California Dreamin' Guitar Lesson Tutorial by The Mamas & The Papas Tutorial/Lesson
California Dreamin' Guitar Lesson Tutorial
Am, G, F, Esus4, E, C, E7, E7sus4
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Video transcript
hey everyone my name is ellen and today i'm going to be showing you guys how to play california dreaming by the mamas and the papas on the guitar so stay tuned if this is something that you'd like to learn and before we begin i wanted to thank my patrons over on my patreon page for voting for this song as this month's patron pick if you'd like some voting power for the tutorials you see here on my channel make sure to check out my patreon page linked in the description box below alright guys so i'm gonna go ahead and classify this as a beginner slash intermediate song just because there can be a few tricky aspects to it but first of all let's talk about our guitar you will need your guitar in standard tuning and go ahead and put your capo on the fourth fret and that will put us in the original key as the original song on top of that i wanted to show you eight different chords that you will need to know to play through the song and one of them is a bar chord which is our f chord so just be aware that that is pretty prevalent throughout this song after that i wanted to show you three different strumming patterns that you can kind of mix and match to play through the song as well as one little solo like at the beginning that you heard me play just a second ago so i will be teaching that to you as well so with that all being said let's go ahead and jump into how to play those chords all right guys so i've gone ahead and zoomed in a little bit to take a closer look at these chords like i said there are eight chord shapes you're gonna need to know to play through this song and we're gonna start with our a minor which looks like this and sounds like this by the way if you don't know how to read chord shapes i do have a video in my beginner series that talks all about how to read through chord shapes so check that out if you need to our next chord is our g chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we have our bar chord which is our f chord which looks like this and sounds like this next is our e suspended iv chord which looks like this and sounds like this after that we have our e major chord which looks like this and sounds like this next is our c chord shape which looks like this and sounds like this after that is our e7 chord shape which looks like this and sounds like this and then the last chord you need to know is our e7 suspended four which looks like this and sounds like this and those are the eight chords you need to know to play this song all right guys something i wanted to quickly point out is that you might have noticed four of our eight chord shapes for this song are variations of e chords we have our e suspended four our e major our e7 and our e7 suspended four all right so to the untrained ear those might sound really super similar but for this song in particular it does make a big difference when you put everything together so i would go ahead and suggest to memorize all of those chord shapes because it just really brings the song together in the end but with that being said let's go ahead and jump into some strumming patterns that i want to show you for this song all right so if you are a beginner or brand new to guitar i would suggest starting your strumming out with just a practice pattern which is just one single down strum on the b for every chord change i always suggest new people to start like this because not only does it give you a chance to memorize those chord shapes and practice your chord transitions but it also is a great way to get used to the song and have the foundations for later singing and playing at the same time so let's just go ahead and go through the first line of the verse we're gonna start on a minor chord because that's the first chord in the song you're just gonna strum down once then you go to your next chord g then we have f all down strums just like that and you want to take that through and sing through the entire song just so you know what words you're going to be like changing chords on and things like that after you do that though i do want to go into our first strumming pattern which as you can see is down down up down down up and it's going to sound a little something like this all right guys so this pattern is going to be kind of our main strumming pattern to play through most of this song um before we go any further though i did want to just point out i'm going to put a little vertical line halfway in between here so as you can see we have down down up on the left side down down up on the right side and what that vertical line is going to represent is where we're going to change chords okay so the down down up down down up is one full measure but we're going to be playing two different chords within that measure so a good example of this would be the very beginning of the song let's put our a minor chord back on again what i want you to do is play a minor for the first down down up then you're going to switch to your next chord which is g and finish out the measure with the other down down up all right so it's going to go a little bit faster when you're playing through the song it's going to be like a minor g all right non-stop just like that and like i said this strumming pattern goes through most of the song because the chord changes are a little bit fast so let's go ahead and put a few chords here on screen as you can see we're going to go from a minor to g to f to g and on in each of these little pairings we're going to just be doing you know half the pattern that i have here so on a minor we have down down up then you switch to g down down up switch to f down down up back to g down down up all right so let's go ahead and just go through the first line of the verse as an example all the leaves are brown and i'm just gonna pause right here even though i know you're probably singing gray right now um but i wanted to pause because even though strumming pattern one is super prevalent in this song we're really going to be switching back and forth between strumming pattern one and strumming pattern two a lot so let's go ahead and go through strumming pattern two all right guys so for strumming pattern two as you can see we have down up up down up and it's gonna sound a little something like this so like i said a second ago we are going to be switching back and forth between strumming pattern 1 and strumming pattern 2 throughout this song so let's go ahead and practice this with our e suspended four chord on because that's the first chord that you'll see this you know strumming pattern paired with but basically it's just gonna go down down up up down up and that's the whole pattern down down up up down up all right so once you get that motion down we just want to put it in context with the rest of the song so let's go ahead and do this on screen i'm going to have my e suspended four chord on going into our e major chord and what i want you to do is play this pattern all the way through one time for each of these chords okay so on e suspended four we've got down down up up down up to and so when you put that together with strumming pattern one you'll kind of hear the song start to come together so let me put all of that on screen for you and we're gonna start just from the very beginning of verse one all the leaves so if you can go back and forth between pattern one and pattern two pretty easily you're basically most of the way there for this song like i said it is just gonna be a lot of back and forth between those um for example you can see the next line is the same way i've been for one of the awesome things about this song is that it is kind of repetitive in the guitar part so if you can do what we just did then you're really well on your way to being able to play through the whole song however i did want to show you one more strumming pattern that's kind of used a little bit more infrequently in the song but it does kind of add a lot to it so let's go ahead and talk about strumming pattern three all right guys so as you can see a strumming pattern three is just eight down strums and it's gonna sound something like this now like i said this strumming pattern is not going to be used as frequently as the other two but it does add a lot especially during that kind of bridge flute kind of section so let's go ahead and just talk about this it's going to be a very straightforward rhythm let's go ahead and put our a minor chord on and all i want you to do is strum eight down strums in a row one two three four five six seven eight all right so basically if you can get that a little bit more you know upbeat a little bit more at tempo you'll kind of hear where it fits into the song at that bridge portion with the flute so see all i did there was go through this pattern two times through on the a minor chord now sometimes depending on how quick those chord transitions are going you will be splitting this pattern in half as well to do faster chord transitions so let me just go ahead and take you through that bridge flute section we have our a minor chord on and you're going to play through this pattern two times on a minor one two three four five six seven eight again two three four five six seven eight then you go to your next chord which is g and you're going to play this through twice again one two three four five six seven eight then here we have a few different um amounts of time that we have to keep this strumming pattern going so our next chord is e7 and you're just gonna play through this pattern once one two three four five six seven eight then on the next measure we're going to split this pattern in half between a minor and f so therefore a minor gets four one two three four and then f gets the other four five six seven eight all right then you would end on your e7 suspended four and that would get the full pattern one two three four five six seven eight again two three four five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight again two three four twice okay so just keep in mind that this strumming pattern is really only used during the bridge and then also on the end of each verse when they're like singing all together on on a winter's day and they hold out the word day and then you hold that out for two measures okay so beyond just like the very last of the verse and then as well as during that bridge portion there's no other place that i would really use this strumming pattern so i did just want to kind of show it to you if you want a complete breakdown of where i do all of these different strumming patterns in my play through i do have that available on my patreon page so check that out if you want to but the other thing i wanted to show you really quick with this strumming pattern in particular is with our a minor chord there's something really cool you can do here is while you're strumming these eight down strums one two three four five six seven eight you can kind of dress it up by you know pulling off and hammering on different fingers so let me zoom in a little bit so i can show you that alright guys so when we're doing that bridge portion with the flute solo um something you do with your a minor chord is we're gonna strum it down all down strums like we just practiced but something you can do is lift your first finger or put on your pinky finger and that makes different chords right so you would do an a minor chord one two three four five six lift put it back on put your pinky on take your pinky off take your first finger off put it back on all right so a little bit faster it'd be like this all right and if you add that into your cover it kind of mimics you know the melody of the flute and i think it sounds really cool however if you are having trouble with that feel free to leave that out it sounds great just with the a minor chord all right but now that we've gone through the different strumming patterns and where to use them and how to use them throughout the song there is one last thing i really wanted to teach you guys before we end the tutorial which is that really recognizable kind of solo at the beginning it's beautiful