GitaartabsPlaylist · 22 songs
The 22 finest acoustic guitar songs
Songs where one acoustic guitar is enough. Some lean on strumming, others on fingerpicking — and that second group is what makes you better fastest. From Blackbird and Dust in the Wind to Fast Car and Nothing Else Matters. Each entry names the technique you practise with it.
Open strings and your bare fingers. You can play the opening lines tonight.
Bass and melody at once with thumb and two fingers. The fingerstyle classic.
Arpeggios that leave all the space. Playing slowly is the whole job here.
Warm chords with runs in between. Asks for a clean, calm right hand.
Four chords and a melody line in double stops. The wedding standard.
Percussive fingerstyle: you tap the rhythm on the strings as you play.
The acoustic intro every guitar shop knows. Mind your bends.
Travis picking from start to finish. An exercise that sounds like a song.
That rolling intro figure carries the whole song. Practise it separately, in a loop.
Capo high on the neck, open chords underneath. Sounds like the record straight away.
A calm strumming pattern over four chords — one of his most playable songs.
Swung sixteenths and a few runs threaded between the chords.
Built on an unusual tuning; entirely doable in standard as well.
D and G, endlessly alternated in arpeggios. Calm, and surprisingly hard to play beautifully.
Starts minimal and grows into a wall. Your dynamics do the work.
One of the nicest chord sequences to sing over yourself.
A restrained cover with a strumming pattern that keeps turning.
Three chords with tremolo and reverb. The atmosphere lives in the space between.
Rich chords — here you learn more than the standard five shapes.
A whistled intro, twelve-string acoustic atmosphere and gloriously calm fingerpicking.
Two chords, picked. Intimate and playable straight away.
Four chords, the whole song long. Everything is in the build.
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