Easy Guitar Songs Archives - Riff Ninja

Category Archives for "Easy Guitar Songs"

Blue on Black Chords (Guitar Lesson)

The song Blue on Black was written by Kenny Wayne Shepherd when he was 19 or 20. He’s a great guitar player, and this song is a pretty great accomplishment for such a young guitar player.

This lesson teaches you the chords for the song Blue on Black. There is a separate lesson on learning how to play the Blue on Black Guitar Solo.

Blue on Black consists of D, C, G and an A chord. That’s about it. The main part starts on a D, then goes to C, then G.  There are some tricks you can do to make it sound more interesting. For instance on the D chord, you can do a hammer off the third string. Kenny Wayne Shepherd also does a run up leading into the C chord, and plays a B pass note going to the G chord, dropping down the pinkie on the G chord. That’s how the verse goes, with four phrases of that.

The chorus for Blue on Black builds on the A and stops on the G. That’s basically the whole song, so enjoy playing along with Kenny Wayne Shepherd!

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Simple Man Chords

Here is a look at a few versions of Simple Man. Chord shapes for this song can be found in the open positions of C, G and Am, so it won’t be too hard to follow.

The strumming pattern for these Simple Man chords can be adapted to suit whatever style you feel comfortable with – strumming the whole chords with a pick, playing the single notes or using a combination of the pick and your fingers (‘hybrid’ picking).

These open guitar chords will form the main part of the song, but it is also worth introducing power-chord versions for the guitar solo, as these voicings will sound more convincing.

This is a pretty easy, but really fun guitar song to play – you can keep varying the chords and picking style to add more interest to the chord progression.

Simple Man Chords:

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Knocking on Heavens Door Guitar Chords

Knocking on Heavens Door is a great song for beginners to start out with, because the chords are very simple, and it is in the key of G major. If you’ve already got a hang of the 6 basic guitar chords lesson, then this song is a good way to apply those guitar chords.

The Knocking on Heaven’s Door guitar chords are G, D, Am then G, D, C.

In the lesson, you’ll learn a little riff that you can put in between the chord changes too.

Knocking on Heavens Door was one of Bob Dylan’s big hits, and since then, many other artists have covered it as well. It really is one of the best easy guitar songs to get started with.

Knocking on Heavens Door Guitar Chords:

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Dear Mr Fantasy Chords

Today’s lesson is on the guitar chords for Dear Mr Fantasy. This song is a fairly easy one, so beginners should be able to pickup something here, and it also has a fair bit of room in it for some riffing, if you’re more advanced already.

Dear Mr Fantasy was originally done by Steve Winwood with Traffic, but it was also done by Big Sugar, among others. It is one of those easy guitar songs that are pretty simple, and yet sound great (and have a guitar riff that others will recognize) at the same time.

The main part of the song is three chords, A major, G major, D major, then A major.

There’s also a cool little bass riff that goes in there too, which is fun to play, and will give you a good way to practice throwing riffs in between chords.

The Dear Mr Fantasy chords also sound great (especially with the riff) with a generous application of the “talent button” ie crunch, so once you get the basic structure of the song down, have some fun with it!

The chorus is F#m, G#m, A major, three times. The fourth time do the F#m again, then to a G major, then an E major.

That’s pretty much the whole song!

If you like this lesson, checkout our Easy Strumming Classics collection.

Dear Mr Fantasy Chords

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