How to Play "Slow Dancing Burning Room" on a Guitar

Hey kids, Your Guitar Sage here. Today we’re going to learn how to play John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.” I'm looking at my chart here on my screen, so I'm just going to jump into it right away and then I'll talk to you about the beats and pieces on how to make this song work if you don’t get it right away. So, for those of you who did a tracking with me, have been watching my other videos, get out and get your capo put it on the 4th fret and we’re going to do kind of acoustic version of this tune. So it won’t be doing all the little guitar licks in there. I'm sure there's other videos on Youtube that are doing that so great, go get those. If you're looking for kind of an easy version on how to play this tune, check it out. So here we go. It's going to go something like this. I'll talk to you about the chord and the construction and all that in just a minute. So here we go. It’s going to go— [Demonstration] Okay, so I'm going to the bridge here, the bridge is going to go something like— [Demonstration] Okay guys, so basically we got three parts to this song. We got that A minor for a measure and then F, C which is the split measure. Split measure is when we take two chords and put them in one measure. So since this song is in four, right, one, two, three, four and we got. [Demonstration] Now, it’s not a perfectly split measure we’re doing what's called the push and we’re doing that on the F and the C and throughout the song we’re doing that another chords here. So on the chart here that I'm representing I don’t show the pushes is because it’s kind of difficult to do—if you're doing a hand written chart, it’s a little bit easier but I did this in word. But you know the song and you know what pushes are so instead of like [Demonstration]. That would be playing a straight, we’re not playing the straight we’re doing the push. Okay, so [Demonstration]. I guess we’re not pushing the F, let's see here. [Demonstration]. Now, we’re not pushing the F, we’re the C though. Okay, so the F on the down B. Okay, so here the chords. For the intros and the verse we got A minor and then the F, C split measure. That’s all the verses, that’s the intro and the turnaround. The turnaround is like in intro but usually happens after the first chorus, between a chorus, first chorus and the second verse. That’s usually when you turnaround the chord it doesn’t have to be the same as the intro but oftentimes it is, in this case it is. So the intros, the verse and the turnaround were all the same. And the chorus—do we do a chorus? Yeah, we do. So the chorus is going to go G for a measure, [Demonstration] and we got the same strumming rhythm, which hopefully we’ll have time to cover, but the strumming rhythm is going to be the same pushes so we got G [Demonstration], and then A minor with the push only half [Demonstration], G, E for one measure, A minor, A minor— [Demonstration] Now if these chords, these basic chords that I'm playing here are difficult for your or you don’t know what I'm doing strumming was or if you don’t know how to read chart or bunch of other stuff that I'm talking about if you get stuck, unfortunately I don’t have the time to answer individual messages regarding what I'm doing here which is I would be able to do any videos to feed my cats, breath, sleep and important things like that. So that’s why I made the eBook, so you don’t have this thing already and you got question go to Yourguitarsrage.com get that eBook and it really help out in what we’re doing here. And there are new products coming out there too, so check that out too. All right, intro, verse and the chorus we covered the chorus, so the bridge. The bridge same strumming rhythm, we have split measures for—the bridge is eight measures long. And for all the measures, except for measure seven, we got split measures. Okay, so it’s going to go like this. Here's the bridge. [Demonstration] So it’s going to go like—so I'll just start again. [Demonstration] A minor, G, E minor, F and again. [Demonstration] Okay, there we go. And then, it’s going to go one more chorus and then there's fade and honestly my chart doesn’t say what the fade is but my guess would be—it’s going to be your basic— [Demonstration] That would be my guess. The last time I was to this song I think that’s what it was, if not it’s going to be something close to – it's typically not a new part introduce for a fade out of the song, it's just too confusing for people. Okay, so let's talking about this strumming rhythm for a minute. As you noticed, I'm doing some mutes here, so what that means is when I strum the chord I kind of do like [Demonstration]. So I kill the chord in the middle of it. So what I'm doing here—I'll do it slow here, I'm going like [Demonstration]. So I got a down beat and then up beat so I'm going down. [Demonstration]. Okay, and then on muting on the next time down, so like [Demonstration]. Now that’s actually strumming. You could, you can do like strum, mute at the same time that’s the nice sound too. But I'm going to do that right now, for this tune I'm doing it [Demonstration]. And then I'm doing another down beat, so [Demonstration]. It's the same rhythm for the [Demonstration]. Okay, that is the basic strumming rhythm for this entire tune kids. So it happened already, that’s pretty much everything guys, so we’re heading out. If you haven’t already hit subscribe, if you haven’t already go get the eBook and help a stray animal today. And get a capo, if you haven't already. All right kids, thanks for tuning in, until next time, see you!