There are thousands of amazing guitar solos on records, YouTube, and iTunes. With so many options, the task of becoming a guitar God can be very daunting for new guitarists. When I started playing 13 years ago, there weren't many resources on the web, but now there are guitar tabs, instructional videos, and tons of articles to help you tame that mysterious fret board. Where do you start?

The first hurdle of learning to play rock guitar is finding riffs, chord progressions, or whole songs by our idols that can be broken down and mimicked. Fortunately, amazing guitarists like Jimmy Page, Hendrix, and Neil Young have many simpler songs that provide a perfect starting point and glimpse into their technique on more difficult pieces.

Here is a list of a few songs that taught me almost everything I use when playing guitar solos.

1) Heartbreaker - Led Zeppelin

This song contains some of the easiest and most influential riffs in rock. There is something extremely primal and effective about using the pentatonic scale in the lower registers that is central to being a great rock guitar player. The scale this song outlines will give you a lesson on blues soloing, power chords, and major versus minor chords. I hear this song's influence in Tom Morello, The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," and even Nirvana.

Here's some tab.

2) Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix

At first glance, Hendrix seems impossible to mimic, but the truth is the most daunting of his technical skills are in his improvisations. Many of his songs can be learned with a little patience and they all provide the skeleton of his more ambitious solos. "Purple Haze" illustrates many notes that can be added to the pentatonic scale and bent to add more color to your solos. Hendrix was also a master of guitar tone. The iconic opening riffs of this song can be learned in an afternoon and then honed over the years to teach yourself tone control from your fingertips to your picking technique to your use of distortion effects. "Purple Haze" is a perfect introductory song because it teaches you many rules and then shows you how to break them.

Here's some tab.

3) Like a Hurricane - Neil Young

Neil Young isn't an obvious choice for guitar instruction because he is best known for his singer/songwriter skills. However, he is also known as the Godfather of Grunge and his electric guitar solos with Crazy Horse are truly epic. The best part about "Like a Hurricane" is that it shows how you don't need fast fingers, technical acrobatics, or intense focus on a specific scale to play a crowd-pleasing solo. In this song's 10 to 20 minute solo, Neil shows you every single note you can get away with playing. It could take a whole weekend to learn this tune, but come Monday morning you will know how every note on the fret board will aid you in your pursuit to rock.

Here's some tab.

I realize that the songs listed above are all classics, but rest assured, not many big hit rock songs can be used to learn as much about rock as these three. In fact, in my 13 years of guitar playing and struggles I always find myself coming back to Neil, Jimmy, and Jimi. Stay tuned for Part Two of this article which includes Pink Floyd, Leo Kottke, and the best way to learn the major pentatonic scale: The Allman Brothers.