Six String Fingerpicking Courses and Lessons

Dear Marie by John Mayer Guitar Lesson and TAB

John Mayer

SONG DETAILS

DIFFICULTY:

5

TUNING:

Standard

KEY:

A major

Dear Marie was written by American singer-songwriter John Mayer and the song appears on his 2013 album Paradise Valley. In this lesson we’re going to be learning how to play it on guitar in full.

If you’ve previously learnt other songs of Mayer’s such as Stop This Train or Who Says, then you’ll be familiar with the tricky technique of playing a note with the back of the nail whilst simultaneously adding a percussive tap with the thumb. This difficult but great technique is also used throughout Dear Marie.

Having said that, this song is actually one of John Mayer’s easier songs to play (providing you’ve mastered the picking technique). There’s only four very simple chords used in the entire song and it follows a very straightforward progression. This can be a welcome change if you’ve been struggling with some of his earlier, really quite advanced pieces.

Let’s get on with learning how to play Dear Marie!

Learn To Play Dear Marie

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How to Play the Intro & Verse of Dear Marie

In this video lesson we learn how to play the intro and verse of Dear Marie. The intro is just an A major/Asus2 chord gripped at the 5th fret. It’s important to play this chord by fretting the low E string with your thumb, otherwise you’ll likely struggle to play the Asus2 chord.

The verse follows a simple I IV V chord progression. Thankfully, once you’ve learnt it, it makes up the majority of the song and most of the effort required in learning Dear Marie is done. The verse is repeated 4 times until moving to the outro section.

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How to play the Outro Section of Dear Marie

The outro section of Dear Marie is considerably easier to play than the verse. Here John uses more or less the same chords as before (with the exception of the F#m that’s brought it) with some basic strumming.

One thing that is a little tricky is counting the bars so it’s very important, as it always is, to repeatedly listen to the song as you learn to play it and practice counting along. This will help you learn exactly where each chord lands and you won’t find yourself getting lost.

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