Easy song for a beginner ?

cornelius90

I've been practicing rosenberg trio's song 'bossa dorado' & 'for sephora' but I think they are quite difficult to me.

In your opinion, which song is best for a beginner? (rosenberg's song)

wim

Dream of you is a nice & easy swing one
the gypsy bossa rhythm is much harder to get sounding good I think ..

jonpowl

The first solo I learned is part of Minor Swing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRuUHS8tsH8
Also, if interested, here is a longer version from Filadelfo Castro, an accomplished Italian jazz artist. In his three part instruction videos he breaks it down into parts you can memorize. PM me for the .pdf tab which Filadelfo so kindly sent me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIwnsl2wXO8
And for an easy Nuages chord melody: http://www.hotclub.co.uk/html/nuagesta.html

Bones

Try Coquette. Easy melody, not too many chords.

I believe that version of Minor Swing is not transcribed correctly so I would take that with a grain of salt and the rhythm is pretty funky too. I'd look for a more traditional version and there are lots on the Youtubes.

Edit- actually I cannot find a Youtube of that version of Minor Swing. I know I've seen it somewhere though. Here's a good transcription of a different version though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6Rx2Mje8Y

Note that you don't have to play it with 2 fingers and even using all digits this would probably be very tough if you are a beginner. Just try to figure out the 'head' and maybe mess around trying to figure out some parts of the solo. Have fun!

jlander9

Do you want to learn songs, or do you want to learn a solo played by another artist? Many popular gypsy jazz / swing/ jazz melodies and chord progressions are not too complicated. If your not great at reading music ( I am not) I would use any one of Robin Nolan's gig books. Its pretty much a Jazz fake book transcribed in tab instead of music notation. It also breaks down the chord progressions pretty clearly. If you want to try a solo I would learn a Django tune first. An easy one is Blue Drag.You can find pretty good transcriptions online or do it the old fashioned way, by ear. The trickiest parts are the Dim7 runs in the B section. Another good one that i feel gets over looked is Bouncin Around. The leads really outline the chord changes and the master uses a lot of signature moves here. This tune sounds great even when its slowed down to about 150bpms. You can purchase the Nolan book here on DjangoBooks.com.... Good luck and keep us posted on your first song man. best,