We have quite the team here at Breedlove Stringed Instruments. Most are musicians themselves, but more importantly all are lovers of music. We all had to start somewhere when learning to play the guitar, so one of our own, Jeremy Eggert, who has an extensive music history, especially with acoustic guitars, came up with five easy songs to play on your acoustic guitar.
1.“Blackbird” by the Beatles
When I would teach guitar, this would be one of the first songs I would work on with students. They would give me a look like “Are you crazy?!”, but once we would get going, it is an easy song to master when they are first learning, and once they accomplish it, they feel they have the confidence to learn a more difficult song.
2. “The Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin
This song isn't necessarily the easiest song to learn, but it is a great one to start practicing some alternate tunings with. It also gets you all over the neck. It took me a while to learn, but it is a favorite.
3.“Someone Else's Song” by Wilco
The longer I have played, the more I love good old style country progressions. This song has a beautiful melody and is a good song to help students learn to alternate bass notes, Johnny Cash style.
4.“Paranoid Android” by Radiohead
This song will stretch your ability because it has so many different parts and styles throughout the song. None of the chords are very “standard”, but it helps you embrace some dissonance.
5.“Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones
Who wouldn't love this song? It is one of the easiest chord progressions, but it has such soul that it will get people singing along almost instantly!
“A great acoustic to learn on would be a Discovery Concert SB. It has a lot of the same features of the higher end Breedloves, like the Breedlove neck, but at an affordable price,” said Jeremy.
Jeremy, Inside Sales for Key and International Accounts here at Breedlove, started playing violin at four years old. You may think that is young to learn music, but not in Jeremy’s case. At the ripe age of three his parent heard him humming in pitch to music. After that, they took him to a violin teacher where they denied him for being too young and told him that he needed to wait one more year. A day after his fourth birthday he started violin. He played weddings for more than 600 people at age six with his sister. From ages six-eight he went once a week for two hours to Grandma Neva’s (not biologically related, but treated as family) house and played the violin for her. When she passed away, she left Jeremy’s family some money and requested that he, his brother, and sister were put in music lessons and purchase an instrument of their choosing. Jeremy continued to play the violin until age 10 and started playing the piano. Not being a big fan of the piano and reading music he only played for three and a half years.
At 13 years old Jeremy and his family moved. This became a difficult time for Jeremy. It was tough to make friends in a new place, and thirteen-year-old boys aren’t the easiest to make friends with. Jeremy would go to school everyday and come home to play the guitar for six hours straight. This lasted about six months, which is a lot of hours to put into playing guitar! A pastor at his church took him under his wing, and they began playing every Sunday from noon to 12 am and he would still get up and go to school the next day. He had dedicated a lot of time to playing guitar and credits the guitar to helping him get through such a difficult time in his childhood. He had picked up guitar so quickly and started to make friends he quickly became more confident.
Upon entering high school, he was playing a lot and auditioned for a school band, which consisted of six female vocals and six male vocals, and was the first ever freshman to be selected to join. The group traveled to other schools and played popular songs for other students.
After high school, Jeremy and his brother started a tile business and jammed together frequently. Jeremy had a friend who sang, his friend had a friend that could shred the drums, Jeremy’s brother played bass and Jeremy on guitar. The guys created a band called Hi-Fi Drowning that played together for eight years, created three records on two-inch tape before Pro Tools. They played continuous gigs with 800-1000 people and were known for their great music.
After eight years, the band called it quits and was ready to start their new chapter. Jeremy worked his way up the ladder in the guitar industry and landed his current role at Breedlove after years of hard work. He loves working in the guitar industry and still plays to this day. “Guitar is my favorite because it allows me to be free musically, I don’t have to read music, I don’t have to follow a certain technique, and I can just be me.”
