How Led Zeppelin Learned Guitar

Have you ever wondered how Led Zeppelin learned guitar? Yeah I know Led Zeppelin had only one guitar player but I thought it would be cool to say Led Zeppelin instead of Jimmy Page.

The image of rock and 70’s style clothing. Bell bottoms and sorts. Yes, the 70’s, a time of pure rock and roll.

Led Zeppelin Is A Kaleidoscope Of Sound We Can Learn From

Led Zeppelin is a kaleidoscope of sound. A mixture of all sorts of sounds. A feeling of sorts. Led Zeppelin, at first, was a band of more feeling the music than the image they would go on to show the world. 

Yes, a decade after The Beatles, Led Zeppelin was formed.

The band who tried to remain mysterious and avoided the press when they first started out playing as a band. A band called Led Zeppelin.

But it’s hard to stay mysterious when your music sounds so good. And thus you’d eventually would wonder, how Led Zeppelin learn the guitar.

Jimmy Page, from Led Zeppelin started his guitar playing when he first seen it in his house and said he didn’t know why it was there and neither did no one else in the house know why it was there. No one could figure out if it was left there by the people who used to live there or if it was the family’s friend guitar.

He was 12 when all this happened and started playing that guitar in his house. Electing to play it by taking a little bit of lessons to learn how to play it. But after just a few lessons chose to just learn it all by himself. Making himself mostly self taught at the guitar.

You see when he was growing up they didn’t have that many guitarists around in his area but he found one guitarist who showed him a couple of chords and then he took it from there and begin to add on more than just those chords he had learned.

He got bored and started to teach himself the guitar by listening to songs on records.

He also taught himself from a guitar book called, ‘Play in a Day.’ It had notation in it that contained chord charts. And it was great that he learned from that book because years later he would come to see that, when he became a studio musician. In the studio they also had the same kind of notations the same way like the guitar book, ‘Play in a Day’ had. Making that book a great tool, that taught him some chords.

So we see so far that Jimmy Page learned chords. And learned how to keep the guitar around him, making it available for easy access to play it. Causing him to become that much better. And we see that he took a little bit of lessons from people and learned chord charts. And then taught himself by playing his guitar to songs he heard on records.

And since y’all like number charts so much, here’s a chart of what I just said, in summary:

Jimmy Page learned guitar by:

1. Practicing and playing chords.
2. Keeping the guitar around him so he could always practice on it.
3. Taking a little bit of lessons from guitarists.
4. Learning guitar chord charts.
5. Playing along on his guitar to songs he heard on records.

Jimmy Page Begins To Hone His Skills On Guitar For Bigger And Better Things He Can Learn To Do On It 

Jimmy Page would go on to become a larger than life musician. A person that people would say….. How on earth is he doing that on the guitar?

But first he would start on a lesser path on his road of playing the guitar. The time before his guitar would explode with wondrous riffs and sorts…….

Jimmy becomes a session guitarist: After years of his basic learning days he began to hone his craft on the guitar even more.

He began to learn a lot as a session guitarist. He, Jimmy Page said: All the work I’ve done in the studio, just really came out.

Being a session guitar player made him a real bright, colorful player. He had all kinds of things coming out of his guitar because of his session guitar playing. And of course great sounds are going to come out of his guitar because after doing hundreds, maybe even thousands of recording sessions, it was bound to happen and of course it was destined to happen.

He could handle any style of music that came his way. Having jammed on rock tracks with The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Kinks, which were rock. He could also switch to the blues and play in the studio with musicians like, Otis Spann. And then switch to pop music by greats like, Shirley Bassey and Marianne Faithfull, among others also.

He played so much sessions as a studio musician that we may never know all the discography of the music sessions he did.

Case in point, just before Jimmy Page had become a studio musician, before he did his recording sessions, he took a gig playing the guitar at a Marquee Club in London and then he began receiving offers to bring his noticeable talents into the recording studio.

But once he did become a studio musician, it was almost overnight that Page would become a heavily demanded musician in the studio world.

Whenever producers needed someone to play guitar in the studio in England, it was always Jimmy Page or Jim Sullivan.

One song that Jimmy Page did on guitar, you could barely hear him but he was playing it with Pete Townshend of The Who, who was really doing the main playing.

You see in order to take your playing to the next level you must ask yourself, what does this song I’m inventing need?

Sometimes Jimmy Page would do songs in the studio that didn’t even become hits. But one song he did was called, “I Pity the Fool” by The Manish Boys, in which he did a high pitched, messy solo in the middle of the song.

Even though the song was never a hit, David Bowie who was also in The Manish Boys at the time would go on to use Jimmy Page’s riff (that was also in the song) for his song called, “The Supermen” off his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World.

So you just seen that as you invent your own riffs or solos and they don’t do good in songs you’ve played before, you can use it in another song that may become a success later on.

Sometimes when Jimmy would play songs in the studio, he would sometimes make songs sound better than the original songs. One time, while playing a song called “Moondreams” in 1965, Jimmy made it sound more energized and disoriented than the original song called, “Moondreams” in which the song was changed to “Substitute” by The Fleur De Lys band.

