50 First Songs 100 Week Challenge

50 Songs Challenge
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This thread was originally asking if people wanted to do this journey with me and many do, so I’m now editing this first post with the information needed.

Basically, the idea is that we want to focus on learning a new song from the 50 First Songs mini-site every 2 weeks. Of course this is all optional. Feel free to join in on which ever ones you feel like doing. I’m personally going to aim for all of them though just to keep me engaged in learning the bass. Also, these roughly increase in difficulty as the weeks go on, so the plan is to start with the easier ones.

Link to Music Notation and Tabs Mini-Site

Tip 1: Become familiar with the song. Listen to the full version a few times first if you don’t know the song. Here is a playlist with all of the songs on Spotify in the order we’re tackling them here or YouTube here

Tip 2: You can slow down the song by decreasing the tempo in the sheet music / tab player. This is VERY useful when you are learning the song. Then you can start cranking up the speed until you get to full speed for the song. I usually start around 50% speed. You can also slow down the playback speed on the YouTube videos by using the gear icon.

Tip 3: If you want an extra challenge, try to focus on the sheet music and not the tab. This is for the hardcore learners though!

Tip 4: This is to have fun and learn. Don’t feel obligated to play any of these if you don’t want to. But I encourage you to be open-minded on music tastes as knowing how to play music from different genres adds to your musical toolkit. Note, there are 4 songs here with alternate tunings. If that is a problem, just skip those.

Tip 5: If you are up for it, it’s great to make a video of you playing each song when you’ve learned it. Posting videos and getting feedback is one of the best ways to learn. I know it can be ominous to some (it was to me my first time), but this community is really the best there is and there is nothing to be worried about. I’d recommend playing with the full song if you can work that out, but even playing along with the sheet music / tab is cool too.

Start (Mon) Song Artist Alt Tuning Full Song (YT) Discussion
8-Mar-2021 Another Brick in the Wall Pink Floyd DADG YouTube Thread
22-Mar-2021 Bad Moon Rising Creedence Clearwater Revival - YouTube Thread
5-Apr-2021 Crazy Gnarls Barkley - YouTube
19-Apr-2021 Folsom Prison Blues Johnny Cash - YouTube
3-May-2021 Highway to Hell AC/DC - YouTube
17-May-2021 Hound Dog Elvis Presley - YouTube
31-May-2021 House of the Rising Sun The Animals - YouTube
14-Jun-2021 I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry Hank Williams - YouTube
28-Jun-2021 My Girl The Temptations - YouTube
12-Jul-2021 With or Without You U2 - YouTube
26-Jul-2021 Yellow Coldplay - YouTube
9-Aug-2021 All Star Smashmouth - YouTube
30-Aug-2021 Alone, Together The Strokes - YouTube
20-Sep-2021 Blitzkrieg Bop Ramones - YouTube
11-Oct-2021 Born Under a Bad Sign Albert King - YouTube
1-Nov-2021 Come as You Are Nirvana DGCF YouTube
22-Nov-2021 Crossfire Steve Ray Vaughan Eb-Ab-Db-Gb YouTube
13-Dec-2021 Don’t Stop Believin’ Journey - YouTube
3-Jan-2022 Feel Good Inc. Gorillaz - YouTube
24-Jan-2022 Gimme Some Lovin’ The Spencer Davis Group - YouTube
14-Feb-2022 Higher and Higher Jackie Wilson - YouTube
7-Mar-2022 I Feel Good James Brown - YouTube
28-Mar-2022 In the Midnight Hour Wilson Pickett - YouTube
18-Apr-2022 Lady Marmalade Patti Labelle - YouTube
9-May-2022 London Calling The Clash - YouTube
30-May-2022 Money Pink Floyd - YouTube
20-Jun-2022 My Sharona The Knack - YouTube
11-Jul-2022 Only Happy When it Rains Garbage - YouTube
1-Aug-2022 Otherside Red Hot Chili Peppers - YouTube
22-Aug-2022 Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag James Brown - YouTube
12-Sep-2022 Pretty Pink Ribbon Cake - YouTube
3-Oct-2022 Roxanne The Police - YouTube
24-Oct-2022 Runnin’ with the Devil Van Halen - YouTube
14-Nov-2022 Seven Nation Army The White Stripes - YouTube
5-Dec-2022 Some Kind of Wonderful Grand Funk Railroad - YouTube
26-Dec-2022 Sunshine of Your Love Cream - YouTube
16-Jan-2023 The Chain Fleetwood Mac - YouTube
6-Feb-2023 Thunderstruck AC/DC - YouTube
27-Feb-2023 Time Bomb Rancid - YouTube
20-Mar-2023 Billie Jean Michael Jackson - YouTube
17-Apr-2023 Crazy Little Thing Called Love Queen - YouTube
15-May-2023 I Put a Spell On You Creedence Clearwater Revival - YouTube
12-Jun-2023 Iron Man Black Sabbath - YouTube
10-Jul-2023 Longview Green Day - YouTube
7-Aug-2023 September Earth, Wind, & Fire - YouTube
4-Sep-2023 Soul to Squeeze Red Hot Chili Peppers - YouTube
2-Oct-2023 Sweet Home Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd - YouTube
30-Oct-2023 Testify Rage Against the Machine DADG YouTube
27-Nov-2023 Under the Bridge Red Hot Chili Peppers - YouTube
25-Dec-2023 You Give Love a Bad Name Bon Jovi - YouTube
22-Jan-2024 Hysteria Muse - YouTube

Spreadsheet of this + Spotify links is here.

