One last blog

It's probably time to call it quits with this blog. This is the first entry for more than two months and I don't have a great deal to write about. Not because I've stopped playing the guitar - I've not - but because I haven't been learning a great deal of new techniques, concentrating instead on some songs. Various posts about "And then I learned this song" would not have been very exciting!

It's about a year since I first thought about getting a guitar and 11 months since I got it on Christmas day. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be able to do what I can. For starters, I reckoned I'd chuck it within six months, frustrated because I wasn't getting anywhere. Not so. Sure, I have had to put a lot of time into it (an hour or so most nights) but, unlike many other things I've tried, I've been able to see and hear progress.

I can play a whole bunch of normal chords, some barre chords and I'm working on power chords and doing a bit of finger picking. I can play a fair number of songs - and some of them even sound like they're supposed to. I'm now at the stage of choosing songs I want to play and can play songs I've listened to for years. It's a great thrill. There's still a long way to go as playing an instrument isn't like a video game that you can complete. There's always new things to learn, be it skills or music, and I've no plans of giving up. I'm just stopping this blog, which has become more and more infrequent as the weeks and months have passed.

So if you're thinking you'd like to play guitar - go for it. I am proof it can be done without paying for costly lessons. The beginners' courses on www.andyguitar.co.uk and www.justinguitar.com are invaluable. They make it easy and they make it fun. There's also a ton of useful stuff on YouTube if you have a quick look. If I can play guitar to a half-decent standard (well, compared to what I was hoping for rather than to Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix) within a year then I'm sure you can too.

This is Oasis soup. Why? Because you getta Roll With It. Hoho!

But let's not finish on me preaching. Let's go back to the start, to what inspired me to give this a go. It all came one sunny morning this time last year when I was out for a walk and listened to Oasis' "(What's the Story) Morning Glory" - one of my favourite albums. For some reason, over the next few weeks, I became hooked to "Roll With It", the track that reached number two in the ultimate Britpop battle between Blur and Oasis. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to play that?

Several months ago I found the video above which, aside from starting with the same feeble joke I've just made, showed how it could be done. It looked pretty complicated and, aside from messing around the odd time, I never really thought about it. However, last week I reckoned I could probably give it a go so I set aside around half an hour on Sunday morning to focus purely on that.

Turns out I didn't need that long. I was able to pick up the main part fairly quickly and then focussed on getting the more complicated bits. Does it sound perfect? No. Is it recognisable? I'd say so. How does it feel to be able to play it? Incredible - I'm addicted to it at the moment and some times I've found myself bouncing up and down as I play it, which makes things a bit tricky. That aside, it is fantastic.

Is Wimbledon as engrossing now a Brit has finally won?

So there you are. From absolutely no skill or ability on the guitar to being able to play one of my favourite songs within a year. Hopefully getting to this stage won't put me off - the same way watching Wimbledon doesn't seem as exciting now that Andy Murray has ended Britain's wait for victory. I've reached my goal - but there's plenty more of them to aim for.

Happy strumming!

Finger pickin' good

Learning the guitar wasn't getting boring, but it perhaps needed a bit of freshness. I'd worked my way through most of the beginner's course on www.andyguitar.co.uk and had tried nearly all the songs - certainly the ones I was interested in playing. There were varying degrees of success with this, as you'd imagine, but for the most part I seemed to have got the basics down, could play the chords and could change between them. So, what next?

And now for something completely different. Well, slightly different.

I noticed a section on the site called scales. I'd already briefly tried one, so knew this wasn't a web page about fish or weighing instruments. People who have tried to learn an instrument will probably have encountered scales at some point and they are often the bane of people's lives. From what I can gather it's playing every note in a particular key, working your way up and then back down.

This required a rather different way of playing. So far I'd been working mainly with chords, which involved strumming most of the strings. Playing scales - which leads to cool guitar riffs - means playing each individual string. I've no idea if finger picking is the correct term for this, but it seemed a good name for the blog. If it's wrong sue me - although you're wasting your time as I don't have much money. Although, in a cruel irony, you might be able to get my guitar and that would be the end of these blogs - and then where would be?

Try to sue and you'll have my crack legal team to deal with

Anyway. First up - and to be honest the only one I've really had a sustained go at so far - is C Major. There's two ways of playing it. There's an easy way, which only involves the bottom two strings, and the harder way that involves playing a few more. Unsurprisingly, the two string way seems to involve playing three or four notes on each string - with the other way two seems to be the most. It takes a wee while to master and the rule of thumb seems to be to be able to go up and down each scale perfectly four times before moving on. That doesn't mean you've mastered it, but if you can't handle the basics then you've no chance when things get a bit more complicated.