Jimmy also added his signature mixture of mania and menace to the Technicolor arrangement in the song. Incidentally the song got threatened with a lawsuit by the original producer of the song. The producers name was Shel Talmy, but Jimmy had done it justice by making it sound good.

If you want to take your guitar playing to a pro level, then you’re going to have to make original songs sound better and put your own spin on it. When doing cover songs. Just like Jimmy did here.

If you want to take your guitar playing to a pro level, then you’re going to have to make original songs sound better and put your own spin on it. When doing cover songs.

As Jeff Beck was preparing to work on his first solo single after leaving his former band the Yardbirds in 1966, Jeff Beck decided to get a hold of his old bandmate and childhood friend, Jimmy Page, so that he could help him with producing the session. And also a band together to back him in the studio.

Jimmy Page requested John Paul Jones to play the bass and The Who’s Keith Moon to play the drums, while he would play the electric guitar, which would allow Jeff Beck to take the lead. It is during this time that Jimmy Page would get a revelation to start a band of his own, later on.

So we see, what we can learn from reading in this section of how Jimmy Page was learning and playing guitar and to become a pro is:

1. You must play thousands of hours of guitar playing.
2. Handle being able to play any style of music, such as Rock, Pop, Blues, Country, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, etc.
3. When making up your own songs or others songs, always ask yourself, what does this song need?
4. If you use riffs, solos and chords that don’t work on a song you made up, then use them on another song you made up and then maybe it will work and sound real good.
5. Make original songs sound better and put your own spin on it. When you’re doing a cover of it.

Led Zeppelin Would Be Formed And Set

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin was a session musician first before the group Led Zeppelin came about. Before Led Zeppelin, he went to the Yardbirds band, which was changed to the New Yardbirds.

Long story short, Led Zeppelin was formed when the Yardbirds split up. Led Zeppelin consisted of Jimmy Page who was the guitar player. Robert Plant was the singer. John Paul Jones was the bass player and keyboard player and finally John Bonham was the drummer.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Led Zeppelin was created in 1968. And it didn’t take long for everyone of them to realize that they had something real special on their hands after doing a rehearsal on a song together in a basement on August 12th, 1968.

They looked at each other after the song and knew they had something big. Something monstrous. Something electrifying and exciting. After that song, they went on to rehearsing their first album.

Jimmy Page had a clear vision of what he wanted of the first album and what he wanted the band to be like and how he wanted it to sound like. And because of that, it saved him a lot of money. And because of this vision it made the band finish the album in only thirty hours. He said, “that’s the truth. I know, because I paid the bill.”

You see like Led Zeppelin, if you have a vision of what you want to do. How you want to sound like, you can become what you set out to do.

Focus and have a vision of what you want to do with your guitar playing. Do you want to only play a couple of nickel and dime songs? Meaning that you only want to play a few songs on it that are easy to play?

Or maybe you want to play some hard songs that everyone would enjoy if they saw you play them on guitar.

Or maybe you want to be able to play just about any song you desire. No matter if its pop, rock, country, soul, hip hop, rhythm and blues, etc.

But whatever you want to do on the guitar, visualize it first, of what you want to do on it and then do it. Work on making your vision a reality.

If you know what you want to do on the guitar then it will take you to that place quicker because that’s what you’re aiming for, so you’ll be more likely to hit that mark. You’ll be able to fulfill playing the guitar the way you want to play it.

Led Zeppelin Would Explode And Become A Runaway Success

During 1971 to 1975 they were called the biggest band in the world. They also began to wear flamboyant clothes. And also began to get flashy in their shows by using lasers and professional lights and mirror balls.

They were living the “high life” as they say. Flying around in private jets and renting out entire sections of hotels.

If you know Led Zeppelin you know they would go on to success in the next 12 years after first starting in 1968. But they ended the band on December 4, 1980. Because of the death of their drummer John Bonham, who died of alcohol due to drinking to much of it.

But one thing is sure, is that Led Zeppelin, uh Jimmy Page SURE could play guitar.

Related Questions

Did Led Zepplin write their own songs? Yes, on some songs they wrote their own songs. But Led Zeppelin recorded a number of songs that they did not write. Sometimes they did this on whole songs or parts of the songs. In some cases, Led Zeppelin has been sued for recording other people’s songs.

Is Led Zeppelin still together? No, Led Zeppelin is not together anymore. They first disbanded in 1980. Jimmy Page is annoyed with Robert Plant for stalling the reunion plans. The last time Led Zeppelin played together was in 2007. But Robert Plant has said there won’t be a concert anytime soon.

What was Led Zeppelin’s biggest hit song? The biggest hit song Led Zeppelin ever had was, “Whole Lotta Love.” This song was from the 1969 album, Led Zeppelin 2. It reached number four on Billboard’s chart. You can hear great guitar work by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant’s signature rock vocals.

Photo credits:

Black and white photos of Jon Bonham drumming and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant photos courtesy of Dina Regine: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Website of Jim Summaria: http://www.jimsummariaphoto.comColor photo of Jimmy Page playing double guitar photo courtesy of Jim Summaria: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Led Zeppelin, January 1975, Chicago on stage photo courtesy of: more19562003: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Website of Jim Summaria: http://www.jimsummariaphoto.com