Ask the Expert – Do you have lessons teaching songs like the original recording?

How to learn a song the way it was originally played

Chris from New Zealand emailed an interesting question:

“Do you ever do any stuff like showing how ‘Facedown’ guitar is played – pretty well got that one worked out, but it’s a good example”

We thought that this was as good a cue as ever to remind you of our “Song Learner” lessons. We do actually have an online lesson (its also available on DVD) showing how Facedown is played, as well as lots of other popular songs. Some will be close to the original recording, others will be a real world interpretation of it, designed to be useable in a live worship context.

The Song Learners are a bit of a Cinderella in our catalogue. I don’t know if its that the name is off-putting. Perhaps people think “I only need to get that lesson if I don’t already know the song”. But actually the idea of the Song Learners is to teach you a whole range of useful chords, strumming and finger picking patterns in a 20-30 minute guitar lesson based around a worship song you know.

These are great for anyone who has a basic playing knowledge but then opens up a song book with the real chords and gets stumped by the F#/A# looming in the middle of the song. Very often these are actually not that hard but a single finger movement or a ‘cheat’ chord that you would never pick up on unless someone sat down and actually showed you. So really you’re learning a whole range of ‘pro’ tips that helps you play the song as written that you can then tranfer into other songs as your skills progress.

They are a fantastic little product and are available for guitar, bass and keys.

What we’ve done with the Song Learners is film a bunch of individual lessons on guitar, bass and keyboard with each lesson focussing on a particular song. We’ve tried to bring in all the chords, techniques and fiddly bits that were used on the original recording. In the case of our Bass Song Learners, the tutor Matt Weeks was actually the session bass player used on many of the original recordings so you get to learn his beautifully harmonic bass parts note-for-note.

The Guitar and Bass Song Learners are available as individual downloads or as compilation DVDs. The Keyboard lessons are only available as downloads, however our Advanced Keyboard DVDs do something similar in that they unpack the original keyboard parts to 10 worship songs. This is far more than just teaching the chords on an electric piano, it shows the multiple layers and textures of sound – showcasing the multiple effects used in just one song. Its a real must if you want to expand your repertoire as a worship keyboard player.

Links to the Song Learner Products:

Worship Bass – Song Learner Downloads

Worship Bass – Song Learner DVDs

Worship Guitar – Song Learner Downloads (a handful of these are download only, the rest are also on DVD)

Worship Guitar – Song Learner DVDs

Rock & Pop Guitar – Song Learner Downloads – U2, Chili Peppers, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrick, Oasis, Coldplay, 12 bar blues and more

Worship Keys – Song Learner Downloads (not available on DVD). Look for the products with the blue cover artwork.