Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers Tutorial/Lesson
Californication
Am, F/C, C, Gadd4, Dm, F#m, Bm, D, A, E
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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 Californication [music] by Red Hot Chili Peppers on the guitar. And today I am featuring my Zager ZAD 80CE [music] guitar, so if you like what you see, I will link more information about it down below. Here's a quick overview of everything I'll be covering in this [music] tutorial today and with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. And just really quick for clarification purposes, I am going to be teaching this more of an acoustic [music] style, so when I say solo tab, I mean of intro tab that you kind of hear throughout the song, not the actual solo that's [music] near the end of the song. wanted to put that out there before we continue on with this video. But if you are interested in learning more of an acoustic way to play this song, then go ahead [music] and stay tuned and let's go ahead and jump into the chords. All right guys, so you do need to know 10 different chord shapes to play through this song and we're going to start with our A minor, which looks like this and sounds like this. >> [music] >> And by the way, if you don't know how to read these chord charts you're seeing on screen, I do cover how to do that in my free beginner series right here on YouTube, so make sure to check that out right here. The next chord shape is our F over C. >> [music] >> Now, if you're somebody who's comfortable with bar chords, you can also just play your full bar chord F. >> [music] >> Okay. Um but if you don't like bar chords, you can get away with the F over C to [music] play through this song. We've also got our C major. >> [music] >> There's our G add 4. >> [music] >> Next is our D minor. >> [music] >> And for the majority of the song, those are the five chords you need to know. However, for that little solo section, we are going to be changing keys a little bit, so you do need to know some more chords for that part. And this is where all of the bar chords are going to come in, so first we have our F sharp minor. >> [music] >> We also have our B minor. >> [music] >> There's our D major. >> [music] >> Our A major. >> [music] >> And last is our E major. >> [music] >> And those are all 10 chords you need to know to play through this song. So go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over these chord shapes, get them memorized and also practice transitioning back and forth between them, cuz it'll make learning the rest of the song so much easier for you. And if this is a skill you're currently struggling with, I do have a practice with me chord transitions playlist right here on YouTube, where we build up this skill together in real time. So I will link that playlist here in the corner for those of you who need it. But after you have these chords under your belt, we can go ahead and talk about the strumming that I would suggest for this song. Now, as I always say, if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're somebody who struggles with playing guitar and singing at the same time, the first thing I would suggest doing is to bring up the song and go ahead and go through the entire thing with just a single down strum on each chord change as you sing through the song. And you want to take this time to really get used to what word or what syllable you're going to be on whenever those chords are changing. So here's a quick example of what that would look like with the chorus. Dream of Californication. [singing] Dream of Californication. [music] All right, so that's just a really quick example, but you would essentially want to do this for the entire song and just really make sure you know where those chords are going to be changing. And this is actually something you can do right now. If you check out my Patreon page, I do have this entire guide available to download and print out, so I'll make sure to leave that link in the description box if you're interested. But once you've done this and you're comfortable with those chord changes, then we can go ahead and add to this to create more of a full strumming pattern that you can use for this song. All right guys, the good news is you only really need to know one strumming pattern to play through this entire song. However, it might be a little bit more challenging if you are new to guitar, because we are going to be counting this in 16th note rhythm. So if you don't know what I mean by that or how to count that, I would definitely recommend checking out my beginner series right here on YouTube, cuz we do cover all of that over there. But basically, our rhythm's going to sound like this. We've got one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a one, two, up, e and e and a down, up, up, down, up, down, up. All right, so this might be a little bit challenging like I said if you're brand new to playing guitar, but um it should sound pretty intuitive cuz it does match the song really well. So basically, what we're going to do is we're going to take this pattern and play it through one time per chord throughout the song, except for some places where we are going to actually split this measure between two chords, but we'll get there in a second. So let's go ahead and start here on verse one. You can see we're starting on our A minor chord and essentially, what you want to do is just play through this entire pattern on your A minor. So we've got down, down, up, up, down, up, down, up. Then you go to your next chord, F over C, same thing. Down, down, >> [music] >> up, up, down, up, down, up. All