[abt]

I need to learn some covers of all different levels.

1. What covers do you think are essential to learn
2. What songs are students always asking for

Thanks!

 

[stealthtastic]

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Smells like Teen Spirit and that one deep purple song, I'm not even sure why I know the two, but apparently everyone else does. :lol: even if I'm jamming with the most kvlt of motherfuckers they seem to know one of those two for some reason.

 

[abt]

:rofl:

 

[jaxadam]

Here are two good ones for starters:

-Crazy Train
-Dust in the Wind

 

[Ambrosius]

When I was teaching, I always taught House of the Rising Sun as a basic chord and arpeggiation exercise and Symphony of Destruction because I was so fucking sick of teaching Nirvana.

 

[PirateMetalTroy]

Dream Theater - Erotomania

Good way to make the whole chromatic string skipping thing a whole lot less boring.

 

[Blankplank]

Metallica - For Whom The Bell Tolls
Sepultura - Roots Bloody Roots

Some of the first songs I ever learnt :lol:

 

[Drew]

There's no such thing as an "essential" cover. Or, rather, an "essential" cover is one that the student desperately wants to learn.

 

[Durero]

There's no such thing as an "essential" cover. Or, rather, an "essential" cover is one that the student desperately wants to learn.

:agreed: Absolutely agreed.

If you can't already quickly pick out the guitar part from any track and show it to a student then I'd recommend a daily regimen of ear training. There are plenty of good ear training software packages available.

I think Drew is right on: when it comes to covers as a teacher it's your job to ask the student what songs they're most interested in learning, rather than telling them what songs to learn.

In my experience the only possible exceptions to this principle are very young children who haven't yet developed their own taste and are happy to learn just about anything.

 

[abt]

There's no such thing as an "essential" cover. Or, rather, an "essential" cover is one that the student desperately wants to learn.

:agreed: Absolutely agreed.

If you can't already quickly pick out the guitar part from any track and show it to a student then I'd recommend a daily regimen of ear training. There are plenty of good ear training software packages available.

I think Drew is right on: when it comes to covers as a teacher it's your job to ask the student what songs they're most interested in learning, rather than telling them what songs to learn.

In my experience the only possible exceptions to this principle are very young children who haven't yet developed their own taste and are happy to learn just about anything.

I think you're taking it a little too seriously haha. Perhaps if I reword it as "recommended student covers" or "what covers do students always ask for" it would be better.

As for ear training and transcribing I'm not going to defend myself because I think that's lame. Talk is cheap. Let's just say those things aren't a problem.

This is the perfect format for an answer to the question:

When I was teaching, I always taught House of the Rising Sun as a basic chord and arpeggiation exercise and Symphony of Destruction because I was so fucking sick of teaching Nirvana.

 

[Durero]

I think you're taking it a little too seriously haha. Perhaps if I reword it as "recommended student covers" or "what covers do students always ask for" it would be better.

As for ear training and transcribing I'm not going to defend myself because I think that's lame. Talk is cheap. Let's just say those things aren't a problem.

This is the perfect format for an answer to the question:

You're right and that was sloppy posting on my part. Re-reading my post I think it sounds arrogant and the ear training comment sounds presumptuous instead of encouraging. Completely the opposite tone from what I intended, which was just to encourage you or any teacher to be spontaneous and open to song requests from students.

The ear training comment comes from my own teaching experience where I was very unsure of my own ear skills when I started, but after working very hard at ear training for many years I became much more comfortable and effective at transcribing guitar parts for students on the spot. I've found that any and all effort I've made at ear training has had huge payoffs not only for teaching but for composing and performing as well.

So since you're after recommended covers I'll add Iron Man for kids and Fade to Black because it covers so many playing styles within one song.

But I'll also comment that in the 20 years that I've been teaching I've noticed an increasing fragmentation and diversification in the listening habits of students. Whereas in the 90's I could spend entire days teaching the hit song of the season like Smells Like Teen Spirit or Enter Sandman to almost every student, there seems to have been less and less all-encompasing hits since then. Seven Nation Army was fairly popular when it came out, but still only a few of my students wanted to learn it.

This trend might be partially explained by my move from teaching in a suburban area to teaching in an urban center where there is much more diversity in the population in general, but my intended point is that preparing a specific set of covers in advance may have diminishing value compared to just asking your students on the spot and building up a list based on your own experience of the students in your area.

