Here’s a couple of great guitar lessons I found from the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante.
In these lessons he gives us a demonstration of how to play Under The Bridge from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magic.
John Frusciante
He also talks a bit about his youth and how he first encountered and began to develop his signature playing style which allows him to fill the air with licks, trills, chords and lead melodies in a combined fashion giving the listener the sense of listening to two or three guitars at once. This technique was pioneered by the godfather of funk Curtis Mayfeild and adopted by the late great Jimi Hendrix who was a major influence on John’s playing style.
This video really does help the listener deal with the age old problem of which way you should play your bar chords i.e using your thumb by wrapping it over the top strings or by barring your first finger across all six, an issue which I know many beginner guitarists including myself have had many sleepless nights over.
I think at the end of the day it basically comes down to your style, and what sort of music you play. As I tend to play a lot of covers during my live sets and when out busking, I deal with the problem by playing my bar chords both ways, depending on what song I am performing at the time.
At least you now know, if you want to play Chili Peppers stuff the way John Frusciante does, you’ll need to get frisky with your thumb.
The video above shows him performing the song with his electric guitar, but for those of you out there who think there’s no way they’ll be able to achieve this on an acoustic, here’s another video showing how he does just that.
Slightly more difficult but still playable.
Keep practicing.
More lessons from famous guitarists coming soon.
John Frusciante is such a underrated guitar player. Another guy who used his thumb a lot is Jake E. Lee, one of Ozzy’s former guitar players. A unconventional technique but one I like to show my own guitar students.
Cheers Dave. Good site you’ve got there.
Seems like I’m not the only one who thinks that John sounds a lot like Cat Stevens, at least on the mellow songs. Even though this album is not going to sound a lot like the Peppers JF is a musical mastermind and every solo album has been awesome so yes, I will buy it
Hey men who do you think is a better guitarist John Frusciante or Noel Gallagher?
Hey John Frusciante!
Very well done post! Thanks! i will tell my friends about it and I have share you post in Facebook.