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Hi all,
Joe Videtto - asking for some 'modern' artist and song recommendations.
I'm 51 years old - like all styles (except "pop country") - and grew up with favorite artists that were rock-based (every form classic, pop, progressive). Also loved the big-name pop stars played on the radio as well as singer-songwriter types (Billy Joel, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Eagles).
I'm about to start giving guitar lessons to younger folks, and I'd like to find some new artists so I don't feel like a relic.
I'm 51 - and of course good music is good music. But I'm thinking if you're closer in age to me (within 10 or 15 years), new artists that you like would also be more likely to fit in my taste also.
No restrictions - please share any artists or particular songs that are less than 10 years old and who you really enjoy listening to.
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asking for some 'modern' artist and song recommendations.
I'm about to start giving guitar lessons to younger folks, and I'd like to find some new artists so I don't feel like a relic. Ha ha! You are missing a good portion of your student base then. There are some really good guitarists in country right now. I can name a few, but to me it sounds like you are stuck in an era. It's sort of like saying you want to teach guitar to a bunch of kids who like 80's metal bands, but you are looking for something more like the Beach Boys. There's nothing wrong with either era, but I've always felt you can teach kids about the beach boys by first helping them learn what got them to want to take lessons in the first place. Just a thought. Is your goal to teach guitar, or to help someone learn guitar?
Last edited by HearToLearn; 06/29/17 05:16 AM.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
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When you say "...guitar lessons to younger folks..."
...what does that mean?
Playing chords to sing along with popular songs?
Play blistering leads to be in a rock band?
Learn to be Stevie Ray?
Do you mean...like Ed Sheeran? Taylor Swift?... might be a place to start...
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Good points HearToLearn : )
I was always inspired to learn guitar in-part to play the music I loved. Now, I could just teach people my age - and that would solve the problem.
And you hit the nail - I recognized I am "locked" and stuck in my era - this is actually very common for a bunch of very real and good reasons. But I would like to break out myself. Start sharing your favorites that are <10 years old please !!! Or might you be stuck also ?
And I'll open my mind to the country guys also. Actually - I love bluegrass, and I find 'modern country' superficial - but maybe I'm not listening to the right guys.
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I find the best popular guitar sing along songs I hear are from artists like Taylor Swift, Little Big Town and Lady Antebellum. A good mixture of pop/country styles.
Charlie
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In case my post came across as more harsh than I meant it, there aren't as many guitar driven songs that are really well known, like there used to be. A recent post by Floyd Jane points to an article that explains, to some extent why...along with some great insights by others on the forum. I really do feel country may be closer to what you may be looking for. I mean, maybe you would like Maroon 5, Train, or...more guitar driven could be along the lines of Nickelback, Avenenged Sevenfold...but I'm not holding my breathe. Another whole area you may want to look at is the Ed Sheeran type of artists. They are doing sort of a singer/songwriter type of thing, but use foot pedals looping stations. You may grab some students that way, and teach them to play with a consistent beat. You may want to at least look at country, like Keith Urban as an example, for the same reasons others complain about country music...it's not that country anymore. It's also where guitarists seem to have gone to be able to play at all  Just thoughts. I'm sure the guitarists and teachers here will have better suggestions than I have given. Best of luck to you! 
Last edited by HearToLearn; 06/29/17 05:41 AM.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
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Ask your new students what THEY want to learn/play.
Let them give you a list of 10 songs.
Then you decide which of those you could learn and teach them.
A win-win. You learn new songs, they stay interested because they are playing what they want...
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Floyd Jane - great minds think alike. In addition to that, I'd like to open up their ears. I happened to grow up with a lot of music aficionados that would seek out the good stuff and turn each other onto it. Both my nephew and the girl I'm teaching right now don't have 'musical' parents and haven't been exposed to much. So a 2-prong approach - doing their requests, and opening their ears to new sounds. Nothing wrong with old stuff TOO - but I think I should include newer 'good stuff' also. And it does NOT have to be guitar driven.
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Thanks Charlie and HeartoLearn for some new names I'm not very familiar with. Gonna check them out today : )
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Ask your new students what THEY want to learn/play.
Let them give you a list of 10 songs.
Then you decide which of those you could learn and teach them.
A win-win. You learn new songs, they stay interested because they are playing what they want...
Forget what I said, THERE is your answer!
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)
TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.
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Same age as you Joe...... Here's a list to get started from my listening.....
