A good starting point

Bought my first accoustic guitar this past year and've been noodling around on it quite a bit, finding little tunes on my own. That being said, I'd really like to try piecing together some Gaslight songs. I've very little understanding of sheet music but can kind of figure it out usually.

So where's a good song to start?

A good place to start is by forgetting about sheet music. Ultimateguitar.com has pretty much every tablature you will think to search for, and doesn't install adware on your computer. Just some slightly irritating banner ads.

As far as Gaslight songs go, be prepared to either tune your guitar down a FULL step, or play barre chord versions of your favorite songs which will make them sound a little off. A few entry level songs that I enjoy playing are Navesink banks, here's looking at you kid, Diamond Church Street Choir, and Wherefore art thou, elvis (This one is tough to play/sing simultaneously).

General guitar advice: Keep your guitar handy (next to your couch or wherever you hang out), and pick it up every time you sit down and practice playing chords/scales before trying to learn songs. Do this until your roommates hate you.

Am F C G pretty much all early stuff use these chords in some fashion. and old white Lincoln uses those chords the whole song. Great song to start with.

And yes for the earlier stuff you would need to drop tune. But honestly I've played the chords in standard or other tunings. It sounds slightly different. But you'll be able to know what you're playing. At least for me, bed room singing, I don't mind.

I started with Red At Night, that one's the easiest one I've encountered so far.

@fatbench or anyone, where can I find good tabs/chords for Navesink Banks? Did you get that one of ultimateguitar.com?

StitchesOnTheRadio wrote:

I started with Red At Night, that one's the easiest one I've encountered so far.

@fatbench or anyone, where can I find good tabs/chords for Navesink Banks? Did you get that one of ultimateguitar.com?

Intro/verse
Am - F x2
C - G
Am

Chorus
C - G- F

Bridge
F - G
C - F

It's actually in G# minor, which means it's one half step below (to the left of) A-minor, but it's easier to write this way.

This is pretty great too, especially for "Cow girls..."

On a side note, what's your guitar exactly ? Might give you a couple of useful advices in order to use it the best way.

Yeah, red at night is the easiest Gaslight song. The first Gaslight song I learned was actually Old White Lincoln and "Cassanova, Baby!" Those are fairly easy-ya just need to get the timing correct.

The_River wrote:

On a side note, what's your guitar exactly ? Might give you a couple of useful advices in order to use it the best way.

Yamaha FG730S solid top acoustic. Real boat of a guitar.

Howl is also a really easy (and fun!) song to play. The progression is just Am-G-F-C for the "hey" part then C-G-F-G for the verses.
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/t/the_gaslight_anthem/howl_crd.htm

Leigh wrote:

The_River wrote:

On a side note, what's your guitar exactly ? Might give you a couple of useful advices in order to use it the best way.

Yamaha FG730S solid top acoustic. Real boat of a guitar.

Sweet. At some point you'll end up restringing your guitar. I recommand you to use these : Elixir Medium Gauge Phosphor Bronze NANOWEB. They are pricey but definitly worth it. Check out some videos on how to restring an acoustic guitar on youtube. You have plenty of those, and the ones made by Taylor Guitars are really great.

Go for the .013-.056 gauge if you have regular fingers, or .012-.053 if you have small fingers. That's what I recommand for a dreadnought shaped guitar.

The starting point is to learn open chords : http://mos.musicradar.com/images/Guitar%20Techniques/162/open-chords.jpg
So play these on and on again. And play with a metronome, and get a tuner. If you have a smartphone, the GuitarTuna app does both pretty well for free.

Also start writing your own songs or play with a drummer/band as soon as possible. And pratice, all the time, always.

Feel free to send a PM if you have any questions.