John Mayer "Teaches" Music Theory

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:02]Hey, this is Cameron and welcome to the practice vlog. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, coming to you live from my mom's basement. I'm done with school now.

[00:00:11]I'm a school boy. Did you know that?

[00:00:12]Today's my first real day off, so I figure what better way to unwind than with some Takis, some diet American dew.

[00:00:19]That's I tried to get Mountain Dew, but they'd only sell me American de. Look at that. And we watch a little bit of John Mayer videos. I was going to make a video on like anything else at all, but then I saw that I had a playlist called Johnny with three videos in them and they seem pretty amazing. I've actually already looked at one of them. Uh John Mayer teaches the pentatonic equator video. Let's actually take a look at my video that I did of that just to get some sentiments on how people felt about that. Sorry guys, I got uh got taki dust all over my fingers. I'm not really explaining it either. Yeah, I won't be explaining anything in this video either. Top comment. I love these videos because it makes me realize how jealous I look when I hate on other musicians.

[00:00:53]Hey man, I don't mean to make you feel insecure sitting on up here in my ivory tower speaking the truth about what makes music good and what the best genre of music is ever. Which by the way, let me go ahead and introduce myself. I am a classical guitarist here on YouTube. And what does it mean to be a classical guitarist? It means you got to fuel up like a classical guitarist. That's what it means. Hey, listen. What's funny about John Mayer? These are my actual criticisms. First off, he went to the Berkeley School of Music, which as far as music schools go, it gets made fun of a lot because it's extremely expensive.

[00:01:21]And as far as I can tell, it seems like they mostly focus on pop music. They're trying to make more like Nashville recording people or whatever. And it's just very different from what we'd expect from a normal music school where it's like a conservatory. You're not really learning like industry techniques so much as you're learning how to like play your instrument well, which like there's something to be said about that, but um at least in my experience, I know for a fact that it would have been impossible to get my classical education from just like anywhere. The universities have super helped me. And in fact, that's why I spend uh a lot of my money on a master's degree. I just finished this uh semester, so I'm on summer break now. Can you tell? Woo. And I think the main joke with Berkeley is that you pay however much it costs.

[00:01:58]Yeah. You know, like 50,000 a year. I don't know if that's that that's probably out of state tuition, I'd imagine. God. And they have Berkeley online. They offer lower tuition rates for Berkeley online. I hope so. You're basically just watching YouTube videos at that point. That's free. Sorry, I don't mean to Goodwill hunting you. You know, you can get that education with a library card. But I feel like it is kind of true when it comes to like learning audio stuff. I don't know. I'm always going to say that learning how to play the style of music is going to be harder than learning how to record other people playing the style of music is my point.

[00:02:26]John Mayer is funny because he invokes music theory often. And really what he means is just like learning shapes on the guitar neck, which isn't really music theory. It's like you could call it maybe guitar theory or something like that. But basically what I'm trying to say to kind of give some context to this video is that I have an elitist point of view and John Mayer is super successful and rich making actual music and not just talking about it. So that is the sore hands John Mayer dichotomy. And I hope that that's illustrated with my stained Walgreens shirt and my disgusting talkie fingers. Hey, that being said, let's go ahead and watch John Mayer talk about music theory, whatever that's supposed to mean. God, it feels good to be out of school. Hope we're not going to learn anything here.

[00:03:05]We're not. Do you think that you're I'm not a school musician. I'm a completely ear guide. I can't read. I can't write.

[00:03:10]Never even I can't read or write period almost.

[00:03:13]>> Hey, I'm kind of the opposite of that. I can only read and practice the same stuff over and over again.

[00:03:17]>> Would you really think it has helped you? I mean, you're such a great guitar player and you can play any kind of music.

[00:03:22]>> Any kind of music? I don't think so, buddy. There's one kind of music that would elude John Mayer. I'd like to see your fugue, John Mayer. Let's hear it. I want to see that electric guitar thumb over the fretboard technique. Execute four voices at once, sucker.

[00:03:35]>> The Berkeley School of Music. Is that necessary for someone? Would you recommend it?

[00:03:39]>> Uh, is John Mayer reading music that often? As far as I know, he's like a blues guitarist. You're not really reading much music. You're kind of just making it up, right? So, forgive me if I'm wrong.

[00:03:49]>> It's funny. People ask me, they say, "I'm Should I go to Berkeley next year?

[00:03:53]Should I not go to Berkeley next year?"

[00:03:54]And I go, "It's what you make of it."

[00:03:55]Now, I, for the record, can't read or write music myself.

[00:03:58]>> Yeah. There we go. Also, John Merritt didn't even graduate from Berkeley because he's that talented and he got to drop out. So, maybe that's a sign. Maybe go for one year and then if nothing pans out after a year, uh, just like drop out anyways. You don't want to be somebody who actually graduates from Berkeley.

[00:04:13]That is a terrible fate. And now, just to answer that guy's question, like just looking at my own schooling, would I recommend going to school and has it changed my guitar playing? of course, because I don't play what I used to play anymore, cuz I used to be a pretty strictly rock and metal guitarist before school. But I was also a rock and metal guitarist that didn't really have much direction and how to actually get better. I just kind of was as good as I was and I could shred and play stuff and I could write music and stuff, but there was no clear trajectory in my guitar playing, which is something that I really missed. Like I kind of felt like I was just as good as I was going to get. And then going into classical guitar, you just start brand new. And then even to this day, like today I worked on technique for like 45 minutes or so. There's always stuff to work on and it's just never boring. So I feel like it's a fun pursuit for that. And then I also hear the comments when I say that and you guys are like, "Oh, but nobody actually wants to hear your classical guitar playing cuz it's lame."

[00:05:03]Nobody wants to hear your guitar playing either. Like that's sort of something you have to deal with. People want to hear John Mayer. They don't want to hear me. They don't want to hear you. You're going to have to get over that fact. So what you want in your playing ideally is continued progress so you can feel good about that. But yeah, no, there's a reason why John Mayer dropped out so early. He's one of those few lucky people that people actually want to hear. Uh it's for many reasons. His guitar playing, his silky smooth voice, his songwriting abilities. He's got it.

[00:05:31]He's handsome, too. He's a handsome freaking guy. This image isn't like his most handsome shot, but you've seen him before. He's a handsome dude. He's got it all. And we don't. We are scum. We're nerds, too. He's also not a nerd. or write music myself, but I understand a bit of theory, but ultimately like I was always my own kind of theorist, you know. I think if you listen to a song, if you play a chord on a song on a guitar and you go that sounds like that chord from that song, you're already starting to teach yourself, you So I was pretty self-taught somewhere in between um kind of my own weird theory and also knowing I think if you're a songwriter or a guitar player if you just know the sort of the soulfetch like the dome and intervals and stuff like that and then make enough mistakes and figure out they're like the guitar neck's like um like neighborhoods you know you know this like you're like >> yeah dude sure whatever just anything so yeah he uh he he is his own theorist clearly and what I think that might sort of relate too is if you're learning a language for example like I speak English this is the only language that I could speak and I speak a very particular kind of English I speak like whatever my dialect is and I have my vocabulary that I use and I have these phrases and stuff that I use all the time there's no theory or understanding really that goes on like it's just my personal feelings that go through this algorithm that is just the language that I know that I've learned up to this point and then it just spits out and I don't really have much control over what words fall into place they just represent my feelings, which is fine.

[00:06:59]That's good for speaking exactly how I speak. But if I want to be really methodical about it and keep expanding my vocabulary and like maybe even have different dialects, like maybe I have like a more fancy sounding English versus a more like uh less fancy English. I can't really switch naturally between those, right? You'd probably want to learn like grammar and like the theory equivalent of whatever language you're trying to learn. And that's how I feel like my guitar journey was at first. Like I learned how to speak on the guitar. I played like that for seven years or so and I just kind of played how I played. But there was no clear improvement trajectory. And with school and in studying classical guitar, it's like I'm constantly learning new stuff.

[00:07:36]And I'm also learning different styles of music, too. Like I'm playing Bach and like playing Spanish music and learning about them. And uh learning how to play each one. Like not even just playing the notes themselves, but how exactly the notes should be played on top of that, which is a different thing. You don't play German Baroque music the same way you play Spanish music. You know, you just don't. They're different. Sorry. I don't I feel like I'm getting a little serious. This is supposed to be like a joke stupid video. So, I don't know.

[00:07:58]Like, if you're going to spend money on education and schooling, make sure you're learning something that has a really high ceiling. I know for sure that classical guitar has a super high ceiling cuz I see David Russell and these other masters playing. And I know that I'm nowhere near that. There's a lot of stuff to do before then. You know, that might be a good gauge. If you're playing similarly to your idols, time to branch off to a new style of music or something. I don't know. The three school guys that I've I've played with you, Eddie Van Halen, and Joe Sar.

[00:08:25]My three >> dude, those are the school guys. John Mayer literally just said I went to school. I don't really know anything though. I just kind of can play guitar and I make it up as I go. Also, this guy played with Eddie Van Halen. What?

[00:08:36]playing with you guys is always you just seem to be one notch above when you have some kind of a schooling are able to understand music a little deeper than than the guys that the blues guys that I came from and we just jam and but you know you say hey you know go to that you know chord and they go uh what chord is that you know to where you you know I just think it's valuable for young kids that probably look up to you >> you know that is like I'm I'm making fun and all that excellent point that is important for people to know music school is something that's dogged on cuz like I was just dogged on Berkeley right you do leave Berkeley with something.

[00:09:07]I've met Berkeley players before, too, and I've just seen them jamming on like a an electric guitar that's not even plugged in. And I hear them, I'm like, "That's some solid, like fast, technical sounding whatever it is kind of music you're playing. That is like technically very good, which no matter what, that's not going to hold you back." And they learn that in school. Like the main criticism with Berkeley, as far as I can tell, is just that it's expensive and you can probably get the same education somewhere else. I feel like even overspending on an education, it probably still is worth it to some degree, though. I'm not saying to spend a4 million dollars on Berkeley, but education is important, just like this guy is saying. Completely agree with that.

[00:09:41]>> Yeah.

[00:09:41]>> So, for me, when I first started playing guitar, everything was not about knowing it to know it. It was about knowing it so you could play more on the guitar.

[00:09:49]So, I was never into the race of how much you knew. I still can't have conversation about theory.

[00:09:54]>> Conversations about theory are always weird. That's like the equivalent of the jazz cutting session where you're just seeing how good everybody is when you can just get a bunch of classical nerds just trying to talk about counterpoint with each other.

[00:10:03]>> Dude, that mixelyian thing over that chord. I go that's a mistake. You know what I mean? You go that's >> that's what Joe does to me.

[00:10:10]>> You go that's a and they go yeah cuz they love they go like that's out. You go that's wrong.

[00:10:14]>> That's how I am. I'm like that's wrong.

[00:10:16]Can't do that when you're playing box.

[00:10:18]Like ooh that's out. No it's not in the score.

[00:10:21]>> Creativity and schooling are two different things. I I I really believe that. You know, you can create you can be a an educated idiot. That's me.

[00:10:27]>> And you can be a, you know, >> a savant sort of street guy, right? And be a genius.

[00:10:32]>> Yeah. You know, uh, I came in trying to make fun of it. I agree with like basically everything being said there.

[00:10:37]And what you have to learn to play classical is so different from what John Mayer has to learn to play whatever it is he plays. It's really uncomparable.

[00:10:44]But I think the biggest thing to take away from that is that learning is good.

[00:10:48]And it is the single greatest thing, at least for me, that has improved my playing. Because uh it's funny probably also being a teenager but when I was a teenager I could shred and I thought I was amazing and looking back on myself it's like you knew nothing dude like you didn't know anything and now I'm just thankful to be in a place where I sit down to practice and I actually have stuff to practice. So yeah I don't know I'm I'm trying to make jokes right now.

[00:11:10]Hey uh John Mayer teaches guitar learn why.

[00:11:13]>> So whatever you learn is the tip of the iceberg. dive underwater and find the rest of the iceberg and you can rip me off in more fundamental ways. And I mean this, you know, rip rip me off there.

[00:11:29]Rip me off by I don't know if we can call that ripping off John Mayer. Can we? Hey, rip me off.

[00:11:40]I invented whatever this is. The blues strummed in eighth notes or whatever.

[00:11:45]And actually, I think basically what he's saying here is don't just learn other people's songs, but understand how the songs came to be so you can then write your own songs. Which is funny because probably from his perspective, he looks at what I do, which is like learning Bach and stuff. And it's like, you're not planning on writing Bach. So, what are you even doing? You're just playing it verbatim like some nerd. So, you can see how this can go in circles.

[00:12:06]This is a stupid conversation. But, I hope we're having fun. At the very least, I bet this reminded you to play some guitar today and eat some hawks.

[00:12:17]use a different part of that scale, but learn the rest of it. Then you can always play with that vocabulary. So everything you learn, learn why, and then reverse engineer it and do it every time you want.

[00:12:28]>> Reverse engineer it, dude. I thought we were doing music. All right. How do we do that, John?

[00:12:31]>> Lick. I learned what the root was.

[00:12:33]What's the root? You could put the lick in any key.

[00:12:35]>> Well, that's good to know. When you learn a lick, a lick is not just random notes on the guitar. It is of a scale and it has a root maybe. Okay. I mean that's good to know.

[00:12:46]>> So is is BB King spot number one.

[00:12:57]Well that's G, but it looks like C.

[00:12:59]Well, now you know. Every time you want to play that lick in G, it's right around the C position, which makes sense as to why theoretically, but don't have to worry about it. You'll start developing your own theory if you do that. just been saying that a lot. You develop your own theory. It sounds like a very byro wrote sort of theory that you're coming up with. Again, I I do think that like how I speak English is probably very similar to that. As long as you're able to keep developing it, I'm sure it's fine. But having that formal education to relate it back to it really gives you a much more clear framework than just poking around. Other than just learning more words to say in English, it would be really hard for me to like actually improve my English abilities. like the kind of sentences I can make, I I just have what I have, you know, like I I would need to learn grammar and have that foundation and like the rules laid out systematically to make like something way more complicated. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is this is cool. It's limited though. I feel like you'll get like you you'll get to the end of this pretty quickly. Or maybe not. I don't know.

[00:13:56]These are questions to ask yourself though whenever you're working on anything. Is this a lifelong journey?

[00:14:00]And not that everything needs to be a lifelong pursuit, but at least know that it's not. So you're not surprised after a year when you haven't like made any progress.

[00:14:08]>> Need to learn music theory because you will be teaching yourself a really relative understanding of the guitar. So I know this is G pentatonic.

[00:14:19]>> Oh, okay. I thought that was just a G. I was like, I don't know that G.

[00:14:23]>> That that's these little extensions.

[00:14:28]I know that this is G.

[00:14:31]almost played a little something else there for a second, but that's all right. I'll forgive it.

[00:14:40]>> And that if you want to do it pentatonic, so if you weren't experienced, it would be hard to know exactly what he's doing here. I'll try to walk through it. He's talking about learning pentatonic scales across the entire fretboard. That's not really music theory. That's just again learning shapes on the guitar because the the theory aspect of the G pentatonic scale is just the five notes that make up the G pentatonic. Learning how to play it on the guitar, that's just guitar stuff. You just have to do that. You have to learn how to play your instrument. So, do know how to do that.

[00:15:09]That's one of those things that I'm really grateful for uh doing in my teenage years cuz I I did I wasted a lot of time as a teenager. But one thing that I did with that was really good was that I really drilled the dietonic and pentatonic. Oh, I got to reach my pocket with my talkie fingers. So, do do that no matter what music you're trying to learn because that's just knowing how to play the guitar, which we all want to know how to play guitar. What else is he doing?

[00:15:29]>> I know that this is G.

[00:15:32]This is G.

[00:15:37]>> Yeah. Know how to play all inversions of all triads across the neck, of course.

[00:15:41]Also know all the notes on the guitar.

[00:15:46]And he's playing like thirds, like it sounded like broken up chords like in the G major scale. And that's all with just learning the diietonic scales thoroughly. Know how to play all those notes and thirds but pentatonic.

[00:16:05]And now he's just playing that same pentatonic scale in different places which you get from learning it in all the positions on the guitar which that's just something you have to do if you're going to play guitar. If you can't have a scale name called out and you can't play it everywhere on the guitar that's the first thing you should do. I don't care what genre it is you're playing.

[00:16:22]You should be able to do that. If you're trying to learn Bach and you can't do that, like, what are you even doing at that point? Like, you need to know how to do that. And same thing with triads and all inversions. You have to know how to play those across the neck. Those are just basic fundamentals that will make music so much easier for you. And you can spend the next couple of months just drilling that stuff and you will be happy that you did for the rest of your life.

[00:16:43]>> Really, the boring theory stuff.

[00:16:45]>> It's not boring. I like that part.

[00:16:47]knowing where to grab stuff when you're playing. They're like skateboard tricks.

[00:16:50]>> Hey, fellow kids. They're like skateboard tricks. They're like Fortnite skins, you know? You grab the ones that you want to use and then uh you get winner winner chicken dinner. 67 67. All right.

[00:17:01]>> That's not like playing with a metronome or learning Ionian mode, which I don't >> That's a hard one. That's Ionian's tough. Did you say he doesn't know that?

[00:17:09]>> Metronome or learning Ionian mode, which I don't know what that is.

[00:17:14]>> Yeah, you do. What are you t What are you saying? All right. So, he's a liar.

[00:17:17]He just lied to us. He doesn't know what the Ionian mode is. That's the mode that's just identical with the major scale. There are differences between Ionian and the major scale. Of course, we've talked about this a lot cuz Ionian is just a mode. And a major scale is a little more than that. It's more of this idea that's sort of condensed down into scale form. At least that's how I view the major scale. The major scale is more than just a scale. It's a tonic and dominant harmony. And the scale just kind of represents both of those harmonies, which >> I don't know what that is. I know what it sounds like probably, but I don't know.

[00:17:48]>> That is like such BS. That's the lie of the ear right there. John Mayer doesn't know what the Ionian mode is. Get the flip out of here, dog.

[00:17:56]>> Sorry, I'm editing on the treadmill. I'm taking a little break just to talk to you for a second. He said he doesn't know what the Ionian the Ionian mode, how he said it. But he said he probably knows what it sounds like. And I called him out on that because I don't believe that he doesn't know what the Ionian mode is. If he had a weapon to him and he was asked to play a G Ionian scale, I would bet my life in fact that he would know how to do it because he's John Mayer. He went to Berkeley for at least some time. He did take classes in music and he's a prominent blues musician, which blues like we make fun of it. It's not the least technical kind of music ever. You do need to know things to play it. And I feel like it's just an example of like a famous person who is famous for a technical pursuit that a lot of people also want to know how to do. And people watching his videos are looking for answers. And with him saying that, which again I think is a lie. It's a straightup lie. I believe that he is letting everyone looking for answers know that to play like John Mayer, to play like me, you don't need to know what the Ionian mode is, which is sort of the opposite of what the first guy was saying where he's like, I play with these educated guitarists and they're always a cut above. They know the mode to play or the scale or whatever. So, I just feel like like I know this is weird coming from the ego king himself, but I feel like it's just John Mayer ego trying to show that it's not his knowledge or his connection to like being able to obtain knowledge, like having access to go to music school, for example. It's not that. That's not why he's famous. He's famous for this magical thinking that he came up with that no matter what position he was ever put in, he would have come up with it because it's in his own head and it only exists there. And that's his formula for fame and wealth. And it's just a little dishonest and a little disconnected.

[00:19:24]Knowing stuff and then claiming not to know stuff is just a way for people who have already made it to just seem like their fame is just an innate part of who they are and to make them seem cool.

[00:19:33]It's like if you were to ask a composer who's like obviously he has like a doctorate in composition and you ask them like how do they write film scores and they're just like oh I go outside every day and I listen to the birds chirp and I listen to the rhythms and and the harmonies of the bird whistles and how could anyone not learn music from just being in nature like this.

[00:19:49]Yeah, that's cool. I can see how your music education makes you think musically about birds chirping. But you didn't learn music theory and like how to compose that way. That is just dishonest and you're just saying that to make yourself look cool. And for anybody searching for answers, they're going to be steered wrong. Especially if they really don't know anything and they're like looking to you for something. And guess what? A lot of people who don't know anything look to John Mayer. Ask any like first year guitarist who their favorite guitarist is. It's John Mayer.

[00:20:16]Second year and third year it's going to be Tim Henson. Whatever. So you're just encouraging people to not know what scales are, which is stupid. I think that that's stupid. Again, learn as much as you possibly can, and you cannot know how that is going to affect the rest of your life. Again, it's just him trying to seem like he has nothing to prove.

[00:20:32]Like, I don't need to know anything. I'm freaking John Mayer. It's like when you see billionaires wearing street clothes to board meetings and driving up in their F-150. And it's like, you can afford anything. But you're driving a common man's car. It's cuz they got nothing to prove. I don't need the fancy car. Why do I have all this money? I don't know. It's just a part of who I am. I just make money, I guess. I'm John Mayer. I just make music. I don't have to know anything at all, and I just make the best music ever, and everybody loves it. Anyways, this is a rant from the most jealous man on earth posing in front of my crummy degrees and awards for third place, by the way. God, what a freaking loser. I'm just jealous. I know. I'm just jealous. My point is is that he knows what the Ionian mode is.

[00:21:08]Why you lie about it? I told you why I think he lied about it. All right. Hey, well, that was that one. I hope this wasn't too off-putting for you to where you couldn't watch the video. You know, I don't really know what this video is trying to be. I just wanted to watch John Mayer a little bit cuz I saw that it made a playlist of him. And I hope you guys enjoyed that. And I hope this also reminded you to learn your fundamentals, learn your scales and arpeggios. And you know what? I'm actually talking to you classical folks cuz you guys don't learn that stuff sometimes. And I don't care how you learn it. There's a bunch of different ways to do it. You can learn it through the siggoia scales, which is more like how orchestral instruments will learn those fundamentals. You can learn it through like you should learn siggoia scales, but you can also learn it through learning the scale positions on the guitar. There's five of them. You can do it through like the cage system.

[00:21:48]I don't care how you do it, but you need to know how to play any diietonic scale in any triad anywhere. And ideally, you should look at all the methods to do that cuz they all have gaps in them.

[00:21:57]Like the siggoia scale method, it's good for learning long scales and learning how to shift and stuff, but it leaves a lot of gaps on the fretboard where you're not playing the root on like the 10th position of the sixth string. Like you you wouldn't ever like play there with siggoia scales. And from all the guitarists I've met, I find that classical guitarists neglect that stuff the most. And I think it's because it's easy to just kind of start learning how to read your dots and then you just kind of only do that. And you only learn techniques required for actually playing the music, which is good. You can develop technique from learning music, but I always think it's going to be better to develop technique from just actually trying to develop technique and not having to think about playing music while you're trying to work on your technique, if you know what I'm saying.

[00:22:35]And I'm also talking about like fundamentals, like where things are, not even technique per se, but that too, developing fundamentals. You'll never develop all of your fundamentals from just learning music because music that's that thorough would just be strange to listen to, I imagine. Hey, that's it.

[00:22:49]Like I said, I'm out of school now, so I'm going to be filming a whole lot more. I already got some good practice in today. I don't have anything else to do today. So, I'm just going to edit this video. I'm going to finish my Takis and oh, recital class starting next weekend, the 17th, I believe, is the day that I said I'm going to be starting that process today, I think, or maybe tomorrow. So, do get your music ready.

[00:23:10]And I'm excited for that. I've been seeing a lot of buzz in the comment section of the last video. So, that's exciting stuff. And with that being said, we go ahead and wrap this one up here. Of course, if you made it this far, be sure to subscribe and leave a like. I'm an elitist douchebag. John Mayer is more talented and handsome than me. And so, I try to make fun of him, but I feel like him and his buddy said some good stuff here, mainly involving education. So, you know, maybe listen to them if you don't want to listen to me.

[00:23:30]Of course, Routin's Delight. Head on down over there if you want some merch.

[00:23:33]Like I said, news on the recital class will be coming out soon. And be sure to pick up some Mountain Dew for the 4th of July. Uh, sponsored by Mountain Dew and Takis and Fortnite. Why not? Sponsored by Fortnite. All right, I'll see you in the next one.