Difficulty: Easy
This is a fun and easy song to play, but only if you are familiar with a couple of common barre chord forms. It’s great for jamming with the band or just playing on your own. I know there’s a lot of you RHCP fans out there, so download it and play it today.
What The Main Riff Sounds Like…
Here’s what the guitar part sounds like with guitar and bass:
Now let’s take a look at the tab…
Dani California Tab For The Main Riff
Those x’s means the note is muted.
Here’s the guitar part without the bass guitar playing:
How To Play It
The basic chord progression alternates between Am, G. Open chords are not used to play them. Instead we’ll use an Em shape barre chord on the 5th fret of the low E and an E shape barre chord on the 3rd fret. These are fairly common barre chord. If you can’t already play them then you’re going to have a little trouble playing this riff. Spend extra time working on these barre chord forms before you tackle this riff.
Instead of simply strumming through the chord progression we’ll fragment the chord up. We’ll do this by beginning each chord change by playing only the root note twice with mutes added in, then we’ll strum out the rest of the chord. It should be easy once you get hang of the rhythm. Play along with the audio sample above to practice. When you’re ready you can practice it over just the bass guitar and drums with the audio track below:
Ready To Download The Complete Dani California Tab?
Here’s the complete transcription in PDF and Power Tab formats:
Complete Transcription To “Dani California” (PDF)
Complete Transcription To “Dani California” (Power Tab)
Complete Video Tutorial
Are you a visual learner. Here’s an in-depth video tutorial on how to play the Dani California tab: