Scroll down for full fingerstyle guitar lesson (with tab/video tutorial) of Going to California by Led Zeppelin.
Going to California was written by Jimmy Page/Robert Plant and appears on Led Zeppelin's album Led Zeppelin IV, released in 1971. The recording of the song has many layers of acoustic guitar, so for this lesson I've stripped it down a bit. I've added in the more recognisable parts and condensed it all down to just one guitar.
Going to California is no. 42 on my Top 60 Fingerpicking Songs of ALL TIME list. If you've not seen the list be sure to check it out and sign up to my weekly email lesson. That way you won't miss learning any of these great fingerstyle songs.
Going to California Song details:
- Key - D major
- Tempo - 78 bpm
- Tuning - double drop D (D, A, D, G, B, D)
- Difficulty - intermediate - advanced
Structure
Intro, verse x2 (minus last 4 bars on the 2nd verse), bridge, verse, outro.
Intro
The intro to Going to California is 4 bars of a static D chord being fingerpicked. Focus on getting your thumb alternating between the E and D strings very accurately, if it's out of sync then everything else will fall apart.
I've included the mandolin lick into the tab here, it's quite hard to play but such a great moment in the song, so I recommend putting the effort in to learn it. Having said that, if it is too hard you can of course take it out and just play another bar of the arpeggiated D chord.
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Verse
There's a lot going on in the verse but essentially you are just playing a G major chord to a D chord. Please don't get too caught up on playing it exactly as the tab says, this is the kind of song that has some room for manoeuvre. Everybody you see plays this song slightly differently, likely because it has so many guitar layers.
Bridge
Probably one of easier the parts to the song here, you're just arpeggiating the chords with a straightforward fingerpicking pattern.
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Outro
You could simply just play the pattern from the intro here to fade, but if you listen carefully to the recording you can hear that there are some very small nuances. I've added them into tab.
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If you have any questions or want to share anything at all, then please leave a comment below.
I hope you've found this lesson useful and thank you for reading.
Hi thanks for the great lessons really enjoying could you please tell what the structure is for this lesson.
Many thanks
Hi Stan, glad you’re enjoying the lessons. I’ve just added the song structure to the top of the lesson.
[…] Going to California by Led Zeppelin (Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson) […]
Hi Chris. Really loving this. Getting that mandolin bit down is a bit tricky. Getting it up to speed. Been doing that bit for a few days,lol. Thanks for the lessons
Hi Paul, glad you’re enjoying it. Yeah that mandolin part is really quite hard – just keep going!
Great stuff! Just got the mandolin part down. (learned from Tony Franklin, bassist for The Firm and now playing with Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience). I used to play Going to California with the A string dropped to G but you get more from just this Double Drop D tuning I think.
Thanks again! You have inspired us!
(by Mandolin part, I meant the actual mandolin througout the song. The guitar part you incuded is awesome and yes indeed adds that special touch. Thanks again!
Thanks again Chris, yeah I think it works great in drop D.
Hey Chris! I finally got it done and am working on the rest of the list as well. You are a godsend my friend. Thank you!
“Outrider V
Published on Jul 29, 2019
Thanks Chris Murrin
(at https://www.sixstringfingerpicking.co…)
for your guitar lessons on this and so much more.
Thanks to my wife and dog for putting up with my Mandolin playing! :D”
Hey Chris, great stuff! Really good, it’s a really tricky one to get down I think. Great job on the mandolin too.