John Mayer on trying to break out of old pentatonic habits

**Lev** · February 5th, 2009, 07:17 AM

**Jimi75** · February 5th, 2009, 07:49 AM

Thank you for posting this excellent video.
Mayer's got tone, tons of tone!

:
Plus he knows what he's talking about!

**sunvalleylaw** · February 5th, 2009, 07:53 AM

Thanks Lev! It fits in with what I am trying to master. I want to add knowledge of the modes (not only pentatonic) to that concept. I will also have to master some more phrases and licks to use that concept very well.

EDIT: When I worked on "Gravity" with my instructor, he also pointed out after listening closely that many of the lines were played on one or two strings, rather than in a box or scale, which accounts for the sound of it. Kinda cool, and a good way to be expressive.

**Ch0jin** · February 6th, 2009, 01:00 AM

Cool Lev, thanks for posting

Even on youtube he's got great tone!

SVL. Have you played around with single string scales? If not I highly recommend them as a way of breaking out of the box pattern rut. I swear within 5 minutes of forcing myself to stick to only one string I had new riff ideas. Plus when you can play them on any string it really helps link patterns all over the fretboard.

**sunvalleylaw** · February 6th, 2009, 07:20 AM

Yes, Chojin. When we worked on that solo in Gravity, it was essentially the G Major scale on the B string, with a little added. It would be a good exercise to play some other scales on one string and find lines like you say.

**hagarfreak33** · February 6th, 2009, 10:27 PM

Cool video

**jpfeifer** · February 9th, 2009, 02:30 PM

Great video. It reveals a lot about how he thinks of soloing, tone, etc.

I've got some Eric Johnson instructional videos and he is very much like this. He spends a lot time working out different places on the neck to play the same phrases just to get different tone.

Sometimes the smallest things can make a huge difference.
Thanks for posting the video. It made me appreciate John Mayer's playing even more.

-- Jim

**hagarfreak33** · February 9th, 2009, 03:42 PM

He won another Grammy last night.

one of the highlights(along with U2 -Paul Mccartney and Blink 182) of an otherwise huge waste of time

**scottl** · February 9th, 2009, 06:17 PM

I thought John was going to show us some cool notes not in the pentatonic.... Like the phat 335 tone. He has nice tone even if he was playing the same lick again and again.

**Lev** · February 10th, 2009, 03:53 AM

Yeah, as a lesson it wasn't too revealing but it's cool to see that he is struggling with the same kinda issues as us amateurs.

**Iago** · February 16th, 2009, 01:55 PM

Nice little video.

**Rockybluejazz** · August 17th, 2010, 10:38 PM

Nice!

**MAXIFUNK** · August 18th, 2010, 12:35 AM

great stuff...................

**Fretz** · August 18th, 2010, 04:11 AM

If any of you guys like the actual lick he plays in this video, then you should check this out...

Enjoy!

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