One thing I've realised is the difference between great songwriters, versus great "players".
Flicking through my songbook, so many great songs are just a few basic chords. Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - C, Am, F, G, E. Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane - Em, A, D, G. Hound Dog is just A, D, E.
Blitzkrieg Bop is just a few power chords the whole song. One of the first songs I learnt but heaps of fun to play!
I have way more admiration for good songwriters. I love Cat Power, and many of her songs are pretty simple & sparse. Leonard Cohen wasn't known for being a guitar virtuoso, and neither was Neil Young. But I'd take them any day over, say, John Mayer. I'm sorry John Mayer fans, but just because Neon is difficult to play, does not make it a good song.
As I practice and get better at guitar I try to take inspiration from great songwriters rather than great players.
It's amazing how much Kris Kristofferson or Townes Van Zandt get out of simple chord structures. Of course, they mix it up with a few hammer-ons and intermediate open strumming when performing but still, the beauty they discovered and that you can reproduce at home with really basic skills is incredible to me.
Beatles songs are great for this. If you play something like across the universe or dig a pony, these are simple enough chords. But you can actually very easily add all the little filler notes they do on the albums just from a few little riffs within those chords. You can even add your own and after a while you can start realizing you can do these little rips in all sorts of songs, touching pieces of the scale you are forming a chord on.
In some ways the simple chord structure acts as scaffolding for the rest of the musicians to fill in with their own flavor. I really like listening to Jerry Garcia, I think he is the best guitar player there ever was so far. In a solo its like he lands every note your brain expects to hear next and just floats up and down the neck fast and slow. He was trained as a banjo player so it shows in his fingerwork. In the song "Deal," (1) the chorus chords are very simple - A G D, but Jerry is able to use his knowledge of scales to riff on these notes multiple different ways, and its almost like his guitar is singing its own lyrics.
Flicking through my songbook, so many great songs are just a few basic chords. Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah - C, Am, F, G, E. Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane - Em, A, D, G. Hound Dog is just A, D, E.
Blitzkrieg Bop is just a few power chords the whole song. One of the first songs I learnt but heaps of fun to play!
I have way more admiration for good songwriters. I love Cat Power, and many of her songs are pretty simple & sparse. Leonard Cohen wasn't known for being a guitar virtuoso, and neither was Neil Young. But I'd take them any day over, say, John Mayer. I'm sorry John Mayer fans, but just because Neon is difficult to play, does not make it a good song.
As I practice and get better at guitar I try to take inspiration from great songwriters rather than great players.