This lesson includes a transcription and analysis of the Rhythm Guitar part for Gravity by John Mayer. You can hear the accuracy of the transcription by playing the above Guitar Pro file which you can also Download Here should you wish to. Forgive the midi guitar and robot swing.

The song is in G major & is in 6/8 time. Essentially it has two sections. A chorus and a pre chorus.

The chorus progression is a plain old I-IV - G & C. The chorus progression doubles as the Intro, Solo and Outro sections.

The pre chorus progression is II-V-bIII-bVI-V - Am7-D(7)-Bb6-Ebmaj7-D7. The Bb6 (bIII) has been borrowed from the key of F major (you could also see this as being borrowed from G Dorian) and the Ebmaj7 has been borrowed from the key of Bb major which you could also see as being borrowed from G Natural Minor. If you were to improvise over the pre chorus chord progression then Bb6 would take Bb Lydian as the most consonant chord scale and Ebmaj7 would take Eb Lydian. You would also look to these scales for the available extensions to these chords. These two chords temporarily change the tonality of the song from G major to G Minor. You can learn more about the theory behind this in my book The Music Theory Manual - Beyond Diatonic Harmony.

You can find the most common voicings used by John Mayer in this song at the bottom of this page.

Aside from the chords used in this piece John Mayer also plays a lot of double stop fills in between chords. These are always either 3rds from the key of G major (bars 1,2,3,4) or 6ths which are inverted 3rds, from G major (bars 30,61,62). These double stop fills are punctuated with G Major Pentatonic licks (end of bar 2 & 4).

If you’re interested in a more through exploration of Double Stop fills you could check out my free lesson on them here.

All of the resources on my website are made for free and they do take considerable time & effort.

If you enjoy this transcription then please do consider donating (no matter how little) as a means of support or you can Buy Me A Coffee here .

 All of the resources on my website are made for free and they do take considerable time & effort.

If you’ve enjoyed this lesson then please do consider donating (no matter how little) as a means of support or you can Buy Me A Coffee here .

Alternatively you could buy my comprehensive yet very reasonably priced ($6.99) books on the CAGED System, Music Theory for Guitar and/or THE MUSIC THEORY MANUAL: BEYOND DIATONIC HARMONY via these links or in my Store at the top of this page where you can also read previews of all 3 books.

Thanks! James.