Do you remember the first song you tried learning? I started my guitar journey with Mood For A Day by Yes, a "classical" guitar piece by one of my biggest influences the great Steve Howe. I can still remember learning how to use Sony Acid to slow down the song so I could actually follow the notes, then learning the melody line one note at a time by ear (didn't have access to tab or sheet music, not that I knew any theory at the time anyway ). It took nearly 3 months of practicing every day before I finally felt like I had a handle on the tune, but even today I still haven't quite mastered it. My favourite riff of all time starts around 1:25, have a listen and share your stories too.
Well this could be fun. First song I wanted to learn on bass (and did): Long Distance Runaround First song I wanted to learn on keys (and did): Six Wives of Henry the 8th Interesting that the 1st three songs listed in this thread are YES songs.
For guitar I was much less ambitious. It has always been a 2nd/3rd/4th instrument for me, regardless of the band ..
I do have fun with my guitars, but I would never ever imply I am a 'guitarist'. /More of a utility player in my day
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
I got a chord book and a couple of song books and looked at the little chord diagrams to know where to put my fingers on acoustic guitar. Then a guy taught me how to fingerpick Dust In the Wind and Dreamboat Annie. After I had my guitar for a year I heard Chuck E's In Love when it first came out and I loved it so much I was determined I was gonna figure out how to play it. I worked so hard to learn that song. Every day I played and sang with that record - over and over and over and over until I got the chords and the timing on the guitar right and her vocal timing and inflections right. Once I learned it, it was so much fun to do and people really got into it.
That brought back some good memories. Here's the song by the original artist in case you don't recognize it.
I had just been given a trumpet at school, age 9. My father wanted to teach me a song that my older brother didn't know. If you mean teaching yourself, soon after I started playing along with Doc Severinson records. The first two songs were By Myself and There Will Never be Another You.
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I was about 8, so I really can't remember the very first, but somewhere about that age I definitely played plenty of study pieces composed by Johann Friedrich Burgmüller
I'll never forget: "Right hand, now left hand, now both hands together Trevor. Now repeat".
After that, plenty of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach. Then I discovered Scott Joplin, and, well, it's been a continual evolution since then.
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Phew! It was a long time ago but it definatey would have been a John Denver one. I had a John Denver song book that I absolutely loved. It may have been Fly Away. "All of her dreams have gone soft and cloudy".
I wish I still had that book. I just went looking for it and of course they have it on Amazon (we can't buy on Amazon from South Africa)
Now Your Messin' With A @#%^* by Nazareth. I was probably 12 or 13. I had learned small parts of several songs. This was the first one I learned start to finish on a nylon string classical guitar. I learned it by ear and drew little symbols that represented the different parts and patterns on an index card to help me remember it. I didn't sing the whole thing but played it through on guitar only. Second song I learned was Closer To The Heart by Rush. I didn't have the guitar parts exact but could improvise it closely and sing it all the way through.
For me it was "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals, the arpeggios . Would have been in the late 60's I guess, 68 or 69.
When I first started playing lead guitar a couple of years later there were no books, tablature hadn't been invented yet as far as I know. I had a reel to reel tape recorder, I used to tape the song at 7 1/2 then play it back at 3 3/4 to figure out the harder lead parts. Speed was slowed by half, but of course it also dropped an octave in pitch.
I started playing trumpet at the age of 8, guitar at 14, French horn at 16, but those were so long ago I forget what the first song song(s) was I learned. But I do remember ruining my Chuck Berry albums trying to learn his leads. I did play a lot of 50's rock back then.
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I really don't know, but I could dive into the vaults of my music books and find the first music book I owned. I got it in school at around 7 when I learned to play recorder. It was most probably something children's songs like Kuckuck ruft's aus dem Wald "or "Summ, summ, summ, Bienchen summ herum". Songs like these were also the first when I started with accordion two or three years later.
When I pickud up the guitar I raised the strings to play it like a Hawaiian Steel Guitar, the first song was "I Feel Better All Over" in the version of Johnny Cash
On regular guitar, I don't know which songs I played first, but the two first ones that I really mastered were "Steel Guitar Rag" and "Walk Don't Run" in the Ventures version. Also I learned one (!) song fingerpicking from a Stefan Grossman Album "Shake That Thing!
On pedal steel guitar the songs were "Steel Guitar Rag" that I already knew on guitar and "Bud's Bounce". (I don't play pedal steel anymore, but I still have it...) Meanwhil I try to re-learn Bud's Bounce on guitar more or less in the arrangement for pedal steel guitar.
My family chose for me to begin my music playing journey with drums. My older brother had a rock band while my father had a country band and I played in both.
I learned by playing along with albums by The Ventures. Don't exactly remember the first song I learned but I'm sure "Wipeout" had to be one of the first. At one time I had a record collection that included everything released in the USA by The Ventures. All of the albums were worn out from playing. I wasn't aware until recently The Ventures released albums just for distribution in Japan where they were popular than even The Beatles.