There's a total of 10 songs to learn at this stage, most of which I've managed to go through. As you'd imagine, it starts off easy and gets increasingly hard. As an added twist, for some reason there don't seem to be tabs for the various songs so I have to watch the video and try to remember the notes before playing myself. As if learning to play new songs wasn't hard enough...

It's a wide and varied selection. There's Happy Birthday - thankfully I don't need to pay a copyright fee every time I do it - there's Ode to Joy and there's Oh When the Saints, a great song to learn considering my football allegiances. But most interesting is The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.

The legendary Muddly Talker

I am a huge F1 fan and grew up to the BBC using the riff from The Chain as the intro to their coverage. Take The Chain, add in Murray Walker and you have a winning combination for a young boy. It was a travesty when ITV got the rights and didn't use the music and that, combined with the lack of adverts, was one of the best things about the BBC getting the rights back in 2009. The chance to play it so early in my guitar learning career is not to be missed. Incredibly, it's fairly straightforward - and it's popular as well as there's plenty of tabs kicking around the internet, making it even easier.

So, let's weigh up how learning scales has gone so far - see what I did there? Like everything so far, it seems to have been rather difficult to start with but has quickly got better with a bit of practice. And things would be a heck of a lot easier if I could see the tabs.

All through this guitar learning journey I've been practising for an hour or so every day. The only times I've not done this is when I've not been able to, due to meetings and such like. It certainly hasn't been out of choice and two or three days is probably the longest time I've gone without picking up the guitar. That all changed when I went on holiday for a week.

A hungry, hungry squirrel on holiday. Well, I was on holiday, nobody knows about the squirrel apart from the squirrel itself.

When I got back and tried to play the guitar for the first time it felt... strange. It wasn't quite as if I'd never played it before but it certainly felt unusual and I had to go back to some easier stuff to get myself back up to speed. Thankfully that only lasted a day or two and the fact I had long finger nails probably didn't help. Now that's out of the way I can get back to trying to scale new heights - hoho!

The one with the theme tune

 

Forgive me Father, it is four weeks since my last blog post...

Aye, as you can see I haven't written a great deal recently. It's not as if I can say I've been too busy either as I'm coming to the end of a fortnight off work and have had plenty of days where I wasn't doing anything. It's just I can't be bothered to write.

Don't think this is me saying I can't be bothered with the guitar any more as it's not. I'm still playing, still putting in an hour or so a day. I recently had a break of about four days without playing which is probably the longest I've gone in the last seven months without playing.

For the most part, I'm continuing with the trend that I mentioned in the last blog post in that when I'm learning songs, it's stuff I want to learn rather than what is on the various courses I've been following. It's wide and varied - perhaps best described as eclectic - to go with my weird music taste. REM, The Beautiful South, some more Oasis and a bit of Taylor Swift, with a few other things thrown in.

Who doesn't love Friends? If you don't then I no longer acknowledge your existence

I'll focus on two songs in particular for this one. The first is the theme to a little known TV show that was only on the air for a decade or so. Chances are if you've turned on a TV in the past 20 years or so you'll have stumbled across an episode of it (and if you don't have a TV, what does your furniture point at?). It is, of course, Friends - or rather, the theme from Friends, called "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts. And as this is a blog post about learning guitar and it involves Friends, it would be remiss of me not to include the following GIF.

Thankfully, learning this did not lead to me dropping my guitar (mainly because I play sitting down). The video I used did include how to play the intro (although not how to stop to clap at the end of the first line), which seems easy until you play along to the music and then it seems ridiculously fast, especially if you're not used to plucking individual strings.

On the plus side, I once again seemed to have stumbled into something that can help me practice my barre chords when that wasn't the reason for choosing a song. The only problem is these are barre chords I can't play already - and although the two new ones are the same shape as each other just at different frets, they are slightly different to the F barre I can already do. Plus, they are further along the fret board and I still need to try to switch back to normal chords which are in their original positions. This is not easy. To change Channel 4 Friday night shows for a moment, I feel at times as if I'm Father Ted trying to play his and Dougal's Eurovision entry.

I can do this bit...

Surprisingly, it proved easier to get a grip on it than I thought it would. I still struggle with the changes but I'm getting there and being able to get these chords in just now should stand me in good stead. I can play most of the recognisable part of the song (that'll be the bit used as the theme tune) although after that is a bit of a struggle, mainly because I'm not sure where the chords change.

