Guitar Lessons with The Great American Campfire Songbook 

If you are just starting out on guitar, The Great American Campfire Songbook is a great resource and tool. It is also an excellent tool for guitar teachers looking for a collection of familiar songs with easy chords.

When I first learned to play guitar, I used a book by Jerry Snyder. I think it was called the Guitar Sing Book. It is out of print now. It was filled with a lot of popular folk-rock type songs. Many of the songs were excellent camp songs. I've used several of the songs from that book for boy scout , girl scout and cub scout campfires. I wore that book out, as well as the second edition that I bought. One of the things I really liked about it was; it used mostly easy, open chords, and a suggested strumming or picking pattern was shown for each song.

When I teach guitar, I like to split my time teaching 1) note reading; and 2) chords. I won't spend any time talking about note reading, except that I like to use the Classical Guitar for the Young, by Jay Traylor. There are a lot of excellent books out there that teach classical guitar and note reading, so just shop around.

An outstanding resource for budding young guitarists is Jamorama. If you want to take your guitar playing to the next level, check it out.

For reading chords, I usually just copy off my campfire songbook, and go from there. I find it best if you start off with songs that only use 2 chords, and don't change too fast. Some good songs to start with are:

1. Chumbara. It uses just C and G7. It moves kind of fast, but you can slow it down while you are learning it.
2. He's Got the Whole World. This also uses only two chords; D and A7. This one is not as fast as Chumbara; is easy to learn; and is a very popular campfire song.
3. Michael Row the Boat Ashore. This is a three chord song. It uses D, G and A7. It is also a popular campfire song.
4. Crawdad Song. This uses E, A and B7. B7 is a 4 finger chord, so it is a little more difficult, but you will use it a lot with the E and A chords. The E and A chords are important to learn, especially if you want to progress on to bar chords.

Most 2 chord songs use what we call the I and V chords. For example; If a song is in the key of C, the I chord is the C and the V chord is the G or G7. (C is I, D is II, E is III, F is IV and G is V.)

Here are the pairs of I, V chords:

• C and G7
• D and A7
• E and B7
• G and D7
• A and E7

Those are the easy ones that we use mostly in the campfire songbook.

Here are the rest:

• Db and Ab7
• Eb and Bb7
• F and C7
• F# and C#7
• Ab and Eb7
• Bb and F7
• B and F#7

  Tip: As you learn to change from one chord to another, look for patterns. For example; changing from C to G7. The shape of the hand stays the same, you just move the first finger from the second string, 1st fret, over to the first string, 1st fret, and you move the the 2nd and 3rd fingers from the 4th and 5th strings, out to the 5th and 6th strings.

  Another example: G to D7. For the G chord, the third finger is on the first string, 3rd fret. When you move to the D7, just slide that finger back to the 2nd fret, and bring the 1st and 2nd fingers, as if they were glued together, from the 5th and 6th strings, up to the 2nd and 3rd strings.

  Another tip: Here is a good exercise to help you learn to change chords faster. Each slash is a strum. The other squiggly line is a rest.

  In exercise 1, you strum 4 beats and rest 4 beats. During the rest, you change to the next chord. In exercise 2, you strum 5 beats and rest 3 beats. In exercise 3, you strum 6 and rest 2. In exercise 4 , you strum 7 and rest 1. Finally, in exercise 5, you strum 8 and rest 0. As you progress through each exercise, you have less time to rest, so that by the time you get to the last exercise, you should be able to change with no break at all.

  

  These are just a few ideas you can use to help you learn to play guitar with The Great American Campfire Songbook.