right, back to A minor. >> [music] >> Back to F over C. >> [music] >> All right. So if you're already struggling with the coordination of where you're playing downs or ups or you're getting confused and your arm just seems to not be able to cooperate, that's definitely a sign that you need to work on some muscle memory. So if that's the case for you, I would definitely suggest pausing right here and just practicing that rhythm with no chords for a little while until you kind of hear it and internalize it um and then you can add your chords back in. But basically, we want to go a little bit faster to get this at full tempo. So more at full tempo, it's going to speed up quite a bit. It's going to sound like this. We've got one, two, ready, go. A minor, [singing] >> [music] >> up, up, down, up, down, up, F over C. So [music] you can hear it's quite [singing] a bit faster. Down, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, switch chords. One, [music and singing] two, up, e and up. >> [music] >> All right, so that is going to take a lot of practice to get from that slower tempo into this more full speed tempo. So again, just pause the video and take as much time as you need to really get used to the coordination and everything for that. Um but once you can get it at that speed, this is the strumming pattern you can use to play through the entire song. And really, a lot of the song goes from A minor to F over C, so if you can make that chord transition, you can already play like at least half of the song, okay? So adding some singing at full tempo, it would sound like this. We've got A minor, [singing and music] up, up, down, up, down, up, F over C. All right. And that's most of the verses [music and singing] right there. Psychic spies from China try to steal [singing and music] your mind's elation. Little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotation. >> [music] >> All right. Towards the end of the verse here, that's where we're going to see a split measure pattern, which I was talking about earlier. So looking at the end here, you can see our C and our G add 4 chord both have this little dash mark next to them. That's just my way of signaling to you guys that this is going to be a split measure. So whenever we have a split measure, I'm going to go ahead and add a vertical line here in our strumming pattern right after the first two down strums and this represents where I want you to change chords, okay? So now we're going to play two different chords within this same exact rhythm, the same exact strumming pattern. So looking at our line there, we've got our C chord. You're going to play that on the left half for the first two down strums. We've got C, >> [music] >> down, then change your chords to your G add 4 at that vertical line and play the rest of that right half of the pattern. Up, down, up, [music] down, up. All right, so that line is C, G. >> [music] >> Okay? And then same with that next line, you can see we're doing that again. We've got our F over C for the first two down strums. Quickly switch to your D minor chord and finish it out. Up, up, [music] down, up, And then we're back to our A minor for a full measure. So let's go ahead and go through that last half of the verse. We've got C, down, down, switch. F, >> [music] >> switch. Back to A minor, okay? If you [singing] want these kinds [music] of dreams, it's Californication. >> [music] >> All right. Nice, so that's an example of how you can use this strumming pattern to play through the verse. Like I said, this is the only strumming pattern you need to know throughout the entire song, so let's go ahead and bring it into the pre-chorus, so you can kind of hear how it sounds with that melody line. In the pre-chorus, we're just going back and forth from A minor to F over C for full measures for the whole thing. Pay your surgeon farewell [singing] to beg the spell of aging. Is celebrity skin a surgeon or is [singing and music] that all you're aging? Firstborn unicorn. >> [music] >> Hardcore [singing] soft >> [music] >> All right, nice. And then bringing it into the chorus, again, exact same rhythm, but except now we're doing almost all split measures, okay? That's why there's so many dashes here. Dream [singing] of >> [music] >> Full measure here, okay? >> [music and singing] >> On that D minor, you can see there's a little asterisk or a little star next to it. Again, that's just my way of telling you that I would suggest doing a single down strum there. And all of these notations are marked on the guide that's on my Patreon page. So again, if you are interested in downloading and printing that out, I will link that in the description box. Um but yeah, that's an example of basically the entire song. Now, the only place that's going to be a little bit different is going to be that solo section. The same strumming pattern is going to apply for the solo as well. The only thing different here is our chord shapes, okay? And this is where a lot of our bar chords come in. But as you can see, the chords are different, but the strumming is going to be the same. So on our F sharp minor, we've got a full measure. >> [music] >> To our D major, full measure. Back [music] to F sharp minor. Back to [music] D major. Then in this next line, we've got all of our split measures. So we've got B minor >> [music] >> to D to A >> [music] >> to E. All right. So that little solo section without stopping sounds like this. >> [music] >> All right. So that's going to be the little solo section. Again, this song is fairly repetitive in the structure of it. If you can play one verse, you can play all the verses. Same with the little pre-choruses and the choruses. It does repeat itself quite a bit. So if you can play through all of the sections that we just went through, you can definitely play through the song. It's just going to come down to a matter of building that muscle memory so you can play [music] through this strumming rhythm without counting it in your head anymore. And then on top of that, it's going to be just working on those chord transitions, okay? But yeah, basically this strumming rhythm is the one that I would recommend you can use for the whole song. So again, go ahead and pause the video and take as much time as you need to really look over this strumming rhythm and get it internalized, build up that muscle memory so that you can therefore sing on top of it. Like I said, if you are brand new to playing guitar or you're kind of a beginner with all these rhythms, it will take a lot of patience and practice to get it to this point. So just make sure to pause the video and take as much time as you need with this step. Um but once you come back, I wanted to show you guys that little solo tab that you hear at the beginning as well as throughout the song. It's super easy to play. So let's go ahead and talk about that [music] next. All right, guys. So let's quickly break down that little solo tab that you hear in the intro as well as through some of the little instrumental breaks throughout this song. Um I have the tab listed here at the top of the screen. So first of all, if you don't know how to read this or you've never seen this before, I would definitely recommend checking out my how to read guitar tabs video. It's a fun little interactive video I made. Um so I'll link that in the corner if you need it, and then you can come back to this video. So let's go ahead and start with our A minor chord shape on our left hand down, and go ahead and remove your ring finger as well as your index finger. So we're just having our middle finger here on the second fret of the D string. And what you're going to do with your right hand with your guitar pick is you're going to pick that open A or fifth string. >> [music] >> And then the D string with your middle finger on it. Then you're going to skip a string, over to your B string, and you're going to play that open at first. >> [music] >> And then I want you to hammer down on that first fret of the B string with your index finger. All right. So you're only picking it once, but you're using a hammer-on to make that two note sound. Also, if hammer-ons are a little difficult for you, you can just play the string twice with your pick. All right. If you do want to pick both of those notes, I would recommend a down pick on the open B string. And then an up pick with your index finger on. Okay? So that first little section goes like this. >> [music] >> That's it. That's the whole little first part. And then for your next one, we're going to do kind of like an F major chord shape. Um but all you need to hold down is your index finger on the low E string on the first fret, and your ring finger on the third fret of the A string, okay? So we've got >> [music] >> and Okay? So we're picking those down. >> [music] >> And then again, you're going to skip over a string, and then you're going to go to your G string, play it open. >> [music] >> And then again, you can hammer-on your middle finger on the second fret. Or again, if hammer-ons are difficult for you, you can just pick both of those notes. >> [music] >> So that whole second section goes like this. >> [music] >> All right. [music] And then every time you hear this little solo line throughout like the intro and all of the little instrumental sections of the song, all that's all that it really is. So we're going to go back and forth between like this A minor shape and this F shape. So we have >> [music] >> and then to your F shape. And then you go back to your A minor shape. >> [music] >> And then back to your F shape again. >> [music] >> All right. And that's the whole little solo line. I know there's an actual solo that is played on the electric in the towards the end of the song. I'm not going to be teaching that here today because I wanted to keep this relatively beginner-friendly, and this is more of an acoustic version. But if you wanted to add this little solo tab in, I think it sounds really great. So at full tempo, it sounds like this. >> [music] >> All right. And then from there, I would just go straight into strumming. All right. Um but anyways, this solo tab thing is totally optional, but I wanted to teach it to you guys because it is fairly easy to play. So that is my suggestion for the little solo part. All right, guys. And one last time, go ahead and pause the video and take a second to look over this solo tab if you would like to learn it. It's pretty easy as far as little solo tabs go. So if you are brand new to playing individual strings or doing solos or reading tabs, this is a great one to start with. But once you've practiced everything we've learned in this video, then we can go ahead and put it all together to play through the [music] song. One, two, ready, go. >> [music] >> Want to have fun jamming through the rest of the song with you? Then make sure to check out my Patreon page where you can unlock access to this as well as all my other fast track and play along guitar tutorials. I'll make sure to leave a link for it in the description box down below. If you enjoyed learning this song with me, then you should definitely check out this video. Not only does it have a super similar vibe and feel, but it's just as fun and easy [music] to play. So I'll see you over there. Bye.