and not that hard to play so let's zoom in so i can show you how to play it all right guys so we've zoomed in a little let's go ahead and take a closer look at how to play that solo line at the beginning of the song basically you're going to want to just start with your middle finger on the second fret of the d string and your ring finger on the second fret of the g string right next door okay and that's how we're gonna start this you're going to pick with your right hand the d string the g string and then the b string okay so we've got next you want to go back to your d string and hit that one more time all right so we've got two two o two from here i want you to take your pinky and put that on the third fret of the b string all right then you're gonna take your first finger and put that on the first fret of the b string and lift off your pinky and then you're going to lift off your first finger to play an open so you can kind of hear that little walk down there three one oh pinky first finger open all right so so far we've got 2 2 0 2 3 1 0 or if you want to think about that as fingers we've got middle ring open middle pinky first finger open all right so that's the first part of the solo then from there we're going to go to our g string and your middle finger or your ring finger should still be on so we're just gonna pick that then i want you to take your first finger and place that on the first fret of the b string okay so we've got two one then go next door to your high e and play that open okay so we've got two one open then take your first finger off of the b string and put it on your high e string okay so you're gonna have to kind of jump around with your first finger there okay once you get there just lift your first finger off to do the open e again then you're gonna take your pinky and put that back on the third fret of the b string okay so that second portion so far is and then from here you're going to lift off your pinky and your first finger should still be on the first fret of the b string okay so the second section so far is okay so there's a lot of finger motion going on so if you're not you know used to picking definitely take your time with this but it is one of those lines where once you get it you know it's really fun to play so let's go ahead and start back from the beginning again and just kind of go through what we've gone through so far all right so that's kind of the first part in the second part let's go ahead and finish this out with the last little third part here it's going to be kind of like the first part where you're going to be playing your middle and then your ring finger so notice so far these two fingers haven't moved in this solo line at all so they should be down the whole time it's going to be a lot of moving around with your pinky and your first finger but your other two are kind of anchored all right guys and you're almost done we just have a little section here left so for this last third little section you want to go back to your d string then your g then you want to put your pinky back on the third fret of the b string then take it off and replace that with your first finger on the first fret and then open so there's another little walk down there three one zero pinky first finger open okay so the third section so far is all right then you just want to come hop over one more string again to your g string and then take off your ring finger so you're going to open and then you're going to end this whole little section with this cord and the way i find it easiest to play is since our fingers are already here i just go up one with my middle finger and then place my pinky down on that b string so you're going from here to this all right so you can see in the solo section there's going to be a lot of places where you're kind of hammering some fingers on taking some fingers off doing a lot of walk downs and stuff like that so just be wary that this is going to probably take a little bit of time to get used to especially if you're new to picking but let's go ahead and go through the whole thing now we've got all right and that is the entire solo that you hear at the very beginning of the song this is obviously optional if you didn't want to play this through you wouldn't have to you would just start immediately with the strumming all the leaves are brown you know but this is kind of um really one of the most recognizable parts of the song i feel so definitely give this solo a try if you would like to so at tempo it sounds like this all right and that is how you play the solo portion all the leaves are brown and the skies want to have fun jamming to the rest of this song with me then make sure to check out my patreon page where you'll unlock access to this as well as all my other fast track and play-along tutorials i'll make sure to leave a link in the description box as well as link it in the i card up here all right guys but that does conclude my tutorial today i really hope that it helped you if it did make sure to give me a thumbs up down below as well subscribe to my channel that way you never miss out on any other new tutorials here are my social media sites in case you'd like to follow me on any of those that's just where i do fun things like behind the scenes looks of things coming up i'll pull you guys on what you want to learn next and i'll even do giveaways on there a few times a year so make sure to check that out a huge shout out and thank you to my top patrons over on my patreon page for making tutorials just like this one possible and if you also want to be a supporter of the channel remember you can always check out my patreon page where you'll unlock access to the printable guides that i have for all of the songs with lyrics and chords and everything or customizable backing tracks you can turn things on and off to tailor your practice session or you can even send videos to me and ask me for your questions or whatever and i will send you a video response with my advice on how to improve back but with that being said thank you so much for watching i really hope it helped and i will see you in my next video bye you