John Frusciante is an incredible guitar player and songwriter and in this Under The Bridge guitar lesson I'm going to take you through each part of this classic track. As always, no tab allowed here, as we're learning properly, applying concept to experience!
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Dan Holton
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Just before we start, it's also worth checking out this blog post to dive a little deeper with the CAGED ideas that will be briefly mentioned in this song lesson! So, let's get started with the intro of the track.
The Intro
The kick-off for this track is quite separate from the rest of the song, and doing a little digging into the recording of the track I found that Frusciante actually came up with this part later and "bolted" it onto the rest of the already finished and recorded track. The little slide at the end of the intro section ensures a nice cut when moving into the rest of the song! So the intro is made up of two simple chords, D major and F# major. You essentially loop these two chords twice in the intro, with a whole range of little twiddly bits in between. Those two chords are:
Now those two chords, without the nice arpeggios and twiddly sections, won't get you too far (although you do need to be comfortable with the shapes). The real magic is aligning the pentatonic shapes underneath the chords to be able to pull some licks out based around the chord shapes themselves. This is of course what we study in our CAGED courses, but it's great to see it in action here. As a reminder, here are those chords and scales combined:
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This is probably the hardest part of the track to get bang on, so take your time with it and allow yourself plenty of grace when working through it. It doesn't come easy, but show up and practice each day and the magic will slowly work it's way in!
Dan Holton
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The Verse
Next up we have the verse part, which is a beautiful part to play. As I said earlier in the blog post, I have already been through the CAGED inner workings of this section in a previous blog post, which I suggest you read. Our focus here is simply the chord progression, which is now firmly rooted in the key of E major. The progression is a I, V, vi, IV, which is extremely common in a lot of songs. However, the most important part is the way we play this progression, using those cool licks that I show in the video. This progression translates to this:
As for the way we're playing these chords, we're using all barre chord shapes to keep things nice and simple. These shapes look like like this:
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Please note that John Frusciante loves to play the barre chord shapes as casually as possible, with that thumb over the top of the neck. You are very welcome to do this too, although you don't have to if it doesn't sit with you.
Dan Holton
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The Chorus & Outro
Under The Bridge is not shy of different parts, and the chorus is the first time we're going to talk in a little more depth about rhythm as it has a cool pattern that is worth learning well! The groove comes in on the "1 e and" beat, which gives a real feeling of playing "off the beat" and shifting the song to something a little different in the chorus. You can see this really clearly in the video! The chords are a ii, I, V, ii progression, which in the key of E major is as follows:
As you can see above, the chords we are choosing to use make bigger usage of the CAGED system, which you can learn about via our CAGED courses. This is what I think Frusicante does, but as long as you know that the chords are simply based around F#m, E, B and F#m again, you can choose depending on what you want to achieve. This is the power of CAGED!
Finally, we have the outro which once again completely changes the vibe and tonal centre of the track. John changes to the key of A minor really at this point, even though it starts with an A major. We have the chords A, Am, G and F on loop with a little break to hit F, E and G at some point.
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This definitely points to the key of A minor, but it's cool to see some fun uses of theory that allow the A major to work, even if very briefly! It' just great to see how theory is one thing, but practice is another, and in this example, that A major just works!
Dan Holton
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So those final chords are as follows:
Conclusion
Wow! This song is absolutely mega, isn't it! There is so much to get your head and fingers round in this song that it mustn't be rushed or attempted too soon. If you are an intermediate player and have started to explore the CAGED shape, this is a great time to work with this course. If not, it may just be one step too hard to handle. Don't let me put you off though, but at least let me suggest signing up for the Guitar Club to get a pathway of learning that will get you right here! All the best, and speak soon.
Want to learn more John Frusciante?
Of course you can! We have an awesome player study that dives into all of these concepts and more, to really help you understand how you can get them to be an integral part of your playing!
