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Top 30 Best Songs of the 80’s for Acoustic Guitar

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The 80s gave birth to a lot of legendary bands and artists. It was also the time MTV was launched (a real Music Television channel at that time ) and from that emerged MTV unplugged which gave artists a platform to turn their songs into acoustic diamonds.

MTV is not what it used to be anymore, but fortunately Youtube has become the new MTV and we can once again enjoy our favorite music in all it’s creative diversity, plugged or unplugged.

Today we got a list with 30 pop songs of the 80’s that are perfectly suited for the acoustic guitar. There are songs you might not have thought of before or didn’t dare to try, that will turn into really great tunes when you play them on your steel string.

I searched high and low for beautiful acoustic versions of these songs from the artists themselves. I hope the arrangements and videos inspire you to pick up your guitar from the stand and light a new spark.

You can click on the title of each song to hear the song on Youtube. Click on “Chords” for the chords&lyrics and “More Chords” for the official chords&lyrics&tabs.

Note: I want you to know I earn a small commission if you make a purchase through an amazon link to support the Guitarhabits website.

Pick out one or two songs every day. Enjoy the pleasure of jamming along and working out these songs, adding your own personal touch.

Have a great one!

1 – Angel of harlem – U2 (1988) – Chords – More Chords

2 – Free Falling – Tom Petty (1989) – Chords – More Chords

3 – Waiting on a friend – The Rolling Stones (1982) – Chords – More Chords

4 – Every breath you take – The Police (1983) – Chords – More Chords

5 – Wicked game – Chris Isaak (1989) – Chords – More Chords

6 – Heaven – Bryan Adams (1983) – Chords – More Chords

7 – Never Tear Us Apart – INXS (1988) – Chords 

8 – End of the Line – Traveling Wilburys (1988) – Chords – More Chords

9 – Sweet dreams – Eurythmics (1983) – Chords – More Chords

10 – Careless Whisper – George Michael (1984) – Chords – More Chords

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Combining Minor and Major Pentatonic Scales

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Combining minor and major pentatonic scalesThe minor pentatonic is the most important scale in blues and rock music. It’s an awesome scale and sounds great, no doubt about it. There are a million ways to express your emotions through the minor pentatonic and use it for your soloing.

However it always has that same dark classic minor pentatonic sound. It doesn’t take you anywhere else. Combining the minor pentatonic and the major pentatonic will take you to different places.

Suddenly you have the ability to produce the same kind of sounds and licks you hear in the solos of Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Combining the notes will give you a wide selection of flavors to choose from and to play around with. You will keep attracting the listeners attention with all these extra lovely notes that will make your soloing a lot more interesting.

So how do you approach this? Let’s take a closer look. Continue Reading

Cooler Pentatonics and Licks Adding The Major Third

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The pentatonic scale is an awesome scale. It’s a fairly easy scale and it can be used for almost every style of music: blues, country, pop, rock and more.

That’s why most guitar players use it most of the time. Great nothing wrong with that.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you could add a few notes to the minor pentatonic scale to give it more flavor and spice up your playing?

Well today we’re going to add the major third to the minor pentatonic scale. The major third will bring some happy, fresh and lively color to the table. Adding extra notes to the pentatonic scale is a common thing in soloing and will make your playing a lot more fun and interesting to listen to.

I’ll show you how to play the 5 pentatonic scales shapes / positions adding the major third and 5 licks to spice up your playing.

THEORY
The major third is a musical interval and is the distance between the root and the third note of the major scale. It also consists of four semitones (4 frets).

For example: Continue Reading

Announcement: 50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation

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Today I announce the arrival of my brand new guitar course:
50 COOL BLUES LICKS IMPROVISATION

“The Road To Playing Cool Blues Licks,
Mastering The Blues Scale, Improvising and Getting Motivated”

I’ve worked on this for quite a while and yes now it’s coming!

 

As a guitar teacher, guitar player and blogger I see a lot of guitar players are using the pentatonic scale for soloing and improvisation and that’s great because it’s a very practical an important scale that can be used for a lot of styles like blues, rock, metal, pop, country, etc.

For me it was also the first scale I learned, but after some time I noticed I got stuck soloing in just one position/shape for too long. I knew a few ways to break out of that shape area, but that was pretty much it. I felt limited.

I did know how to play the other pentatonic shapes but it was hard to make nice melodies or phrase fluently with all the other shapes. Somehow they didn’t seem to work really well.

Until I started learning the blues scale shapes and how to use them for improvising. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I was able to solo across the entire fretboard, it felt so natural and easy to do. It completely changed the way I was playing.

 

So over the years I got a lot of questions from the readers of guitarhabits about licks, the pentatonic / blues scale and improvisation. I thought, why not make a complete tablature Ebook with everything that combines those lessons I’ve learned over the years including video support and MP3 play along tracks. And so I began that journey…

 

With “50 Cool Blues Licks Improvisation” I will teach you a lot of awesome cool blues licks that you can use for your own solos and improvisation, but there’s more…

I want you to learn what’s behind the licks, how to break them up, turn them around, make up new ones, create different combinations and learn to play everything in every key like a real pro.

And those tools will be the perfect recipe for the chapters that follow, where you will learn how to play the 5 blues scale shapes all explained slowly in close up with effective exercises, tips, tricks and improvisation examples to master the blues scale inside out.

If you think this is for you, this is the time to really take your improvisation skills to the next level.

 

I know you are used to my free guitar lessons and they will sure continue to be, but because of the hosting, traffic and other costs that came up with the making of “50CBLI” and to keep the Ebook, play along tracks and more than 190 minutes of video lessons online for download I charge a rather small price of $69 dollars.

If you want to get out of your rut and advance your guitar playing check out the website to find out more:

WWW.50COOLBLUESLICKSIMPROVISATION.COM

 

Best regards,
Klaus Crow