PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Help me "modernize" - and find some songs less than 10 years old I will love to learn and play

If you just learn a few ed sheeran songs you will be a hero!

From your list, I have heard of/listened to these groups, many of them a LOT. Foo, Peppers, Neon Trees, Bruno and Fitz for sure. Your list though is now required reading for me.

Jack White isn't my style though. Between that stupid haircut and him screaming, I can't take it. Disclaimer is that anymore I rarely listen to music, to the point where the names I omitted I had never heard of. I'l look into them now though.

I really do need to leave the 60s and 70s. If you looked at my iPod you'd see a lot of Motown, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The 4 Seasons, Todd Rundgren, The Tubes, Tower of Power, AWB, EW&F, BS&T, Chicago.... I think that is a generational thing though. Every generation tended to hold on to what they knew best. Inside my own family I saw my parents clinging to big bands while my sister, just 5 years older, was a teen heart throb crooner listener. Then I came along with The Beatles thing and faced the "How can you listen to that crap" thing.... The whole wave of 50s street corner singing groups kind of missed me though.

Eddie, I thought you would have been thinking more along the lines:

- Hit the Road Jack
- I'm a Travellin' Man
- 24 Hours from Tulsa
- Homeward Bound
- On the Road Again
- Born To Run
- Head Out On The Highway
- We Gotta Get Outta This Place
- I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).
- Wichita Lineman

Oh, and I nearly forgot: I’ve Been Everywhere Man

I saw this list and thought "Man, there are some really good bands in there" my next thought was what my kids think of many of those bands..."they're old."

Not all of them by any means, and I didn't feel that way HOWEVER...my son is 16, a good number of bands listed had their biggest days before or just after he was born! Yikes!

This may or may not apply, keep in mind the age of who you are teaching. Even if they like things from a while ago, they may have a different frame of reference to it.

I also wanted to say that a few of those bands in the list are very current...like 21 Pilots. That same son I mentioned likes the guitars in their songs.

I still say your best bet on what they may want to learn is to ask them as Floyd suggested.

As far as theory, reading, and the technical side...don't start there. Work it in WITH their interest. "Oh you want to learn that Justin Beiber song. Great! Here is what he/they are doing. Pretty cool. Some other songs that have this same thing going on are..." and that's your opportunity to expand them a bit. You will have more students who enjoy a lifetime of music if you relate it to what they are doing. I've seen teachers who do this and teachers who don't. The response in the student learning ratio is massively different.

I've also seen teachers who say in various ways "Oh, you want to learn that Justin Beiber song? He's crap. He doesn't even write his own music. Let me show you some real (ly old) music." The kid quits out of frustration, and maybe doesn't want to learn ever again, and the teacher is dumb enough to say "Kid's now days. They're so lazy. Let them have their disco crap!"...showing how out of touch they are

To me, you seem like you would have a decent personality for teaching. You can recognize that you may have to update yourself to relate. That's a huge step.

Good luck in your venture!

I'm off to download some of those mentioned bands music. I had forgotten about some of them. That may be a bad sign

I think it takes an active effort to discover newer music as we get older, for many reasons. Here are some:

https://www.google.com/search?q=why+old+people+don%27t+listen+to+newer+music&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS705US705&oq=why+old+people+don%27t+listen+to+newer+music&aqs=chrome..69i57.8347j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I find Quora and incredibly interesting website to read - just thoughtful people sharing thoughtful answers - they're first in the hits above.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-old-people-dislike-present-day-songs-and-mostly-listen-to-old-music

I listen to a lot of that as well Eddie, especially EWF. I just generated that list above from the last hundred or so MP3s I've downloaded over the last 10 years and discarded the "older" bands and song names.

Sort of a double post, but it applies to both. I know you asked for some tracks within the last 10 years...how about the last 20 minutes?

Guitar On The Today Show

There are the kinds of bands/artists that kids are looking to who want to learn to play.

Joe, here's a label for you to check out:

Fat Possum Records http://fatpossum.com/featured-artists/

SO MANY GREAT GUITAR BANDS, new stuff, rather popular as it pertains to the alt-rock scene which is alive and well. Many of the new artists on this label are paying tribute to past sounds with modern twists on them.

They also have done justice to some forgotten and not so forgotten artists and bands with re-issues.

I also agree on the Ed Sheeran tip; probably the best example of guitar-centric pop out there right now.

As for the One Direction nod I made before; I have to admit that my attention turned that way with this specific podcast episode where the hosts reveal several Beatlesque tidbits in the One Direction song, 'Olivia': http://www.tuner.show/episodes/2015/11/22/5-if-i-needed-some-one-direction

That Tuner podcast is one worth listening to. I'm disappointed they haven't made any episodes for some time, but it's a great resource for songwriting and for uncovering what makes pop-tunes tick with us; often revealing a sophistication that otherwise goes unnoticed.

Some other new to 15 year old bands with guitar-heavy sounds in my regular listening rotation (I realize some of these are in sslecta's list):
The Black Keys
The Hold Steady (careful here, mostly drug and drunkenness lyrics, but dang what a great sound)
Band of Horses
Coldplay (earlier stuff)
Bruno Mars (for funk-guitar)
The Shins (they get my vote for the most interesting vocal melodies, and their rhythm guitarist is very inventive - if you have girl students, make sure to introduce them to her)
St. Vincent (female indie-rock-star extraordinaire, with a signature Music Man guitar that is super cool; she has some very riff-heavy songs)
The White Stripes (some of the most recognizable riffs of the past 15 years - you know it when you hear them at baseball and hockey games to rev up the crowd - I know many people don't like Jack White, but sorry - try to get the riff for Seven Nation Army out of your head once it's in there)

And as a guitar teacher, besides all of the comments about teaching reading of music which I agree with; have no shame in teaching them old school rock. Some of those kids wearing the fake faded out Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AC/DC T-shirts actually are listening to that music.






Radiohead

Arctic Monkeys

HTL, Charlie Puth is great! Suffer is a classic, jazzy ballad that could have been done by many bands in the 70's. This is a guitar thread but here we have a bunch of young girls swooning for a keyboard player who is fronting his band, singing a ballad and taking a very nice solo. And a nice guitar solo too...

As a keys player, I'm loving this one.

Bob

Wow. Am I out of it. I never heard of Ed Sheeran and Charlie Puth. Arctic Monkeys? The Shins? The Hold Steady? Bruno Mars I know because he is essentially James Brown reincarnate.

Eddie,

For your listening pleasure. Some faves by the individual bands. First two have lots of nods to great 70's rock bands.

The Hold Steady:
https://youtu.be/ttpYd5qN3dE

Arctic Monkeys:
https://youtu.be/qN7gSMPQFss?list=PLfKJ52Aom314yBZZ4z9ufXXx3-oLsiSSt

The Shins: Here's a new one that shows off typical type of vocals from the singer - not sure if the rhythm guitarist is still Jessica Dobson. She's a pretty awesome rhythm guitarist - perhaps that's not fair to call her that, she creates really interesting accompaniment that goes beyond a typical chunk-away guitarist.
https://youtu.be/VnQKb2lHGes

Asking your students want they want to learn, as Floyd first suggested, is def the way to go. Presumably something inspired them to take lessons. Teach theory in context or you'll lose them.

As for the golden oldies, I teach in high schools and I'm constantly surprised at how savvy kids are. The artists have to be 'cool' though. Johnny Cash and Pink Floyd are cool. So is The King (Elvis). There's your middle ground. Otherwise you'll just have to suck it up with the Ed Sheerans and Taylor Swifts of the world on one hand, or hard rock on the other. Hey they're kids (assuming they are kids).

Found them to be a mix of Beatles, Foo Fighters and REM

Kind of OMD meets Thompson Twins

I got Level 42, Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran from them, and vocally some Yes when he goes high.

All, of course, a 30 year older version of those old bands. I will be looking deeper into their catalogs.

Making me want to find my Bourgois Tagg CD. Which will lead me to my Marshall Cresnshaw CDs... my musical ADD kicking in....

That's me as well. Bourgeouis Tagg - haven't heard about that band in ages.

I also use Freegal, combined with my library card, allows 5 song downloads a week.

Another band not nearly as popular that you would almost certainly enjoy is Temples.

They sound a little like the Shins, but with more of a psychadelic sound.

All of these bands have memorable hooks - I guess that's what I like about all of them.

I get exposed to some of these bands through music shows on NPR. For the past two years, All Songs Considered has done an 'Austin 100' which is a downloadable compilation of 100 songs of bands playing South by Southwest. I usually find about 10 out of the 100 that I REALLY like, and then I'll go rabbit hole those bands.

The Arctic Monkeys AM album is more heavy 70's riff based rock than OMD, though some of their stuff is like that. Listen to that whole AM album, it's pretty heavy.