"I've been playing guitar for ages, but I still can't play a whole song from start to finish. Surely I should be able to do this by now."
If that sounds like you, you're not alone. I think more students have come to me with that as one of their goals than not. Some are complete beginners and some are more advanced players who want to get through a harder song. So it isn't just a beginner problem. But the solution probably isn't what you think.
Why do you want to play a whole song? ▶ 0:55
Before anything else, ask yourself a very important question: why do you want to play a song from start to finish?
You might think, well, I play the guitar, so of course I do. That's what we do. But is it?
The student who got bored of easy songs ▶ 1:06
I'd been teaching one student for about a year, maybe a year and a half, and we were working on quite a difficult song that week. I think it was a Dire Straits song, and she was having a hard time with it. So the next week she asked if we could do something easy, so she could get a sense of achievement and just relax. We did a couple of nice easy songs, something like a Bob Dylan song.
She came back the week after and said, "That was too easy. I got bored and I want another challenge."
A year and a half earlier, if you'd asked her how she'd feel about playing a Bob Dylan song all the way through, she'd probably have said that would be great. And it is a great achievement. But notice how quickly she got bored of it.
Most guitarists don't play whole songs for the sake of it ▶ 1:49
A lot of people want to learn songs start to finish because they think they have to, or because it makes them a "proper" guitar player. I can play lots of songs start to finish. How often do I actually do it? Almost never. It's not as fun as you might think.
I think people want to do it more so they can say they've done it than because they enjoy playing the song on repeat. It's important to have goals, for sure. But of all the students I teach, very few just sit and play songs through for the sake of it. Most of them work on something that challenges them, and when they've got the hang of it, improved a bit or got a bit bored, they move on to the next challenge.
Their sense of fulfilment comes from the challenge itself, not from learning the whole song.
Learn the parts you actually enjoy playing ▶ 2:39
So, essentially, you don't have to learn whole songs. That might be a relief, or you might think I'm an idiot. There are exceptions, which I'll come to, but on the whole you should just play what you want to play.
I can only name a very small number of songs I enjoy playing all the way through. There are loads of great riffs, choruses and grooves I love playing, but then the next section or the bridge, though it's fun to listen to, isn't fun for me to play. So I don't play it. Fun to play is not the same as fun to listen to.
Take Master of Puppets. There are loads of different parts in it, and they're all pretty cool. But the bits I enjoy playing are the riffs. I don't love the lead harmonies, and to be honest I don't love the solo either. So if I fancied learning some Metallica, I'd learn the riffs and probably not bother with the rest. All respect to Metallica, I love the band, but I don't want to learn that whole song.
If you want to learn a riff, learn the riff. If you want to learn a solo, learn the solo.
It's good enough for B.B. King ▶ 3:57
I had another student who got a bit self-conscious around his guitar-playing friends, because all he really did was improvise. Blues improvisation was his favourite thing. His friends were more chord and rhythm players, and they'd joke that he didn't know many chords and wasn't quick with his changes.
I just said to him, who cares? If you don't want to do that, don't. It's good enough for B.B. King.
Why not learning everything can actually help ▶ 4:25
There are some positive reasons not to learn whole songs too. If you write music or like to improvise, there may be sections of songs you actively dislike. If you learn them, practise them and repeat them, they'll ingrain themselves into your playing and your mindset. So I think you have to be a little bit protective of what you learn.
When you should learn the whole song ▶ 4:45
There are some situations where I would learn whole songs:
- You want to play songs live, or professionally. I do this, and I'm being paid to learn whole songs, so of course I learn them. If you want to perform a song, you have to learn all of it.
- You want to understand how songs are structured. If you're a songwriter developing your sense of how a whole song fits together, it helps. Even then, you don't necessarily need every part. You mainly need the structure, the layout and the dynamics through the song, though knowing how each part is built would probably be useful too.
- You get a genuine sense of achievement from playing the whole thing through. Not because you feel you have to. Those are two different things.
Do what you enjoy, and you'll improve faster ▶ 5:52
If guitar is a hobby that gets you away from work and clears your mind, why add other pressures to it? Do what you enjoy, and chances are you'll improve faster, because you'll spend more time with the instrument and you won't feel that sense of "I have to do this". The irony is you'll get better and better, and you'll probably be more able to play whole songs if you really want to.
So next time you sit down to practise, pick the riff, chorus or solo you genuinely love playing, and work on that. Skip the bits you don't enjoy, and go and find your next challenge.
