intermediate guitar songs

[kingofmirrors]

i've been playing guitar for a couple years now so people sometimes ask me to play something for them. problem is i don't sing and i'm more of a lead guy so most of the stuff i do play is either repetitive rock/blues licks or just soloing, neither of which anyone wants to hear for three minutes. i dont really care about the genre, i just want to play something that will be interesting for people to hear and at least moderately complex. any thoughts? thanks.

[swede123]

I would look into something like Cherry Pie by Warrant or Can't You Hear Me Knocking by the Stones.

Swede

[BEP]

Here is a link to a YouTube tutorial that shows you one of the main finger-picking styles that John Mayer uses on his albums. From his recent album Continuum the songs "Heart of Life" and "Stop This Train" use this technique.

This took me a ton of practice to get it down correctly but since I have learned it I can't stop playing it. And using this technique on many random and boring chord progressions can add a lot of life to your music.


John Mayer finger-pick tutorial

[BEP]

Also Jack Johnson uses a very rhythmic strumming pattern which is good to learn. Learn 3 or 4 of his songs (and it's not too hard to sing them) and things that have vaginas will gravitate towards you.

[burningyen]

If you're not going to be singing at all then there's very little an intermediate guitarist can play that's going to be interesting for more than a minute or so. Only ideas I can think of:

Black Mountainside, Led Zeppelin (you would need to learn the drop tuning)
Rain Song, Led Zeppelin (also drop tuning, but can be faked in normal tuning)
Kashmir, Led Zeppelin (drop tuning again, but mind-numbingly easy once you know the tuning...may get pretty dull for the listener pretty quickly, though)
Blackbird, The Beatles
Dear Prudence, The Beatles (drop D)

For the chicks, More Than Words by Extreme works well, as cheesy as it is, but requires you to do some singing.