first Ramones LP - "Blitzkrieg Bop," "53rd & 3rd," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," etc. The album has a hard-panned stereo mix with all the guitars on one speaker and all the bass on the other speaker, so you can turn the guitars on and off as needed by selecting the left/right speakers on your home stereo. (I'm playing around with this one right now, in fact.)

Lesson plan: Turn off the guitars and pick along with DeeDee to learn the songs. Then, turn off the bass and play along with the rest of the band to work out the feel of the songs and build confidence for playing with other instruments.

[chunkstyle]

the Meters. easy. but timing and placement is everything.

[Baird6869]

Originally Posted by KoskoArts

Beginner stuff? are you guys serious? holy crap...

i'd say more along the lines of Green Day and Deep Purple...

Most Green Day isn't really that easy.

Lots of odd chord changes and weird bridges in songs like Longview, Holiday and Basket Case.

Brain Stew is really, really easy and American Idiot isn't too bad.

[ggunn]

The Gourds tune "Hooky Junk" is a great example of an 8th note walking bass line which shows a lot of imagination.

[ImaStupidBaby]

I practiced a lot to Nirvana's Nevermind and especially Marilyn Manson (wasn't their biggest fan, but I was able to play a lot of their songs fairly easily).

[Auzzie-Phoenix]

Creedence Clearwater Revival... a lot of the ccr songs aren't that hard to learn, such as Fortunate Son or Rollin' on the river.

[animal52]

RATM, self-titled

[Gegatso]

Early Police stuff to develop rhythm as well as having easy to learn songs. Keeps students from getting frustrated!

~Mark

[Aarix]

I remember playing along with police albums over & over while I was learning. The songs are simple & repetitive enough that you can learn the riff by the time the song ends, but still lots of fun to play.

[Aarix]

Originally Posted by Gegatso

Early Police stuff to develop rhythm as well as having easy to learn songs. Keeps students from getting frustrated!

~Mark

Jinx! You owe me a coke.

[strangemusic]

Originally Posted by GlennW

Booker T and the MG's Greatest Hits. (hope you like F)

Ditto!

[prokfrog]

RAMONES- It's Alive

[Geddyfleaharris]

Well for rock anything by AC/DC. Yes I know it is simple and the bass is way down in most of their mixes but IMO when a beginner starts to feel like they are playing actual songs their interest in the instrument sky rockets.