I’ve been learning since September 2025 so I’m in my 9th month of learning with JG.
Take Justins advice about dreamer songs and take a shot at learning them. Even though they are above your ability. As a beginner guitarist still learning the basics, you might feel like everything is a “dreamer” song or at least “developer” song if your skill set is pretty small.
I went down a rabbit hole of Damien Rice live performances on YouTube (and haven’t really come out yet) As a vocalist learning to play guitar, he’s been a true inspirational person for me. Not just the singing and playing, but his ability to convey emotions is incredible. Some of his best songs are unreleased deep cuts. My favourite is the song “insane” wrote back in the 90’s while in a band before going solo (And becoming super successful). Even though he doesn’t have a recorded version on iTunes etc. In live concerts people still yell out for it as a song request and he will play it.
There are no instructional videos for this song on YouTube. I have scavenged the internet for resources and there is like one chord/lyrics tab on ultimate guitar tabs I found. And only a few people have covered the song on YT. It was truly a labour of love for me to learn and I’m still refining my interpretation of it. Reading the tab while watching his live performances and making notes, trying things on the guitar, messing it up and playing it wrong for several months, not knowing how he transitions from bridge to chorus etc… I had to attempt quite a few things quite far ahead of my JG modules. Slash chords, a B7 chord, 16th strumming, alternating thumb/pick strumming. Above all. SINGING AND PLAYING. This is a the reason I started learning guitar. I’m a singer and wanted to accompany myself, play small gigs someday etc. I have never even watched lessons on how to transcribe yet.
I am still refining it and will likely never stop. I can’t play it super smoothly yet. Singing and playing it gets rough. REALLY rough. But last night I felt good enough to play and sing for her finally.
She hugged me and cried and said “I’m so proud of you”
I said “This is why I’ve been spending so much time in basement”
Don’t shy away from trying to learn the songs you love. Even if the resources aren’t there and your skill set isn’t there. This is THE hack to BUILD your skill set. Once you go back to 3 chord strumming songs it makes what once felt impossible seem easy…
Here’s the Damien rice performance that sucked me in, if anyone’s interested:
Blockquote[quote=“roger_holland, post:2, topic:413057”]
this is not an AVOYP…
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No it certainly isn’t! lol. I thought I posted in community hub. Maybe a mod could put this in a proper category. I wasn’t sure where to share exactly.
Damien Rice is a powerful writer and performer with huge dynamics. That album O, with Blowers Daughter was on it, was on rotation on my iPod for years, love it!
Did you check out that Glen Hansard song from the film Once - that’s got similar vibes - killer track!
Thanks James for sharing your story, it’s very inspirational! And also for sharing this wonderful piece of Music, I didn’t know neither the song nor the artist and I found it amazing how much emotion he was able to convey through his voice and guitar.
I’m a big fan of Dreamer Songs, the very process of learning gives me a great amount of joy and I’m “sometimes guilty of losing the track”…ooops…
I’ve long been a Damien Rice fan, especially when he was playing with Lisa Hannigan. It’s worth doing a search on Youtube for her stuff.
It’s certainly hard to find any resources about Damien Rice songs other than his most popular ones. My two dreamer songs of his are Older Chests and Amie. Amie was fairly easy for me so probably not in the dreamer category, Older Chests not so easy at all. I spent many months getting on top of Older Chests.
For me the challenge with Damien’s stuff is how syncopated his playing and singing is. I spent something like 4 months playing (not singing) older chests to the metronome every day. Then when I tried to play and sing along with his recording, I just couldn’t match his timing. So I sing it with my own timing. Sigh. It still sounds great in my humble opinion.
If anyone wants the song sheet I have for Amie, just hit me up with a personal message
Congratulations again, great to find another Damien Rice fan.
Thanks Tony! Yes so glad to find another Damien fan here on JG!
Older chests is another great one as well as Amie. My goodness I love his songs and live performances!
I also enjoy how he utilizes gear. He often uses a Wah pedal with his acoustic guitar as well as a distorted microphone and even sometimes will fold over and sing into the guitar pickups! Crazy!
I am also working on “the blowers daughter” and “Elephant”
Some quicker paced ones I like are Cannonball, Coconut skins and I remember
I loved to read your story, James!
It’s great you put all that work in to figure out the song and make your own version and play it for your wife!
Thanks for sharing this and I’m sure you’re well motivated to continue your journey!
Oh, I loved this one too!
Now my son is old enough (well, he hates love stories now at age 12) but we’ll have to watch it and maybe it can do its part in once again igniting the spark for music a little more! (It’s on and off for him, more off lately)