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I’ve been trying to work on a song a week, but it usually takes longer, so once a month probably works better :slight_smile: whilst working through the course, although I’m working on Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is tougher than I thought :slight_smile:

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I’m down. Monthly seems like a nice relaxed pace. What song are you thinking of kicking it off with?

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Hmm… I haven’t chosen one. Happy to go with the consensus. I’m also fine to do one every two weeks if others want to do that. Happy to go along with whatever. I think they key is having others involved.

I’m open-minded about music. The ones Josh has marked Easy are below. I’m guessing its sensible to go through these one by one first. Maybe don’t have to go through all of them before moving to Medium though.

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL - Pink Floyd
BAD MOON RISING - Creedence Clearwater Revival
CRAZY - Gnarls Barkley
FOLSOM PRISON BLUES - Johnny Cash
HIGHWAY TO HELL - AC/DC
HOUND DOG - Elvis Presley
HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN - The Animals
I’M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY - Hank Williams
MY GIRL - The Temptations
WITH OR WITHOUT YOU - U2
YELLOW - Coldplay

If you have a preference for any of those let me know.

@MattHinchliffe - Fell free to chip in as well. :slight_smile:

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Hard to choose between those haha. I guess for the first one I would pick Hank Williams or Temptations because they are slow-ish and repetitive. Also thinking bi-weekly rather than monthly would help keep the engagement up, for the “easy” ones especially.

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Yeah, lets go with every two weeks then. I’ve changed the thread title to that. That makes it a 100 week challenge which has a ring to it. Of course, I don’t expect everyone to do every single song if they don’t want to. That’s quite a large commitment. So people can just join in on the ones they want to do. I’ll see if I can knock up the list in order though so we don’t have to decide what the next song is every two weeks. :slight_smile:

Might just do them in the order they are listed on the mini-site (when filtered by difficulty). Then it’s simple and easy to know what is next all the time.

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Yeah I like that. Choosing an old country song for the first one might turn off some folks lol… And a 100 week challenge sounds more reasonable than a 4-5 year challenge.

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Yeah I’m down too. Two weekly is probably what I’d aim for too- I find myself realising there’s way more to songs I thought I knew how to play.

Having a group activity would definitely keep me focused as I struggle to impose structure upon myself.

I’m happy with whatever songs are picked to kick this off.
I’ve been working on “soul to squeeze” that’s in the selection for what feels like way too long now- although I’m using the notation from the hal leonard book.

Good call JT!

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Sounds good. I’ll work out a calendar in the next couple of days and aim to start it in about a week or so. That gives others time to learn about what we’re doing. Glad to have others to do this with. Again though, don’t feel obligated to do every single one if you don’t want to!

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Sounds great! I love the motivation. :grinning: :musical_note: :guitar:

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I have actually learned more with the songs I would have never picked intentionally, thanks to doing B2B, than with the songs from my neck of the woods,genre- wise.

So i think it’s a great idea to do this in the funky confines of that list. As people’s preferences and tastes don’t come into it- is it on the list? Then we’re playing it!:grin:

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I’m glad to see so many people interested in your idea, and I hope it goes well. It’s not something I’d be interested in, as I like to choose my own songs to cover, and do them at my own pace. However, this may be a good idea for those who need some motivation :+1:

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Count me in!

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I’m in… I Like the idea. I am just starting Module 7 and I wanted to filter in some songs. Bookmarked so I get messaged for updates.

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If were starting with Pink FLoyd…
Check your tuning… this is Drop D tuning for “Another Brick in the Wall”

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I’m interested - what would we be providing? Just bass audio? audio to backing track? video?

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Totally up to you. This is very informal. You can go from not recording anything to hiring the real band and playing along with them in a multi-million dollar production. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I personally will probably be playing along on video to a backing track with my normal unemotional face. :slight_smile:

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Alright Peeps. I’ve now added a few things to the first post in this thread:

  1. A calendar of which songs we’ll be aiming for on which dates
  2. What tunings those songs are in (there are only 4 songs with alt tunings)
  3. YouTube links for each song
  4. A Spotify and YouTube playlist of all these songs
  5. Some Tips on how to make this a better experience for you

Lets rock and roll!.. and maybe play some slower songs too… :stuck_out_tongue:

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Took a few hours, but all the YouTube and Spotify playlists are now done. There are also individual YouTube song links next to each song in the calendar in the first post. I’ve tried to ensure I get the right official versions of everything, but if anyone notices one that isn’t quite right then just let me know.

YouTube Playlist

Spotify Playlist

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Thanks for doing all this JT!

Now there’s no excuses for anyone!
Join us ,join us,join us!:grin:

I won’t be posting any videos though, don’t have all the necessary bits and pieces to hook it all up yet.

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