3 Doors Down, 30 Seconds to Mars, Alice In Chains, Alt J, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Atlas Genius, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, Awolnation , Bastille, Bear Hands, Big Data, Bleachers, Bob Moses, Breaking Benjamin, Bruno Mars, Bullet for My Valentine, Cage The Elephant , Cake , Catfish & The Bottlemen, Cavo, Chevelle, Cold War Kids, Evanescence, Everlast , Fall Out Boy, Fitz & the Tantrums, Five Finger Death Punch , Florence and the Machine, Flyleaf, Foals, Foo Fighters, Foster the People, Garbage, Highly Suspect, Imagine Dragons, Incubus, Jack White, Jamie T, K Flay, Kaleo, Kings of Leon, KONGOS, Korn , Linkin Park, Lorde, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Neon Trees, Nickelback, Nothing but Thieves, Panic At the Disco, Puddle of Mudd, Queens Of The Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rise Against, Royal Blood, Saint Motel, Seether, Shinedown, Silversun Pickups, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Struts, The Killers, The Neighbourhood, The Offspring, The White Stripes, Theory of a Dead Man, Three Days Grace, Thrice, Twenty One Pilots, Vance Joy, Wolf Alice, X Ambassadors, Young The Giant
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Wow sslechta - how do you know of all these newer bands ???!!!! You must have kids !!! (I don't - putting me at a distinct disadvantage in being pushed to expand my horizons LOL ) THanks for the list.
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I've just stayed caught up over the years listening to new Alternative/Rock stations. I have refused to grow up.
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I hope that you are going to teach them to read music. If yes then what I did after they learned all 6 strings, note lengths, rests etc I would ask then what they wanted to play. I'd get a list from them then go to Musicnotes ( http://www.musicnotes.com/) and DL a song or two that I could easily transpose and change to meet their skill level. Note that paying for music that you use to teach is tax deductible. You can do a lot with hole, half, quarter and eight notes in the key of C. This usually inspires the student to want to learn more. You can rewrite the song in BiaB, a DAW or like myself the free MuscScore2 ( https://musescore.org/en/2.0). If they just want to learn chords then google/bing songtitle and chords. On a side note for the songs I rewrote I usually include a CD containing BiaB backing tracks. I would have a number slow to actual song tempo backing tracks. If you can't play it slow you can't play it fast. Also I have had great success teaching the A pentatonic scale then jamming a 12 bar blues in A with the student. Just my method of teaching. YMMV.
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I've just stayed caught up over the years listening to new Alternative/Rock stations. I have refused to grow up. Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional!
Dad, how will I know when I've become an adult.
When your day is ruined because they rearranged the grocery store.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
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All great points and great advice. I agree reading is important...though quite honestly, I never learned to read to the point where I could read leads from transcription books in real time or even half time. At best I read fairly well in the first and second positions. And I could very SLOWLY read through a classical piece or note-for-not guitar solo transcription - and with LOTS and LOTS of practice, eventually learn it and memorize it. In fact, I found the tablature much faster for the note-for-note rock stuff. But it was always very hard, long and painful for anything of significance.
I think very FEW people reach the level of fluidly reading "leads" to rock songs, played in their correct positions for bends, fingerings, etc. . But knowing the names of the notes at every fret, the chord tones in various scales (major, minor, pentatonic, and a few more biggies), the prorgressions in major, minor scales and their modes - to me that might be more important than being able to fluidly read a solo.
Last edited by Joe V; 06/29/17 10:50 AM.
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I agree reading is important. That hit my hot button, and I have posted about this often. For my dime, and queue up the broken record saying the same thing over and over, I say first teach them MUSIC. Not songs. The music that makes the songs be songs. Teach them the steps on a scale, why a scale is whole whole half whole whole whole half, and what half step and whole step means, why keys interact with each other (dominant, subdominant...) circle of 5th chord wheel and all that. If you just teach them songs, they will never learn music. The kids that do the hero worship thing, as we all did when we were impressionable kids, see Van Halen and Malmsteen and Randy Rhodes and Steve Vai ripping those solos with more notes than can be counted without realizing that there is a difference between "musician" and "player". Those 4 guys I mentioned are "deep" musicians. Well schooled in the roots of what they are doing. I think if you can make kids understand that the theory is the foundation that those buildings (songs) stand on, they may want to learn it. Since I have only been one "me" through my whole life, I only know what worked for this one "me". Having started music very young with a teacher who beat theory into me proved to be invaluable for all the music years that followed. That being said, if kids just want to learn songs, what I think really doesn't matter much for them.
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I'm also 'modernizing'. My advice is check out acoustic versions of modern songs. Then you get to hear what songs will work regardless of modern artifacts (autotune, delays, harmonies etc) I trawl through dozens of songs from 2016-17 and pick maybe 3 or 4. It soon adds up. The modern anthems also stand out. You just do them your way. People love that they recognise the song and often get a kick out of us oldies butchering them... 
Last edited by lambada; 06/29/17 05:49 PM.
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Use sslechta 's list for the most part. Try some Colony House as well. Believe it or not some of One Direction songs are well written.
As for getting some exposure to newer tunes, listen to the Song Exploder podcast. Also the All Songs Considered podcast.
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Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac and save up to 50% on most upgrade packages during our special offer—available until May 15, 2026. Visit our Band-in-a-Box® packages page to explore all available upgrade options.
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK Add-ons
Our Free Bonus PAK and 49-PAK are loaded with amazing add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is included with most Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac packages, but you can unlock even more—including 20 unreleased RealTracks—by upgrading to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49.
Holiday Weekend Hours
As we hop into the Easter weekend, here are our holiday hours:
April 3 (Good Friday): 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
April 4 (Saturday): Closed
April 5 (Easter Sunday): Closed
April 6 (Easter Monday): Open regular hours
Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
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