How to Play John Mayer – Last Train Home
The brand new John Mayer track is a fantastic workout in triad based riffing. It shows you how chord progressions can have a strong hook and melodic feel.
If you’re new to triads, a triad is in essence a three-note chord, typically major or minor. In this riff, all the triads are major. They are all different shapes, but they are all taken from various major chord shapes around the neck.
The whole riff takes place on the D, G and B strings.
The first bar is an A to an E triad. The easiest way to play this is to play the E triad by barring your first finger across the 9th fret, then use your second and third fingers to add the additional notes to make it an A. This makes the transition between the two easier.
In the second bar it repeats the first change before dropping down to a B triad.
The final two bars go from an A to an E triad before ending on A. You’ll notice the E triad at this stage is the same shape as the A triad you started with but shifted down the neck. This is a triad taken from the C form of the CAGED system.
The second half of the riff is exactly the same as the first half except for the final two triads. Instead of going from E back to A, you go from B to A, but in the A form of the CAGED system.
