Queen Of California Guitar Lesson

It's hard not to love John Mayer's playing. It's full of emotion, great technique and everything needed for some bluesy goodness! We're going to have a look at his fantastic track, 'Queen of California', in this lesson, and see how he's crafted the catchy main riff and soulful solo!

Just as a disclaimer before we get to all the good stuff - there won't be any tabs provided in this lesson write-up. Instead, please make sure you watch Thomas' excellent video lesson, outlining all the details in both the left- and right-hand. I have provided other resources such as scale shapes and chord charts to help you really understand how Mayer composed each part. With that said, let's get to it!

Main Riff

Let's start by tackling the main riff, as once you get this section down, you'll be able to play along to a large portion of the song! We're going to tackle each part of this section separately, and then piece it all together at the end!

Part 1 - Riff

The first thing you'll need to do is grab a capo and place it on the fourth fret. Going forward, we're going to use the capo as our new '0' fret, and any chords or frets mentioned will be based from the capo. With that said, place your third finger on the 3rd fret of the low E-string, and let's take a look at the various chords used!

Just because I'm a bit of a theory-nut, let's take a look at what all of the different chord names mean:

/ chords: If you ever see a '/', it's simply an instruction to play the chord written on the left side, with the note on the right side as the bass note. For example, C/G means that we're playing a C major with a G as the lowest note.

sus chords: If you ever see 'sus' in a chord name, it's an instruction to suspend, or replace, the third degree to either the second or fourth degree. The degree that the third is being changed to will be highlighted in the name as such: sus2 or sus4.

7sus chords: This is simply a dominant 7 chord with the third degree suspended, or raised, to the fourth degree. So, if G7 has the notes G, B, D and F, G7sus is made of G, C, D and F. One thing to note is that a 7sus chord is an instruction to always play the suspended fourth degree, even without the indication of the fourth in the name. Whereas the 7sus2 chord is more specific, and tells us to play the second degree in place of the third. If this seems a bit random, I want you to know that you're not alone, and I'm not sure why this is the case either…

Though we're staying in one position for all of these chord voicings, the challenge comes from the speed in which we need to transition between chords, as well as getting the correct fingerpicking pattern.

Thomas is using a technique called Travis-picking - which makes use of the thumb alternating between the 3 low strings, and the first and second finger stay on the G- and B-string respectively. As there won't be any tabs in this lesson write-up, please refer to the video to see the exact finger-picking pattern Thomas uses over each chord.

One last and very quick note on theory before we move onto the next part of the riff! It very much feels like 'G' is our home, but if you tried to play G major over the riff, it wouldn't feel quite right. That's because we're playing an F natural in the G7 chord, implying that we're in G mixolydian. We won't go into details of the mode right now, but all you need to know is that the mixolydian is a major scale with a flat 7.

Part 2 - Break 1

The first break after the main part of the riff is composed of just two chords - C and Am7.

The same picking pattern is used for both of these chords, so be sure to see how Thomas plays it in the video! Once you're happy with this break section, make sure to practice transitioning to it from the main section of the riff.

Part 3 - Break 2

Just like the first break, we're adding two chords, with the addition of a quick little G mixolydian run. We're going to start by playing D major with a fingerpicked pattern, to one strum of a C major chord. I know I sound like a broken record, but please do use the video as a reference for the fingerpicking patterns!

Attached below is a scale box used to play G mixolydian. All the notes that you'll need to play the run have been highlighted in pink.

Once you've learned all three parts of the main riff, you'll be able to piece them all together to play along to this amazing track! Take a look at the structure below to put all of the pieces in the right order.

Guitar solo

The great thing about John Mayer tracks is that they're not just full of fantastic riffs, but also soulful, bluesy solos. The solo in this track is certainly no exception, so swap that acoustic out for an electric, and let's get learning!

The best way to learn any solo is to break it down into various sections - I personally like to do this in phrases. This solo moves around the neck quite a bit, so we're going to break it into four different phrases.

Please note that we're not using a capo anymore for the solo section.

Phrase 1

As there aren't any tabs in this write-up, your go-to resource is going to continue to be Thomas' excellent video lesson. However, what we'll do is highlight the scale shapes Thomas is playing, as well as the main techniques for each phrase.

The first phrase of the solo is played in B major box 4, and you'll need to be prepared to use bends, vibrato and rolling. I'm sure if you're ready to learn this track that bends and vibrato are familiar to you, but rolling might be new. Rolling is the technique where you use just one finger to play the same fret across two or more strings. It's very similar to barring, but we want one string to ring out at a time.

Let's take a closer look at how Thomas uses rolling in this solo to see exactly how this technique works. Firstly, place your index finger on the 12th fret of the B-string and pick it. Next you'll want to flatten your index finger so that you're fretting the high e-string. If done correctly, you should be gently muting the B-string with your fingertip, while letting the 12th fret on the e-string ring out.

Phrase 2

Though the second phrase uses fewer techniques than the first, it's just as tricky! Thomas has combined two guitars into one to capture the main melody and the harmony. You're more than welcome to choose just one string, but I encourage to take on the challenge of both!

We're staying within the key of B major here, and we're sliding down the fretboard using intervals of thirds within the scale. The shape that uses two frets next to each other - i.e. the 16th and 17th fret - is a major third, whereas if there's a gap between frets (14th and 16th), it's a minor third. It will take some practice to quickly swap between the major and minor third shapes while sliding, but it'll be incredibly rewarding when you get it sounding nice and smooth!

Phrase 3

This next phrase is fairly straightforward, as we're mainly staying in one position of the B major pentatonic scale with the use of a slide and a bend. The challenge here is getting the timing right with the slide, and hitting the right pitch with the bend.

Phrase 4

The final phrase of the solo takes us back into B major (as opposed to B major pentatonic), with a very slight hint of B mixolydian at the very end.

The main challenge in this lick is controlling the bend and release on the 9th fret of the B-string. I would recommend practicing this in two ways - try to emulate John's playing as closely as possible, then try to put your own style and timing on it!

If you're curious where the 'hint of mixolydian' appears, it's when Thomas slides from the 10th fret of the B-string to the 12th fret. The note of the 10th fret is an A natural, which is the b7 degree of the B scale. This note works fantastically over the chord progression, and is a great way to inject some bluesy-ness into your solos if the major scale sounds too 'bright'.