[history]

Hey, I've been playing for about two years but i haven't gotten picking down and i want to do it on my acoustic, just because i think that acoustic provides more soul to the music.... any good songd to start off with??

[annoying_2001]

classical gas
layla-acoustic
hotel california
scarbourgh fair
any tunes by csn&y
and...................i can;'t think of anything else. so that is it.

[acousticmoose]

anything by eva cassidy although you might find it a bit tough to start with! mayb everybody hurts by REM! thats a good one to get to grips with!

[grzegorz_panek]

Robert Johnson. Quite easy to play, and great.

[sriver]

you can pick out some songs which are awesome when played in acoustic(at least i like them acoustic):

nothing else matters
unforgiven
sanitarium
(all by metallica)

[disdamn]

I've put together a list of various styles of finger picking songs from easy to progressively more difficult (IMHO) The list starts with pretty simple songs you should be able to master pretty quickly, and quickly gets more difficult. If you're just looking to learn the different methods of picking don't bother trying to master the songs, just the techniques employed to play them effectively, though it certainly wouldn't hurt to be ably to play any of these piece should you choose to learn them

REM - Everhody Hurts
Black Crowes - Seeing Things
Blind Melon - No Rain (learn the riff/solo... it's good to be able to move around the box like they do while picking)
Green Day - Time of Your Life [congratulations, you're not a FNG picker anymore]
3 Doors Down - Kryptonite
Animals - House of the Rising Sun
Collective Soul - December (repetitive, but a good moderately paced picking song)
Puddle of Mudd - She ######ing Hates Me (learn the riff)
Heart - Love Alive (an excellent variety of picking methods)
Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter [You should be able to improvise by now]
Extreme - More Than Words
Sam Roberts - Brother Down (its easy to sound close, but to play it properly and at the right tempo takes good pick/finger work)
Dave Matthews - Satellite
Fleetwood Mac - Go Insane
Beatles - Black Bird [Welcome to Advanced Picking 101]
Clapton - Tears in Heaven
Chet Atkins - Malaguenes
Fleetwood Mac - Big Love (great speed is needed)
Led Zepplin - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (The Intro is fantastic)
Ottmar Leibert - Samba Pa Ti
Yngwie Malmsteen - Flamenco Diablo (People will give you crap about Malmsteen, but I don't care, I've seen someone play this piece on an acoustic and it's mind blowingly impressive)

Congratulations if you can play the last two pieces with any amount of skill... you're in the upper echelon of guitar pickers

This should give you an excellent ideas of different picking from straight up and down picking, to alternate picking, travis picking, bass and ryhthm on one guitar, spanish classical, to modern speed picking. Hope this helps you out.

[teaforthetiller]

House of the rising sun by the animals
Blackbird by the beatles
tears in heaven by eric clapton
also the Wind by Cat Stevens
and moonshadow by cat stevens

are pretty easy starter songs for fingerpickin

This post has been edited by teaforthetiller: 20 November 2003 - 03:23 AM

[acoustic_soul]

When I frist started, this was the first song I was told to Fingerpick to.
It's easire than blackbird, and Layla and Tears in Heaven. Those are more moderate fingerpicking songs. Here's a more simpler yet sound applealing song to fingerpick to:

IF by Bread

It has really simple chords and it's slow. So i was able to go at my own pace, and pick up the speed after a while. Chords are: A AM7 A7 D Dm A D7 E7

Or even check out "Comfortable" by John Mayer. It's a real beauty. Download it or something, you'll be impressed i think, well i was. It's a real down to earth and heart felt song.
Enjoy

This post has been edited by acoustic_soul: 20 November 2003 - 09:11 AM