Summer Guitar Songs: 5 Classics Every Player Should Learn
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Summer Guitar Songs: 5 Classics Every Player Should Learn · Source: Alamy Stock Photo / Karolina Krasuska
These summer guitar songs are the antidote for campfire jams. Discover five feel-good tracks that are fun to play and teach valuable lessons.
5 Summer Guitar Songs:
All About Summer Guitar Songs:
- Look at five distinctive summer guitar songs for your playing. These all teach valuable lessons to improve your musicality.
- From upbeat grooves to chilled vibes, each of these tracks captures a slice of summer life translated to guitar.
- Find inspiration for your next practice session, or be prepared for future campfire jams.
Here Comes The Sun – The Beatles
In our first look at summer guitar songs, we’re looking at one of the most archetypal tracks for this time of year. Especially over here in the UK, the presence of the sun is worth writing a song about!
George Harrison blessed the Abbey Road album with this beautiful acoustic guitar intro. It features a wonderfully vibrant picking pattern all based around a D arpeggio. What is an arpeggio on guitar? This refers to the notes within a chord played separately, rather than being strummed at the same time.
Moreover, what also helps this song to sound like a pocket of sunshine is that it’s played with a *capo on the 7th fret. Overall, raising the pitch of the guitar gives it the warm and bright sound for your open chords.
Harvest Moon – Neil Young
Next up, we’re jumping forward to the 1990s for our next summer guitar song. Neil Young’s Harvest Moon just sounds like a sunset on an August night. Let’s look at what makes it special.
Another acoustic guitar strummer, this one differs as it’s in the drop *D tuning. Whereby you’d tune your low E string to an open D note. This accompanies the song, which features lots of D chords, allowing you to play that D chord across all six strings.
Plus, Harvest Moon features plenty of natural harmonics. This is where a guitarist will touch the string, and not the fretboard, to make a note. From here, you hover over the metal of the fret, rather than in the middle like usual. Overall, this creates a soft note that rings out. Similar to pinch harmonics, this advanced guitar technique takes some practice.
This Girl – Kungs Vs Cookin’ On 3 Burners
Hear me out, although this isn’t classic rock, it’s still an absolute belter for guitarists to learn. Dripping in reverb, minor 7th barre chords, This Girl encapsulates summer vibes.
The original song was released as a jazz track in 2009, but in 2016 it was remixed to provide us with this high-energy track. Similar to Lady by Modjo, it’s a real club anthem that features some tasty guitar work.
As for us guitarists, we want a wet reverb sound, along with some single coil pickups. From here, the chord progression starts with an Fm7 barre chord on the 8th fret of the A string, followed by an Emaj7 chord on the 6th fret. This major and minor shift works so well together. Glue them together with some hammer-ons, and you’ve got one of the most memorable summer guitar songs.
California Girls – The Beach Boys
Summer guitar songs come thick and fast from The Beach Boys. Most of their songs capture the essence of surfing, drag racing, and many other popular summer activities.
California Girls allows guitarists to break out the *twelve-string guitar. The opening riff sounds like the sea glistening on the hot sand. And it’s the twelve-string guitar that aids with that feeling.
Furthermore, Mike Love’s vocals are accompanied by the typical Beach Boys harmonies that help us think of the summer season.
Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran
Concluding our look at summer guitar songs is Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran. A fitting end for our list. Cochran died in 1960 at just 21 years old, along with Gene Vincent. However, there are still lots of great guitar tracks to remember them by.
From the prime of the rockabilly era, Summertime Blues is an ideal song for your next campfire jam. This is because it uses chords from what we refer to as a I, IV, V.
This chord progression is your default blues. This time, we’re in the key of E, therefore, the chords in question are E, A and B. Chuck in a down down up, up down strumming pattern and add in some 7th chords, and you’ve basically got the whole track.
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