 

Joey and Chandler react to the news I can play the theme song

Moving on, I've mentioned before that it was listening to Oasis last year that made me want to take up the guitar. However, I didn't really enjoy listening to them when I was growing up - probably because my brother liked them and therefore I was contractually obligated to hate them. Instead, my favourite bands when I was in my mid-teens included Cast, Semisonic and Travis.

 

The latter I was particularly fanatical about around the turn of the millennium - although I've never seen them live - perhaps because they are Scottish. Some of the stuff on The Man Who is superb so I thought I'd give Driftwood a try. However, the weather during my holiday has been utterly atrocious so I thought it was more appropriate to go for "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?".

 

Just a normal summer's day in Dumfries



From looking at the chords it seemed my work on the Bb with the Friends tune was going to come in handy. However, there were lots of chords I didn't recognise and really have much of a clue how to play. Fortunately, from watching a video, they were actually rather easy - they were similar to chords I already knew but with one finger lifted or added or moved along slightly. I appreciate it this applies to all chords but they were rather similar.

 

Incredibly, my first attempt was a pretty good one. Being able to play a song that I listened to a lot about half a lifetime ago, and being able to play it so well and so quickly, was a great thrill. It's probably in my top five guitar highlights so far. Unlike many of the songs I've played I'm convinced it would be quickly recognisable to anyone I played the song to (assuming they had heard of Travis).

 

Travis Pastrana - not to be confused with the Scottish band Travis

So that's about where I am at the moment. My enthusiasm for playing is still there and I'm still trying to learn new songs, although I'm not writing as much as I used to because there's not much to write about. On the off-chance if anyone reads this, I'm open to suggestions for easyish stuff I can try and also help with power chords, which I have briefly tried but struggled with as I can't get my high E string to mute even though G and B don't sound. To anyone who doesn't play guitar, this last line will probably be rather confusing - just like it was for me last time I turned on Radio 1...

Relighting my fire

It's now a fraction over six months since I picked up my guitar for the first time. When I started, part of me reckoned it would be an achievement if I was still playing at this point. Another part of me felt this would be the time my interest started to wane.

At one stage this is how excited I was about another night of guitar playing

A few weeks ago the latter happened. Sure, I was still playing every night but I was beginning to get tired of it. The law of diminishing returns was kicking in - I was getting less enjoyment as I wasn't learning much, if anything, new and I was going through the motions. I was still trying to get to grips with the F barre chord and while I could use it on a few songs, the rest of the tunes on the courses at this stage weren't things I was particularly interested in playing.

What I needed to do was recapture my enthusiasm somehow. When I started there were regularly times when I would pick the guitar up before going to work just so I could strum a tune I'd learned the night before. It was a long time since I'd had that sort of feeling. I initially wanted to learn guitar so I could play the tunes I wanted. It was time to re-take control from the courses. It was time to go rogue.

Not quite what I had in mind...

Obviously there were limits to what I could try. Clearly I couldn't dive into Stairway to Heaven (not that I'd want to). Neither could I jump into Oasis' Roll With It, even though that's what had given me the motivation to start in the first place. However, from listening to my iPod there were a few things I had in mind.

First up was what could probably be described as a modern classic - "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life". I could already play along to a few Greenday songs, however this is probably about as different to "Holiday" as you can get without changing to a different band. It holds a lot of emotional memories for some folk as it's used at proms and the like. For me it stands out as I went to the "American Idiot" musical the last night of my holiday to New York five years ago.

Any excuse for a picture of New York

For this it was back to my old pal Marty from GuitarJamz. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It uses four chords - all of which I'd been playing for months. It uses an easy strumming pattern. It was just a case of putting it together. Sure, there's slightly more complex bits involving only playing/plucking some strings but for now I wasn't bothered. I could play it easily. Suddenly the wide eyed wonder and enthusiasm were back. I could hardly put the guitar down. It was about the only song I played all night - and I usually play for about an hour a time.

There were a few other songs I was interested in playing. If you want to learn a song on guitar, put the name into YouTube, stick chords on the end and chances are it will come up. Sure enough, I found success with "Kiss Me", a teen movie/rom-com classic (watch She's All That for proof) from Sixpence None the Richer, whoever they are. This seemed more complicated. While the verse just used a few variations of C, the chorus seemed packed with chords and the guy on the video wasn't exactly going through it slowly. Thankfully he said to look at the Ultimate Guitar website for the full chords. Two minutes later and I was away and running. Again, not much else was played that night.

Not that sort of train

One I really fancied was Train's "Drops of Jupiter". Another slightly soppy, emotional song (aye, what of it?). My main memory associated with this is singing along to it loudly while swinging on a chair at a wedding reception a few years ago (and I don't drink). Unfortunately, I couldn't play along on guitar while swinging on my seat but I could produce a passable version. As an added bonus, the likes of this and "Kiss Me" also included F chords. I'd started off down this route as I was bored trying to practice barring, yet I'd stumbled into being able to incorporate it into songs and getting better at it.

Me and the guy from 90s band Deep Blue Something have never been seen together.

Other songs have since followed including some Kasabian, U2 and Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I've probably satisfied myself enough that I'll soon go back to learning techniques rather than songs but the important thing is I have rekindled my enthusiasm - hopefully for at least another six months.

No holds barred

And so we come to what feels like the beginner guitarist's equivalent of hell on earth - the F barre chord.

You're barred!

Up until now all I've been doing are open chords, where you put fingers directly onto the string and then strum away. Barre chords involve putting your index finger across all the strings in a straight(ish) line. Effectively you are using your finger as a capo and then using your other three fingers to make chord shapes.

Getting your finger across all the strings so that they still make a sound when you try to play them, rather than a dull, muted noise is hard. However, I had problems even before I got to that stage as I couldn't physically put my finger across the strings and then put the other three fingers down. This wasn't a case of laziness or anything like that. For whatever reason when I put my index finger down, my other fingers were flailing all over the place and there was no chance of getting one of them, let alone all three of them, in the right place while keeping my index finger down. This did not bode well at all. So I did what I often do in situations like this when I'm struggling - I screamed for help.



It was good to discover on Facebook on Twitter I wasn't the only one who had gone through this struggle. A few tips came in quickly and following them, along with a few other hints I'd found on Google, got me going. The improvement wasn't as dramatic as I've seen when learning new chords but that's understandable. While open chords are different, they all use the same technique to make the shape. This was a completely new style of playing and was always going to be hard to master.

Gradually I was able to make progress. Some extra strumming while watching TV definitely helped and I began to feel confident - perhaps too confident. As I keep thinking the best way to learn chord changes is to do them in a song I thought it was time to give something a go.

Unfortunately, while playing any chord on its own seems straightforward after a bit of practice, changing between chords is usually quite difficult. And while I can do most chord changes so far without looking at my fingers, I'm nowhere near that stage with the F barre. While plonking down some fingers and changing to some other fingers can be done, plonking down fingers and then trying to barre a chord is extremely difficult.

A laid back polar bear. Don't think that's what the song is about...



So it proved when I tried to play Laid by James. This is a family(ish) blog so I won't go into detail about what the song is but let's just say it doesn't involve chickens producing eggs. Anyway, as like so many songs so far, it was effectively the same chord sequence over and over. This meant there was only one change to and from an F barre during each sequence, an ideal way to get started. However, I found it rather difficult - and it would usually be about half way through the bar of barre (more bars than Wetherspoons in this blog) before I'd managed to get the chord shape AND was able to play a note that sounded something like a chord.

Sadly not the type of bar being talked about



To quote The Beatles, I have to admit it's getting better. Practice doesn't make perfect yet, but it does lead to improvement. Problem is, this is only one chord change - F barre to G and back. The number of chords I know must be into double figures and trying to change between all of them with some degree of competency is going to take some amount of practice. Fingers crossed - although that was the problem when I started barre chords...

Beckoned down by the mirage of an Oasis

One of the main reasons for me starting to learn guitar was because I fancied being able to play Roll With It by Oasis, particularly the intro. While I'm still some way off being able to play that, I have been able to dabble with a few other Oasis songs.

Er, different oasis...

I'd previously mentioned that I'd done some playing of Songbird which, while an Oasis song, is hardly one that springs to mind when you're asked to name one of their tunes. It's a bit like someone telling you they met one of Manchester United's famous Class of '92 only to then reveal it was someone like Ben Thornley or Keith Gillespie.

One of the Class of '92. Apparently.

However, in the last fortnight I have moved on to some proper Oasis - tracks that they are easily associated with and most people who have heard of them will know.

One of them is Live Forever from Definitely Maybe, and now I can definitely maybe play it. It's rare for me in that it's a song that doesn't require a capo and the chords seem fairly straightforward. It's not the fancy lead guitar stuff but the rhythm is there and you can just about spot the song in amongst it all.

One thing I found interesting is while a strumming pattern was recommended on the Justin Guitar website, there seems to be a bit of freedom. If you follow the suggested one there's nothing to stop you adding in a few up or downstrokes of your own for good measure and it still sounds fine. If I was writing my last blog - about my top five favourite songs to play along to - today, it would almost certainly feature in it somewhere. That's how much I like playing it.

Different Strokes always make things interesting

While Live Forever has an interesting strumming pattern (along with a funky F chord to try to change to) the same can't be said for Stand By Me. For the most parts it uses what's called "power eights" - strumming down eight beats a bar. And it's all one chord per bar, so it's not too much to write home about and doesn't sound much like the song.

However, perhaps the fact it's so straightforward is a good thing as it's part of a section on a new chord. The B7 is pretty complex and involves using four fingers. On its own it's not too bad but changing is a bit fiddly. The song is a good way to get used to that as it's involved a fair bit in the verses. There's also some nice bits in the chorus that involve a single strum of three chords in between all the monotonous stuff, however it's hard to see it ever reaching my favourite songs in its current form.

Last, but by no means least, comes easily the most complicated song so far - but as a result it sounds incredibly like it. Wonderwall - and I don't mean the Mike Flowers Pops version I liked when I was younger just to annoy my brother.

On paper, it's fairly straight forward as the verse involves four chords, two beats at a time. The chords may be tricky however you keep two of your fingers in exactly the same place for the entire song and just move the other two about.

But while songs may be written on paper, they aren't played on it. The strumming pattern is rather difficult, which is what gives the song it's unique, instantly recognisable sound. Actually, for three of the chords it's not too bad once you get the hang of it - especially as for two of them it's the same. The problem is the final chord in each sequence - a slightly fancy A - is different, involves lots of upstrokes and even bits where you deliberately take two of your fingers off. It's incredibly difficult - and just when I thought I was mastering it I discovered I'd been tackling it totally wrong. Oops!

That's been more than enough to keep me occupied so my attempts to tackle the chorus have been pretty unexciting. I'm not quite sure of the strumming pattern - it sounds similar to the verse but it's also ever so slightly different, just to annoy me. Thanks for that.

Seems this chap has heard my efforts to play his songs.

So I can muddle through not one but four Oasis songs - not bad given I've only been at this for little more than four months. It's certainly enough to keep me occupied before I move onto the dreaded barre chords.

The Sound of Silence

 

Apologies for the lack of blogs in recent weeks. I haven't given up the guitar - I'm still practicing for an hour or so most days. It's a combination of a lack of time to write and a lack of anything exciting to talk about.

At the moment I'm still learning songs that have introduced the C chord and am making the first steps into songs in the key of G. Some are hard, some are easier and that's about the long and short of it.

It's hardly riveting stuff to write a blog on so I thought I'd do something different. In a High Fidelity style, here's the top five songs I've learned in the near four months since I got my guitar. Most of the songs I've mentioned on previous blogs but there's a bit more detail here.

I don't think they're too impressed by this idea...

5. I'm A Believer - The Monkees

I often get confused between I'm A Believer and Daydream Believer. Both are songs from The Monkees and both have the word believer in the title. That's more than enough to confuse an idiot like me. A way I should use to try to remember them is Reeves and Mortimer did a cover of I'm A Believer while in my youth I used to sign a song to the tune of Daydream Believer to various Morton players.



It would be rather rude to tell you what was said about Marko Rajamki through the medium of Daydream Believer.

Anyway. I digress. Daydream Believer. Wait, no. I'm A Believer (I wish I could say that mix-up was for comedy effect but it was actually genuine). A number one for The Monkees and written by Neil Diamond. So says Wikipedia.

It's one of the more recent songs I've learned but already I love it. It's quite fast paced, the version I know is fairly straightforward as it only uses C, G and D and the most common strumming pattern of down, down, up, up, down. It's a great song to play along to and even strumming on it's own it sounds fairly recognisable. A classic.

Here's how it should sound. I'll point out I can't do the fancy bits, like the intro.

4. Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

Everyone knows Brown Eyed Girl, however I always used to mix up Van Morrison with Morrisey, often talking about Van Morrisey. A rather weird combination. I also had no idea until recently that Van Morrison was Irish. Who knew? He did, presumably.

