John Mayer Guitar Lesson - Brown Eyed Women Solo Tab - Dead and Company 7/23/16

In this series, I'll share with you eight signature techniques that John Mayer uses when he's improvising as a lead guitarist. You'll learn how he weaves all of these approaches into one fluid. solo on the classic Grateful Dead tune, Brown Eyed Women.

I've broken this solo up into 8 separate licks, and each one focuses on one core approach. In this series, you'll learn:

The hybrid major blues scale
The quadruple 32nd note slide
The Major 7th Pedal Steel Box
The Prebend pull off
The one finger root bend
Harmonized 6ths
The triple position shift
The passing diminished chord

This lesson will focus on the first two techniques. Each subsequent video will also focus on two techniques.

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► Video Timestamp/Chapters
0:00 – Introduction
0:40 – Brown Eyed Women Solo Performance from 7-23-16
1:45 – Brown Eyed Women Chords
2:08 – John Mayer Guitar Lick # 1 – The Hybrid Major Blues Scale
5:11 – John Mayer Guitar Lick # 2 – The Quadruple 32nd Note Slide
8:42 – Connecting the licks & Chord Tone Connections
9:52 – Recap

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Brown Eyed Women Solo Chords

Before we move on to lead, lets take look at the chords that we're working with. The solo section uses the same chords as the verse of the song. If any of these chords look unfamiliar to you, I've made a 2 part lesson on how to play John Mayer's rhythm part on this website.

Lick 1

For this lick, Mayer is mixing two scales – he is mixing the E major scale, with the E major blues scale, into one scale that I call the E major hybrid blues scale.

E Major Scale

E Major Blues Scale

E Major Hybrid Blues Scale

Here's what we get when we combine the E Major Scale and the E Major Blues scale into one scale, as John Mayer is doing in Lick # 1

Lick 2

Here we are with lick 2, which features a ridiculous four note 32nd note slide in the first bar.

Don't worry if this technique isn't easy at first. Out of every technique in this series, this one might be the toughest. But, it's worth it, and you can use it on slower tempos and in any key.

Most of the notes over the B chord bar are coming out of the B7 arpeggio in the C shape.

For the rest of the lick, Mayer mixes chord tones of whatever scale he's in, with the parent major scale of the progression. So over the B chord, he mixes notes of the B arpeggio with notes of the E major scale. Over the A chord, he mixes notes of the A arpeggio with notes of the E major scale.

There's one more tiny tibit that I really want to share with you. To flow from lick 1 to 2, Mayer plays the 3rd of E and connects that to the 7th of B. This happens in between bars 39 & 40 in the diagram below

Now that might not sound impressive, but this kind of improvised chord tone connection is a hallmark of many great jazz, blues, bluegrass and country guitar players. Connecting chord tones like 3rds, 7ths, and 9ths between chords is also a core fundamental of bebop.