5 Reasons You Should Learn Other People’s Songs
It goes without saying that at the beginning of our guitar playing journey, once we have a handful of chords and a few exercises under our belts, we tend to dive into learning our favourite songs. Its pretty much a guitar playing rite of passage. Yet, the more we advance and progress in our learning of our instrument, learning other people’s songs may become something that you’re not interested in; or have time to focus on in a practice session. While creativity and freedom are a wonderful thing, sometimes we all need a little reminder of why we need to learn other people’s songs - here’s 5 reasons why.
1. Playing songs on guitar is fun!
This first tip seems like a cop out but hear me out - it’s the very reason why we did it in the first place. Remember the first time you learned your favourite riff, song or solo? I do, it was “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd and I remember being in both enchantment and disbelief at the fact I was playing a song I admired.
We will all have a memory of that feeling and that’s because it’s fun and rewarding to learn a song you love and almost provides a deeper connection to it. It’s something we can easily forget many times in our guitar playing journey but rekindle many times, too. If you’re feeling uninspired, think of the last song that caught your attention and learn it! I guarantee it’ll give you the creative refuel you need.
2. You’re revising your music theory
Whether we realise it or not, learning any new piece of music is going to open our music theory filing cabinet. A simple chord progression or a full suite of caprices will both get the brain thinking about if this new information could be similar to something stored previously.
This is always going to be beneficial because not only does it make us revise our learning, it also offers the ability to learn something new, in order of presentation, new raw information; or both. Music theory is always something we as musicians should be constantly trying to understand, even if we think we already do.
3. It improves your creativity on the guitar
We all have different opinions and approaches to many things in life and songwriting is no different. By learning other people’s musical opinions and approaches to songwriting, we are gaining a dossier of work to draw influence upon for our own compositions.
It’s the never ending artistic cycle and is imperative to both learning about and preserving musical cultures. It helps us understand and to deliver the language of music in a way that can be perceived in many ways, which is something we should all do regularly in order to best position our learning.
4. A gateway to learning new guitar styles
Sometimes we steer away from learning something we heard and liked because we feel the genre is out of our comfort zone. I say, steer into the skid because it’s a great gateway to learn about new musical cultures, histories and their relevant presentations.
Diving into a new genre is always going to make you a more education, cultured musician. At the end of day, music is language, so why not learn how to communicate with everyone?
If we were eating in a restaurant in a country where we don’t speak the language, when we’re finished, we don’t simply sit in silence because we can’t ask for the bill; we do our best to communicate and get through it. The same principle applies to learning a new genre or musical culture and its theory - dive in, you’ll get through it.
5. Makes you a more versatile guitarist
Learning lots of songs is good for many things but arguably most importantly, it makes you versatile. Versatile musicians who can mix it up, gig-to-gig, song-to-song are more likely to be hired and rehired.
Sometimes the guys who are the top hired guns aren’t the greatest players but they’re the most versatile, reliable and get the work for those reasons. Being a virtuosic jazz musician is impressive but so is being able to do most things well. If you’re looking to be a well paid professional musician, this is a most important tip.
Thinking about a career as a guitarist? Check out these tips from Sam Bell:
