Learning New Songs

Satch4u3

Satch4u3

Experienced
I am finding it a little hard to get inspired to learn new songs lately. What are you guys working on? Hoping to get some inspiration with some song suggestions here. Help a fella out. :) Any style at all. Fell free to post videos as well.
 
I've been jamming to Aerosmith "Rats In The Cellar" lately; it's a groovy hard rock song for the right hand. Can't remember the cool rising chord riff at the end in the outro so I'm have to play with that.
 
I'm still stuck working EVH licks which is pretty hard given the fact that I don't own a guitar with a trem :lol. I just work om the stuff I can manage with out the trem. Also I've been working on Neil Geraldo and Andy Summers styles as well. I guess what inspires me are certain songs that I hear and say... Oh, I need to learn how that's done! not just technically but sonically as well.
 
I'm on a strict diet of Jeff Beck at the moment as he is a true virtuoso and his attack, phrasing and tremolo technique is absolutely unique to him alone.
I've wanted to do this for a long time but never got around to it before now.

When I first learned to play I wanted to be Eric Clapton and play like he did with Cream and Derek and the Dominoes, I also wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix and Dave Gilmour so these guys and Freddy King, Jimmy Page, Robben Ford, SRV, Michael Landau, all of the blues greats and a few other rock greats have all had a tremendous influence on my playing style with a lot of their signature phrasing and licks worked into my playing (steal, beg and borrow and learn from the best), and now I could easily play "in the style of" EC, JH or DG for an entire evening.
Jeff is so different from anybody else that I really haven't absorbed much of his style yet exept for a few of the tremolo tricks.
I'm not out to clone Jeff or anybody else's style, but I do find that when studying the playing style of one of the true greats you unlock some of your own hidden potential, you get a better framework to branch out, you get a better grip on the context, the applications and the references in music and finally you learn several new songs and you learn them in a much deeper way than if you just want to learn for instance "People get ready" and just learn the chords.
For the same reason, if a song I like by one artist is covered in a different way by another artist I'll check out that version too.
When we play a song in an electric version I'll often make an alternate or an acoustic version of the same song to get deeper "under the skin" of said song.
Works for me anyway.

In example, one band that I'm in play both the original version of "wicked game" by Chris Isaak (1st encore song) and a more up-tempo rock version of the same song (not the HIM version as we were not aware of that cover until we had done our own version).
In another project I'm helping out a young act with a formidable female singer. I wanted her to do a version of people get ready based on the version by Eva Cassidy and remembered that Jeff Beck and Joss Stone had done this song together
and now their version will end up as something else entirely, but they have learned the song well from studying different versions of and angles to the song.
This project lead me to finally force myself to get serious about studying the style of Jeff Beck deeper.

watch in HD

Jeff Beck featuring Joss Stone - People Get Ready 1080p - YouTube

Jeff Beck & Joss Stone - I Put a Spell On You Live (HD) - YouTube

Jeff Beck - A Day In The Life (Live at Ronnie Scott's) - YouTube

Jeff Beck - Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Live) (HD) May 2010 - YouTube

JEFF BECK LIVE Cause We've Ended As Lovers - YouTube

Rod Stewart & Jeff Beck - People Get Ready - YouTube


EDIT: I didn't notice that xrist04 beat me to it on the Jeff Beck theme, great minds think alike :)
 
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Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. They are all great. I think I will tackle some of Jeff Becks stuff. Always liked his feel but never have learned any of it. I am a Les Paul player and do not own a strat. Could be why I have put it off for so long. :)
 
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