Keira Knightley is a brown eyed girl and that's as good a reason as any for a photo of her

I blogged before about my struggles with this song. When I first tried it I was all over the place and thought my guitar journey was in real trouble. I played it 24 hours later and pretty much nailed it, something I've been unable to do since. What happened in that time is anyone's guess, but it gave me a huge confidence lift and made me realise I will be able to do this after all.

Like I'm A Believer (got the right one this time), it is mainly C, G and D with a bit of E minor thrown in for good measure. It uses the same strumming pattern too, although obviously the chords are in a different arrangement or it would be the same song. I'm almost so confident in it that I tried singing along to it, although that attempt at multi-tasking quickly backfired and hasn't been tried since!

Brown Eyed Girl is a great song, an absolute classic and my version sounds fairly like it - again without the fancy bits. Here's how it should sound.

3. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Another Irish entry, although I have also heard them described as Scottish because they met at uni in Dundee. And for some reason I thought they were Welsh. So there you go. Lead singer Gary Lightbody is currently going out with Courteney Cox, who is more than 10 years older than him. She is in a programme called Cougar Town. No further comment.

Looks like Chandler is unimpressed by news of this relationship.

Chasing Cars is not actually about folk running after Hondas or Fords, which is a bit of a pity. It's about emotions, or something. It only got to number six in the charts, which is crazy. It was also the last song played live on Top of the Pops. Wiki to the rescue again.

The version I have learned of Chasing Cars is not complicated. Three chords - A, E and D - and strumming the same way the entire song. Played on it's own it doesn't sound much like the proper version. However, when you reach a late chorus and realise you've done your changes right and everything still synchs it's a great feeling. There's also the fact the strumming can be a great stress release after a crap day. And I can almost sing along to it, although sing is perhaps the wrong word to use.

Here's the proper version.

2. Closing Time - Semisonic

As I said before, I love Semisonic. Top keep with the list theme, they'd be in my top five favourite bands. It's a close call between Closing Time and Secret Smile to be my favourite of their songs. I was gutted to discover recently that lead singer Dan Wilson had been in Edinburgh last year and I hadn't realised - although that revelation was tempered somewhat by the fact I was on holiday at the time so couldn't have gone anyway! He's also worked with a ton of other artists, including Adele on Someone Like You and Taylor Swift.





There don't seem to be any pictures of Taylor Swift and Dan Wilson together so this will need to do

Closing Time is a really recognisable song, although there's probably a fair number of folk who don't know who sings it. I stumbled across a lesson on it on YouTube one day and immediately had to try it, even though it meant teaching myself some new chords!

Like other songs, I can't do any of the fancy stuff but I can get the basic chord pattern - G, D, A minor and C - and the strumming OK. I can judge the changes in tempo fairly well and I can sing (yes, I know) along to it as well. A great song and it's a real thrill to be able to play something from one of my favourite bands.

Here's how it should sound.

1. Have a Nice Day - Stereophonics

Stereophonics should not be confused with Semisonic. In fairness, I don't know if anyone ever has but as they both start with an S and include "onic" I suppose it's possible. Also worth noting they are not called The Stereophonics - a mistake once made by Comedy Dave when doing an anagram question for the pub quiz on the Chris Moyles Show. They are definitely Welsh though. Unlike Snow Patrol.

Have a Nice Day is based on a taxi journey the band made in San Francisco when the driver seemed to slate everything and anything and finished the chat with "Have a nice day". Having been to America a few times I can confirm that's what happens just about everywhere. "Sorry, I've just murdered your wife. Have a nice day now, you hear?"

The song is hardly a musical masterpiece and got slated in reviews, however I like it. To play it's is straightforward and, fact fans, it's the only song on this list is that I need a capo for. Lots of A and D chords with the odd E and G thrown in for good measure - and even an E minor.

The reason I really like it is because I seem to be able to sing along to it fairly easily without it having any impact on my playing. For that reason it's nearly always the one I end my practice with, regardless of what else I've been playing, and it's for that reason it tops this list.

Here's the proper version.

So what missed out? Plenty of stuff. Arguably Sit Down by James and Common People by Pulp would have been on that list had it not been a few months ago that I learned them. It's perhaps the fact that Daydream Believer and Brown Eyed Girl were covered fairly recently and are fresh in my mind that puts them on this list.

I can play an acoustic version of Sweet Child O' Mine but only up to a point. Same with The Gambler. I love Oasis but Songbird is hardly a classic. Greenday's Boulevard of Broken Dreams and The Fray's How to Save A Life were also in with a shout but just missed out.

If you can think of a song you think should be on this list, please keep it to yourself. I either won't be able to play it or destroy it while trying to.