The Ventures released a series of four albums called "Play With The Ventures". One side of the album had four or five songs with all instruments playing. The flip side had the same song list but minus the featured instrument; either drums, bass, rhythm guitar or lead guitar. You listened to one side to hear how the song was supposed to sound then could flip the album over, cue up the same song and practice with The Ventures!
Each of the four albums had a different song list that highlighted the featured instrument. For instance the song list on the bass album had songs with a lot of really good bass runs. By the time each member of a garage band learned to play all the songs in the series the group would have a pretty good collection of songs they could play as well as an elementary proficiency of their chosen instrument. Printed material included tab sheets and how to tune and care for the instruments.
It took a l-o-n-g time for me to develop an interest in country music. My father's band played mostly ballads and waltzs so there wasn't much for a drummer to do.
The first song I learned on keyboard was the Tetris theme. Tetris was an old cartridge game in the early 90s that became quite popular and still is to this day. The theme I learned is much simpler but this girl plays the theme exceptionally!
OK for this guitar player it was probably something like "Tequila," "Rumble," or "Sleep Walk." At this point I can't remember which and the term "learn" is a relative term. What I thought I had "learned" was not necessarily what was on the vinyl .
Of course, this is not counting songs like "Red River Valley," "Oh My Darlin' Clementine," etc., that my first, and regretfully only teacher, forced me to learn. wish I could remember his name, I also really wish I had stayed with him for at least a few more years. He knew, and was friends with Joe Pass and Joe Negri, who was just an hour away in Pittsburgh and Pass was actually raised in our hometown. I also wish I had learned classical and jazz from day one.
I do remember forcing myself to learn The Ventures version of "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" exactly right, using my only guitar - a "beginners" Gibson ES-125. I remember for SOME reason, I had a mental block and had lots of trouble learning that tune but still love it to this day. I wore out brothers (mono) vinyl learning it.
PS wish I still had that ES-125 (got to love nostalgia)
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Learned how to play "Oh Susanna" on the organ in grade school. It was from a number book, C=1. I still have it burned in my head...... 1 2 3 5 5 6 5 3 1 2 3 3 2 1 2.......
Another I learned from that book was "On Top of Old Smokey".
I think it was either Tico Tico or Lady of Spain on accordian when I was about 9. Actually those couldn't have been the very first, it had to something simpler that I can't remember now but those two stand out. That morphed into a 36 piece accordian orchestra until around age 14. Then later when I was in the Air Force and hadn't played a note since the middle of high school when accordians definitely were not cool, I started noodling the Pink Panther and Baby Elephant Walk from a Mancini book sitting on a piano in the Airman's Club in Japan. Up to that point I had never touched a horizontal keyboard in my life. Some guys heard me and invited me to join their band and a week or so later I was doing my very first gig at the O club after going into town and buying a very early Yamaha Electone organ.
And look at me now, gold records, a star in Hollywood, a...dammit, I'm daydreaming again...
Learned how to play "Oh Susanna" on the organ in grade school. It was from a number book, C=1. I still have it burned in my head...... 1 2 3 5 5 6 5 3 1 2 3 3 2 1 2.......
Another I learned from that book was "On Top of Old Smokey".
Did your book come with the brightly colored number stickers that you could attach to the keys?
Some guys heard me and invited me to join their band and a week or so later I was doing my very first gig at the O club after going into town and buying a very early Yamaha Electone organ. And look at me now, gold records, a star in Hollywood, a...dammit, I'm daydreaming again...Bob
Ha....say it isn't so! Good story.
Me...I started on the guitar in late 60's just prior to completing my (4) year military picnic. Although I actually started playing drums during high school....as I meander through the halls of my memory I think my first one on guitar was House Of The Rising Sun. It was my first guitar which was a very cheap, large body, high action, excruciatingly painful axe to play....don't know what happened to that axe but I'm sure it's in a land fill somewhere. I'd guess no one else ever started on that one. (I'm such a kidder).
Are you talking about on the first instrument one ever played?
Well in that case, it was the Beatles...I wanna hold your hand.
My brother and I went down to the basement, got some cardboard, an old fence slat, and some waxed kite string and made a "non-functional" guitar and we proceeded to learn the Beatles song on that 45.
If you're talking about a real instrument.... I don't recall the first song.... It was whatever was lesson 1 of the Mel Bay piano course for beginners book 1.
If it was guitar.... it was G, C, D and most likely 500 miles or Four Strong winds after I came home from summer camp where I heard those songs and the girl up the street had a guitar and showed me those chords..... the rest, as they say, was history.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
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Join Tobin as he takes you on a tour of the new user interface in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®! This modern GUI redesign offers a sleek new look with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, and a smoother workflow. The brand-new side toolbar puts track selection, the MultiPicker Library, and other essential tools right at your fingertips. Plus, our upgraded Multi-View lets you layer multiple windows without overlap, giving you a highly flexible workspace. Many windows—including Tracks, Piano Roll, and more—have been redesigned for improved usability and a cleaner, more intuitive interface, and more!
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Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
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Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
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). It took nearly 3 months of practicing every day before I finally felt like I had a handle on the tune, but even today I still haven't quite mastered it. My favourite riff of all time starts around 1:25, have a listen and share your stories too.
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