15 Easy Alternative/Indie Guitar Songs for Beginners with Chords
Learning guitar, but don’t want to learn Pop or Country songs? In this post you’ll find some of the easiest beginner guitar songs in Indie/Alternative styles.
Now, ‘easy’ is a subjective word, so don’t worry if you find something difficult here. If you’re new to guitar, and you don’t know chords & strumming rhythms yet, I would suggest starting out with my free beginner course. It also includes some easier substitutes for barre chords, which can be pretty tricky for beginners.
If you can already play open chords like A, D, E, G, and C with a clear sound – have a look through the songs here and get playing! We start with a one chord song, and build up from there.
I’ve also included a few TABs for lead parts for those that want to try.
Click the TAB/chords to enlarge the image. Alternatively, you can get all of the TABs here in PDF format. Use the cog icon in the YouTube player to change the speed of the video while practising.
The song list (click to jump to the song):
- Yo La Tengo - Ohm
- Brian Jonestown Massacre - Anemone
- Arctic Monkeys - 505
- Galaxie 500 - Tugboat
- The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
- The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner
- Cornershop - Brimful of Asha
- The Strokes - Is This It
- The Blue Angel Lounge - The God
- The Velvet Underground - Oh! Sweet Nuthin'
- Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
- Magnetic Fields - The Book Of Love
- The Seeds - Can't Seem to Make You Mine
- Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End
Yo La Tengo - Ohm (One chord song)
This is a song with only one chord.
Hold a D chord, and strum along with this pattern:
D U D U – U D U (repeat)
for the ‘-‘ symbol you would be moving your arm down, but without hitting the strings. This is known as a missed strum or ghost strum.
Optional: Tune to Drop D for even easier strumming. This way, you don’t need to worry about only playing 4 strings, and you can just rock out.
To tune to Drop D: Use a tuner in chromatic mode (usually shown as “C” on electronic tuners). Loosen the thickest E string until it is tuned to a D note.
Two Chord Songs
Brian Jonestown Massacre - Anemone (Two chord song)
Arctic Monkeys - 505 (Two chord song)
Galaxie 500 - Tugboat (Two chord song)
Three Chord Songs
Patti Smith - Gloria (Three chord song)
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey (Three chord song with an easy riff)
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner (Three chord song)
Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (Three chord song)
The Strokes - Is This It (Three chord song)
Some classic indie rock from The Strokes. The version below is made easier with a Capo on fret 3. The chords are D and A. The lead part isn’t lightning fast, either, but will take a bit more practice.
For the Verse, if you want to strum chords instead of playing the lead, use D for two measures, and G for two measures. Technically it’s a two chord song, but for a version without the lead riff, it’s three chords.
The Blue Angel Lounge - The God (Three chord song)
The Velvet Underground - Oh! Sweet Nuthin' (Three chord song)
Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap (Three chord song)
This song uses a simple Down, Up, Down, Up, strumming pattern all the way through. The chords for this indie song are G, C, D.
Intro:
G G G G
Verse:
G G G G
C C C C
1:16:
D D D D
G G G G
Verse 2 (as above)
G G G G
C C C C
Chorus:
D D D D
G G G G
Instrumental:
G G G G
C C C C
G G G G
C C C C
D D D D
C C C C
G G G G
Verse 3:
G G G G
C C C C
D D D D
Verse 4:
G G G G
C C C C
D D D D
G G G G
Instrumental 2:
G G G G
C C C C
G G G G
C C C C
Quiet piano chords
G – – –
C – – –
G – – –
C – – –
Magnetic Fields - The Book Of Love (Three chord song)
Three chords for this one: A, D, and E/A. Don’t be intimidated by “E/A” – it’s only two fingers.
To have it sound like the recording, you would tune down each string a whole step (DGCFAD, from thickest to thinnest), but it still sounds good in normal tuning (as long as you’re not playing along with the track).
Four Chord Songs
The Seeds - Can't Seem to Make You Mine (Four chord song)
This is more of a Garage Rock track, but we’re not here to get too pedantic about labels. It’s a great song that isn’t too mainstream.
Pop a Capo on fret 5, and you can play G, D, Em for the main sequence. I guess they couldn’t seem to find a tuner when recording this, because it’s slightly out of tune (or, maybe the tape machine played back at a different speed?) anyway, that’s just in case you wonder why it sounds a bit strange playing along. It adds to the charm.
Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End (four chord song)
The four chords for this short gem of a song are: G, C, Em, and Am.
[C] Only if you’re looking can it [G] find you
unless you [G] step out into the light, the light
[Em] Don’t be sad I know you [Am] will
[C] True love will find you in the end [G]
Don’t forget to get the PDF file for these songs for easy printing.
I hope you found this post useful. If you’re still not playing songs from start to finish, or just want to make sure you’re not learning any bad habits, you might benefit from my beginner course. It covers:
– Essential Chords & How to change between them quickly
– The most common bad guitar habits & how to avoid them
– My step-by-step song learning system & a huge list of suggested songs for beginners
– 50+ exercises with video demonstrations and weekly practice plans
– Strumming technique, exercises & 27 rhythm patterns with play-along videos
– How to nail those tricky barre chords.
Click below to learn more about the course.
Questions, corrections or comments? Leave them down below!