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3 Easy Guitar Songs from the Movies

Easy guitar songs are important for the beginner guitar player because learning how to play a song is arguably the whole point of learning any musical instrument. The songs below only require you to know about three or four chords, but with so many music-inspired movies recently, let’s take a look at some songs that you might hear in cinemas real soon.

Walk the Line, a movie about Johnny Cash was super successful and now the Queen and Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody taking home a couple of Academy Awards, and an upcoming movie about how everyone in the world has forgotten the music of The Beatles, it’s clear that music-inspired films will always be at the box office. 

 

“I Want to Break Free” by Queen 

This is a great song for anyone wanting to practice power chords, chord arpeggiation, and lead guitar harmonization. There are 5 different guitar parts in this song, including an acoustic guitar! 

The acoustic guitar plays during the verse with some simple power chords but during the bridge section of the song, it’s primarily used for playing arpeggios of the open E major chord, which makes the song sound a bit more delicate and adds another layer to the crunchy riffs of the other guitars. 

 

“Yesterday” by The Beatles

This is an absolute classic, and it’s likely that you’ve heard some form of this song on television, in the movies, or on the radio. It’s one of the most covered songs in history. 

The song is played with your fingers, and features a number of interesting chords wrapped up into an even more interesting progression. The song is in the key of G and is played with the guitar tuned down a whole step. 

The song is played with a right hand technique that keeps a steady 8th note beat throughout the song, plus quick quick chord changes during the bridge section. The bridge is 8 bars long and it features these chords: F#m7 - B7 Em - Em/D - C - Gsus4/B - Am7 - D - G5

It could be a little intimidating but if you take a bit of time, and go slow, you’ll have it down in no time. 

 

“Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash

There are two guitar parts in this song. One guitar acts like a snare drum while the electric guitar part is played by Luther Perkins and he plays a boom-chick style of strumming. Boom-chick strumming is when the guitar player hits the root note or bass note and then following that up by strumming the rest of the treble strings. 

It was common for Cash to put a piece of paper between the strings and the fretboard so that the guitar sounded more like a percussion instrument. 

Not only is this a great song, but it was also the name of a really great movie! The film depicts the rise of Cash as he is backstage at Folsom Prison thinking back on his earlier years, and his romance with singer-songwriter June Carter of the Carter Family. The film earned 5 Academy Award nominations and Witherspoon took home the prize for Best Actress.

 

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