Playing guitar is supposed to be a challenge, but more than that, it's supposed to be fun. After a couple of years of working to shape chords, change chords, strum, and sing with rhythm, I had a breakthrough and was able to play several chords smoothly. Most of the lesson books I was using at the time relied on old songs -- such as "America the Beautiful," "The Banana Boat Song," and "When the Saints Go Marching In" -- to teach chords and single note melodies. All of the essential beginner songs deserve respect, but when you're ready to groove, you can't do better than Cherry Lane Music Company's "Hits of the '60s" Strum & Sing sheet music book.
What I like most about this book is that it's great for beginner and intermediate players, so you can grow with it. Some songs have as few as three very basic chords, others have a mix of basic and more advanced chords, including barre chords.
Fortunately, the songs selected by the music company are fun to play, so you'll be driven to take on the tougher chords just to hear yourself play songs by your idols. "Hits of the '60s" features over 40 songs that we've all heard for many years, including: "Blowin' in the Wind," "From Me to You," "I Walk the Line," "Mrs. Robinson," "My Generation" and "Twist and Shout."
Another cool feature of "Hits of the 60s" is that the music is written in a simplified, easy to read format. You get lyrics, chords and chord diagrams. For beginners, the lack of the formal format -- with beat count, staphs and measures -- may seem daunting at first. But, once you let go and start playing the rhythm the way you remember the song, you'll find it a blast to experiment. This invigorating experience is killed off by too many supposed fake books that contain chords that even accomplished jazz players might find challenging.
I'd say as a continuing student of the guitar that the main educational value of this "Hits of the '60s" is that it's making me work to master more chords and to be a more creative strummer. Its value to me as a noodler is that it's really neat to play the guitar and sound (kind of) like my favorite artists.
The only downside I've found in this book, and I've found it in most other songbooks, is for a couple of songs -- "I Saw Her Standing There" and "If I Had A Hammer" -- the chords needed to be shifted a little more to the left to sound right. To do this, I just took a pencil, scribbled out the existing chord and wrote it in where I think it belongs. That fixed the problem.
Buy this book.
Cherry Lane Music Company's "Hits of the '60s" Sing & Strum songbook features many songs that we all grew up listening to. This is a book beginners can use to grow to intermediate players as the songs range from simple three chord tunes to more complicated songs that require mastery of barre chords. Ultimately, though, it's so much fun playing songs you know by your favorite rock idols you won't even notice you're learning new skills.
Here's a snippet of a page. Note the simplified form: Lyrics, letter chords and chord charts. For beginners, the lack of a formal format can be intimidating, but once you relax and start to strum from your memory of how the song should be played, you won't be able to stop, and you'll become a better player.
