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What Green Day songs are easy to play -Beginner


cav9mm

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I’m 37 and I know two chords (Em and D).

 

i had about 6 lessons in the 90’s and haven’t played since but recently I dusted off my acoustic guitar and am going to try to teach myself as I go. 

 

I was was wondering what Green Day songs are good for beginners to learn and figure out ?

What are some songs that are really fun and easy to play that aren’t by Green Day but that a beginner would be able to handle with a little practice ?

 

Also, has anybody else taught themselves to play ? 

 

If so, any pointers or feedback ?

 

Thanks in advance folks .

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I've heard a lot to people say Good Riddance is pretty easy. It's still hard for me because I think instruments are the hardest thing in the world (not literally of course)

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There is no GD song that is really difficult to play. II find Good Riddance to be one of their more difficult songs, not difficult just one of their more difficult songs. I have trouble going from picking to strumming so that is why I feel that way.

I literally learned Coming Clean and Brain Stew in 5 minutes. Give them a try.

 

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@cav9mm I've started playing a little more than a year ago, so I'm still quite a beginner, I can play power chords and simple solos and have practically only learned Green Day songs until now. I've had a guitar teacher all the time, taking individual lessons, he lets me learn what I want and that's how I got to play mostly Green Day. I started with Macy's Day Parade, Lazy Bones, Going to Pasalacqua, When It's Time and Still Breathing (my choices, and some my teacher considered to be doable for me in the very beginning). Now he says I'm able to learn any Green Day song, I've just mastered Forever Now and am working on Revolution Radio and American Idiot (which are faster and technically slightly more advanced than the first ones I learned). None of them is really difficult, for me it still takes a few weeks to get to play (while singing) one song acceptably, but technically as a beginner you can check out online tabs for any Green Day song and with some work and patience you'll handle it. From my own experience though I think that you'd make faster and easier progress with a good guitar teacher. Without mine I don't think I would have had the motivation or found the right way to learn some stuff on guitar. Now I'll soon have learned 20 Green Day songs so I'm very satisfied.

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Green Day doesn't really have many difficult songs. The first song I ever learned on guitar in general was American Idiot. Always thought that one was pretty easy. If you're looking for something easy and acoustic Boulevard Of Broken Dreams is really simple.

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Brain Stew. You could probably sing that one while playing it on your first try.

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Well, Brain Stew is for you, it's very easy and the strumming is not something very dificult (down, up, or down, down)

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When I come around has a pretty steady chord melody. I would probably learn that one if I were to play

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Pretty much what Piccolo said, any song that only has power chords is an easy song on paper. Working on your "accent" will be another thing, but nobody minds anyways, except for fanatics like me.

Edit: As for Good Riddance, The key for the picking hand is to lean the arm on the guitar and only move your wrist, but don't overthink it, just let it loose while making sure it's going in the general direction. You don't have to be super accurate when picking like that.

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Thanks folks. 

Some of the Longshot songs such as  “the last time” seem like they might be fun to learn ?

Any good tabs out there

i guess right now I don’t know what’s easy or not .

 

thanks for your input 

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That's right every GD song is quiet easy to play, what defines punk music is playing power chords. You can play power chords you can play most of the songs. Few days ago I learned Take Back, very simple, only power chords and it's really fast

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I agree with everyone that Brain Stew is easy to learn, even though you are playing on an acoustic guitar so it'll obviously sound different. The first GD song i learned was "When I Come Around" and that one was pretty easy for me personally followed by "Brain Stew/Jaded".

So i'd say Brain Stew/Jaded, When I Come Around, ect. Most aren't actually too hard to play. It's just the way that Billy strums that is hard to emulate but i personally don't play guitar like him 😁

Other beginner oriented songs that are fairly easy to play...I guess it depends on the band/style that you like. I like a variety of music from blues to classic rock to metal. I personally play electric more than acoustic though so...i also still mix up chords/names quite a bit as i learned mainly on my own (only took lessons for about 5-6 months as well when i was 16 or so).

But i did jam out on a lot of Nirvana/Metallica & even early Silverchair stuff when i first started playing. The Metallica stuff helped me with my palm muting and the Nirvana stuff helped with my chord switching. Most of the Silverchair stuff was in Drop-D so that was fairly easy to play as well and i got to experience a new tuning 😃.  Some of The Beatles and Rolling Stones stuff isn't too hard either.

The one tip that i would suggest is to take advantage of the internet and all of the video's/info/advise that is out there today (even though it can be hard to find decent info). You can learn quite a bit nowadays just by watching stuff online. And always, have fun playing more than anything. In the end that's what playing music is all about.

I hope this info has helped you out.

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The hardest part (in my experience) is finding accurate tabs/chords online. A lot of people get it wrong, but trust your ear. I've had like 6-7 basic chords down for years but only started taking guitar seriously in the last year and I teach myself. I've found Boulevard of Broken Dreams to be the easiest so far, Good Riddance is pretty easy (provided you play the original way not the way he currently plays it at shows), When I Come Around (as others have mentioned). Welcome to Paradise is easy once you get the rhythm down. American Idiot is a bit harder because the chord changes are fast so I'd hold off a bit on that one till you're more comfortable changing between more chords. HItchin A Ride, Brain Stew...Those are all good ones to start with. Basket Case isn't too bad, more just tiring. If I take too many days off or leave that one to the end of my practice session my hand is too worn out to play it properly. Good luck and stick with it!

Oh, and learn some warm ups. I used to get so discouraged when I'd suck at something I did well the day before because I didn't realize I had just done it later in my practice session last time and thus had "warmed up". Find some scales or just little things you can play, or basic songs that you pick up easily and let yourself warm up so that when you're learning these songs, you're setting yourself up with the best chance at playing them well. 

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8 minutes ago, gaslight13 said:

Good Riddance is pretty easy (provided you play the original way not the way he currently plays it at shows), 

I've tried so hard to find a tab of what he does onstage and haven't been able to find one.  I did find one Youtube video, but it wasn't very well done.

I'm weird and suck at power chords.  Billie did force me to become comfortable with doing a full g though (I had been taught the folk g), so I'm hoping he'll have the same effect there.

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20 hours ago, Montclare said:

I've tried so hard to find a tab of what he does onstage and haven't been able to find one.  I did find one Youtube video, but it wasn't very well done.

I'm weird and suck at power chords.  Billie did force me to become comfortable with doing a full g though (I had been taught the folk g), so I'm hoping he'll have the same effect there.

I could be wrong but I’m not sure that’s something you can really learn tabs for, I think it’s mostly just something you have to get a feel for the rhythm of what he’s doing because he’s just making it sound cooler and a little trickier because he’s probably board from playing it for so many years. Or at least, that seems like the easier way to do it IMO.

yeah barre chords and some power chords aren’t the easiest till you build hand strength. I avoided them for so long, haha. 

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When I Come Around and Good Riddance are extremely easy to play.  

Bare minimum chords you need to know:   G, C, D, Em and......A and Am.  If you can play those 6 chords, you can play an incredible amount of songs and sound pretty close to the songs.  

Green Day have been called '3 chord wonders' or whatever, but they are certainly not.  Good Riddance is perhaps their most basic song and it has at least 4. 

 

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Green Day are very much a band who beginners can play.  A lot of bands say they started off by playing Green Day covers.

Brain Stew is very simple as is Hitchin A Ride - you can keep your hand in the same position for the whole song and don’t even need to change strings, just move up and down the neck.

Holiday was the first song I ever learnt how to play, followed by American Idiot and BOBD (I was 16 when AI came out).  Their entire catalogue is pretty simple tbh

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