First songs to learn.

kw3rd

Which of Djangos' songs would you consider the best for someone just getting started in the Django style? Which songs are the easiest to learn from. Are there any songs which I should tackle first? The fewest/easiest chord changes? Is there a typical first tune that most people learn?

A list 3-5 tunes would be great. Including a waltz or two.

Thanks

anthon_74

Hey there -

Try these -

Minor swing
dark eyes
St Georgia brown
All of me
Honeysuckle rose
St louis blues
Blue Drag
Djangos waltz

Jazzaferri

Sweet Sue and Coquette

AmundLauritzen

Honeysuckle Rose. The A-section is mostly II-V's and the bridge isn't too hard compared to other tunes.

Rhythm changes tunes like Daphne, Swing 42 and Belleville. When you listen to the top players play rhythm changes, you'll hear them mostly using V7 to I and IVm to I vocab on the A-section.
Belleville has the IV-minor to I written in for the bridge, and that's an excellent opportunity to get the IVm sound in your ear if it's new to you.

Swing 42 and Daphne modulate between two keys. Good opportunity to take transpose licks.

Django's Tiger is fairly simple despite being in an uncommon key. A-section has long stretches of the tonic chord and the V7 chord. The bridge has a II-V to establish the IV as the tonic and then you have that christophe cadence that you find in so many tunes. That one can be tricky. In the beginning just learn as many licks for that one as possible and plug them into the tune. Fluidity over that will come in time.

kevorkazito

My first was 'Honeysuckle Rose' sourced from both Rosenberg Academy and Robin Nolan's play-along. Got a nice mix of rhythm and solo that is very gratifying to play.

Jazzaferri

One thing that would help to make recommendations is to provide an honest assesment. Depending on the level Swing 42 is harmonically and melodically pretty advanced.

AmundLauritzen

Jazzaferri wrote:

One thing that would help to make recommendations is to provide an honest assesment. Depending on the level Swing 42 is harmonically and melodically pretty advanced.

It's not complex to solo over at all. People tend to think you have to outline every chord. You don't. Listen to Stochelo play it. Mostly I, V7 and IVm vocab played anywhere on the A-section, as he always does on rhythm changes. Since the B-section of that tune is is pretty much the same just in E-major, I classify it as a basic tune. Of course if you were to approach every chord and outline it, it would be more demanding. That's more of a bebop approach though. I was able to solo on rhythm changes before Minor Swing. I still think Minor Swing is challenging to make a musical statement on, compared to most other tunes.

hanear21

It's not complex to solo over at all. People tend to think you have to outline every chord. You don't. Listen to Stochelo play it. Mostly I, V7 and IVm vocab played anywhere on the A-section, as he always does on rhythm changes. Since the B-section of that tune is is pretty much the same just in E-major, I classify it as a basic tune. Of course if you were to approach every chord and outline it, it would be more demanding. That's more of a bebop approach though. I was able to solo on rhythm changes before Minor Swing. I still think Minor Swing is challenging to make a musical statement on, compared to most other tunes.

I have to second this. For rhythm changes I often stay on the "I chord" over the entire A section. I'm still a beginner but I feel like it can sound pretty good this way.

Regarding Minor Swing, I also have always had a hard time with it. I'm just starting to get the hang of soloing on it. It wasn't until I started transcribing solos that I could make it sound good, and I'm mostly just stealing other people's ideas when I do

The first songs I learned were Coquette, All of Me, Minor Blues, Daphne, and Hungaria. Eventually I just picked songs from Denis Chang's free backing tracks and learned those. I think that's a pretty good way to go.

Michael Bauer

"Minor Swing" and "All of Me" are great starters, because they are in minor and major respectively, and each chord is held for two measures, so you can work on two measure arpeggio outlines and then two measure phrases. The last few measures of "All of Me" are single measure chord changes, but there are a number of establishes phrases that are common over them, and this is a good place to learn them. "Minor Blues" is a good one as well, because you have to get comfortable with blues changes, and all you "Minor Swing licks will work, transposed to Gm. It's a good way to see how licks move around. I would suggest a simple major blues as well, like "Blues for Ike", which will let you develop some major licks.

Denis Chang has some terrific beginner solo studies over "Minor Swing", "Coquette", "All of Me", and one or two others, and they are wonderful lessons on how to use licks in different places and connect them up.

Just pick one or two songs at first, and get comfortable with them. No need to play 50 tunes out of the box.

Jazzaferri

Good toughts Michael

The moment one starts to talk about Bebop, one is no longer in beginner guitar territory, nor is resolving 251s or 1625s

Which is why I think it would be good if the OP could give us a realistic assessment of where his guitars skills are.

kw3rd

Thanks for all the suggestions! I guess I should have mention that although I have playing for several years I have absolutely zero experience with arpeggios. When I asked for the "first song" to learn I was looking for the easiest to learn. Which songs have the simplest chord progressions and require the fewest and most basic arpeggios.