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Guitar tabs can be frustrating to look at, whether it is an incorrect tab uploaded to the internet after being transcribed by a fan, or a professional tab book filled with confusing notation and complicated solos. It can sometimes feel like it will never be possible, as a beginner, to take what you see written down on the page and turn it into music. Not all guitar tabs are filled with finger-twisting solos and wrist-melting downstrokes, however. There are a lot of bands out there who manage to use simple chords and riffs to craft great music that is a lot of fun to play.

But, before you do anything else, make sure you read our article on how to read guitar tabs and download the GuitarHack How to Read Guitar Tabs Guide. The rest of this will make a heck of a lot more sense to you if you already understand the basics.

When I first started learning how to play guitar, I found that some of the songs I was interested in playing weren’t really meant to be played on a solo instrument. That is to say, their parts had been written with an entire band in mind and when separated out from the rest of the music they sounded bare. This lead me to focus on finding tabs for songs that were simple enough that I could play them and still recognize the track. I also looked for tabs that did not have a lot of solos or lead lines. I concentrated on those based mostly on power chords or regular chording, as they were a lot easier to both finger and interpret.

One of the best genres for finding simple tabs is punk. Bands like the Ramones wrote many, many songs using the same basic chords and chord structure. Songs like ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ and the slightly faster ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ are composed of easy power chords and don’t take much time to learn at all. (Click here to listen to both of these songs for free on Napster. Or if you prefer to sample them on iTunes, click here.)

Once you have those tracks mastered, you can move on to faster punk music like the Misfits. Take a listen to songs like ‘Where Eagles Dare’ or ‘Halloween.’ (Click here to sample the songs on iTunes.)

Finally, there are also bands like Green Day (‘Basket Case’, ‘Longview’), which have the same simple-to-understand power chord tabs. (You know the drill — click here to find these songs on Napster, or click here to sample them on iTunes.)

If you aren’t that big of a punk fan, there are also less aggressive tabs to try.

Radiohead’s second album ends with a beautiful track called ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ (click here to sample on iTunes), which sounds a bit complicated but is actually a simple arpeggio based on a few repeating chords. An arpeggio is when a chord has each note picked individually in a pattern instead of being strummed. The tab for this track may seem like it has a lot of notes to learn, but if you look closer you will see that it is really just a matter of picking through A minor, E minor and C major chords. Learning this track will really help you build confidence as it sounds quite impressive on either an acoustic or an electric guitar.

In a similar vein, the song ‘December’ by Collective Soul (click here for the Napster version — or you can click here for the iTunes sample) relies on an arpeggiated G chord before moving into the basic chords of the chorus. Despite this uncomplicated structure the song has a beautiful and flowing melody and is a pleasure to play.

As with any musical instrument, when learning to play the guitar you have to learn to walk before you can start to run – but walking doesn’t mean you have to play boring music. The simple songs in this article are fun to tackle and represent just the right level of challenge while honing your tab reading skills and guitar technique. They should provide you with a good base for moving forward with your guitar studies.

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