 

[stealthtastic]

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Listen to Leo, he knows his shit and is totally right. One time I asked him to teach me Cryptopsy's, "slit your guts", because I couldn't find a good tab for it online, he then tabbed a huge chunk of it within a pretty short period of time which really blew my mind :lol: Especially seeing as that CD has not so great production...

Ear training if you're going to be a teacher really is important, all of the teachers I've had have been able to pick things out pretty fast and if thy hadn't I probably would have switched teachers.

 

[stealthtastic]

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Listen to Leo, he knows his shit and is totally right. One time I asked him to teach me Cryptopsy's, "slit your guts", because I couldn't find a good tab for it online, he then tabbed a huge chunk of it within a pretty short period of time which really blew my mind :lol: Especially seeing as that CD has not so great production...

Ear training if you're going to be a teacher really is important, all of the teachers I've had have been able to pick things out pretty fast and if thy hadn't I probably would have switched teachers.

 

[abt]

You're right and that was sloppy posting on my part. Re-reading my post I think it sounds arrogant and the ear training comment sounds presumptuous instead of encouraging.

Not at all man! Everything is cool. Thinking about it I see your point, it's a pretty dumb question. This post is mostly a bit of fun but there is a serious side to it. Some of my background may help explain a little better as to why I ask the question.

In the beginning I was self taught. Almost immediately I started in a reasonably established band. All we played were originals. We were utter shit (though we didn't think so) and had this so cool attitude that it was originals or nothing. After that I moved into classical which is a lot of covers lol! All the teaching I've done has been classical.

The whole metal thing, well I've always listen to it. It's my passion. Even there I only know a few riffs from other bands. I guess what I'm saying is that with the exception of classical I don't know and have never learnt any songs other than my own.

I'm thinking about going back into some teaching, so a few covers won't hurt me. Learning them is no problem but some ideas of what to learn is cool. I think you've gathered that I have very specific tastes, mostly metal and classical so I have no idea what students are likely to like.

To a lesser degree the question doesn't just point me in the direction of a few songs, it also gives me an idea of what people are into and what level they're at.

 

[stealthtastic]

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Fix your quote tags :fawk:

 

[abt]

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Fix your quote tags :fawk:

Fuck you were quick. I fixed them as soon as I posted.:rofl:

 

[Durero]

Cool abt I'm sure you'll have lots of fun teaching and leaning covers from other bands in the process.

Ol' Mehtab here is a great example for me - introduced me to the joys of Opeth, which for some crazy reason I'd never gotten around to listening to before he brought in their Masters Apprentices song. Now I'm addicted :hbang:

 

[Drew]

Sorry - I probably sounded a little arrogant and dismissive too. I blame my job.

Seriously, though, there's a certain amount of truth to it, and I think a "decision tree" is a better answer than "try this song." My experience as both a student and, occasionally, a teacher, is people will practice the shit out of something that interests them, and will not practice something that doesn't.

So, I think there are two factors to consider... The studen't interests (and abilities, of course), and the particular technique or concept they're trying to learn. With that in mind, PirateMetalTroy's possibly slightly flippant answer really isn't such a bad one - say you've got a student interested in heavier, shreddy stuff, and you and he decide you want to work on his string skipping. "Erotomania" would be an obvious suggestion, as would a fair amount of Paul Gilbert material. Or, a intermediate level guy interested in sweep picking - there isn't much "easy" sweeping material so my first inclination would be to show him a couple shapes, let him learn those, and then write a short little piece stringing a bunch of them together for him to practice (I've written myself a couple) before moving onto something arpeggio-based like Becker's "Serrana" which isn't bad if you take it slow.

So, a slightly less snotty, more fleshed out answer - a song in a style that a student would enjoy that demonstrates a technique or concept you're trying to teach him, with the song in question changing based on the inputs.


...and I've always HATED House of the Rising Sun. :lol:

 

[Buzz]

House of the Rising Sun as a basic chord and arpeggiation exercise.

+1.

That's how I learned to play arpeggios.

 

[abt]

Sorry - I probably sounded a little arrogant and dismissive too. I blame my job.

It's all good. I've enjoyed my time here so far and the conversation. There's far less agro than on some other forums around.:metal: