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.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 is packed with major new features, enhancements, and an incredible lineup of new content! The program now sports a sleek, modern GUI redesign across the entire interface, including updated toolbars, refreshed windows, smoother workflows, a new dark mode option, and more. The brand-new side toolbar provides quicker access to key windows, while the new Multi-View feature lets you arrange multiple windows as layered panels without overlap, creating a flexible, clutter-free workspace. We have an amazing new “AI-Notes” feature. This transcribes polyphonic audio into MIDI so you can view it in notation or play it back as MIDI. You can transcribe an entire track (all pitched instruments and drums) or focus on individual parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's an amazing collection of new content too, including 202 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two RealDrums Stems sets, and much more!
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202 New RealTracks Released with Band-in-a-Box 2026!
With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
Jazz, Funk & World (Sets 468-475):
Our new jazz, funk & blues RealTracks include a groovin’ collection of RealTracks and RealDrums! These include more requested “soul jazz” RealTracks featuring artists Neil Swainson (bass), Charles Treadway (organ), Brent Mason (guitar), and Wes Little (drums). There are new “smooth jazz” styles (4), which include a RealTracks first: muted trumpet, as well as slick new smooth jazz brushes options for drums. Blues lovers will be thrilled—there are more “classic acoustic blues” styles, including guitar (5), bass (4), and drums (10) with blues master Colin Linden, featuring understated and tasty background acoustic soloing, plus brushes drums and acoustic bass. There are also new electric blues RealTracks, including electric blues with PG favorite Johnny Hiland (3) and soulful electric slide guitar from Colin Linden (4). If you love funk & gospel, there are great new options this year, including gospel organ (3) from Charles Treadway, as well as new funk, tango, and rock ’n’ roll drums (3) and bass (1). And for big, bold arrangements, we have uptempo soul horns (4) featuring a three-part hip horn section with options for a full mix or stems of each individual horn — plus an accompanying rhythm section (4) of drums, bass, guitar, and electric piano!
Rock & Pop (Sets 476–482):
Our new rock & pop RealTracks bring a powerful mix of requested favorites, fresh genres, and modern chart-inspired styles! We have more of our popular “Producer Layered Acoustic Guitars (15)” featuring Band-in-a-Box favorite Brent Mason. We’ve continued our much-requested disco styles (10), and added new Celtic guitar (5) with a more basic, accessible approach than our previous Drop-D or DADGAD offerings. There are also highly requested yacht rock styles (17), inspired by the smooth, polished soft-rock sound of the late ’70s and early ’80s — laid-back grooves, silky electric pianos, warm textures, elegant harmonic movement, and pristine production aesthetics. Fans of heavier styles will love our new glam metal (13), capturing the flashy, high-energy sound of ’80s arena-ready guitar rock. We also have a set of rootsy modern-folk rock (18), with a warm, organic sound combining contemporary folk textures and driving acoustic strumming. And we’ve added lots of new modern pop styles (16) — the kinds of sounds you’re hearing on the radio today, featuring exciting new drums, synths, and cutting-edge RealTracks arrangements.
Country, & Americana (Sets 483–488):
Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
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20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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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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