Playing in a cover band is a true growing experience.  Let’s explore the benefits and fun of working with a group of musicians learning songs that topped the charts.  Included in this list are bettering one’s ability to understand and memorize songs composed by other people, making use of new apps to speed up that process, creating a repertoire as a group, exploring new sonic possibilities on the guitar and broadening one’s understanding of popular music history.  For many musicians, myself included, it is normal to start out playing top 40 cover tunes, and this can help the move to creating original material.  Most folks don’t come out of the womb with a stack of songs ready to go!  I am delighted to find myself again in the position of learning songs that resonate with entire generations around the globe.  I am going about it with a new perspective and appreciation. 

Without a doubt a good melody is one of the most attractive things in music.  It keeps the listener engaged and compels us to re-listen to the song.  Melodies can range from very simple to quite complex and are equally present in all genres of music.  Analyzing their structure, seeing patterns and discovering formulas is engaging and educational.  Equally, composing your own melodies is also rewarding.  Starting in 2023, in an ongoing spirit of self-betterment and musical growth, I set myself the goal of regularly writing and recording a melody.      

Over the years, being a guitar teacher has morphed into a larger dimension.  Of course, the act of teaching, playing, practicing and performing are still at the heart of it.  However, the passing on of knowledge about music can go much deeper.  With the arrival of 2023, I am looking forward to enriching my students’ lives with all I can learn from my interest in music.  Educating them in unexpected ways and keeping them curious is my goal as their teacher. 

Asking questions is a good thing. Not only are you likely to get useful answers but you will enrich the person on the other end as well. Teachers especially are not only around to share their knowledge, but they are there to be drilled with questions from their field. It is a win-win situation. Get past any reason you might be afraid to ask questions. It’s OK not to know everything, and daring to ask questions is an act of courage and a sign of humility. Neither of those are bad traits!

Transcribing songs is definitely a skill that can be learned, and it improves the more you do it. Some songs follow well-established formulas that are recognizable by a trained ear. I notate, and then jot down a rough outline. I first notate the chord progressions with proper chord symbols (G, C, D Em etc.) and determine what part of the song they belong to. Often a song will have an Intro, a verse, a chorus, perhaps a bridge and an outro. You can designate these song parts using the letters A (verse), B (chorus), C (bridge) etc. This let’s you decode the form of the song, also called the roadmap, using the letters in the order the parts of the song are put together.