John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland" in Drop D Tuning

In this lesson, we'll learn how to play the great John Mayer song Your Body is a Wonderland on the electric guitar. This one is in Drop D tuning, so you have to tune your low E string down one semitone to a D. You can use string 4 as a guide.

💡Still afraid of Altered Tunings? No need to be! Learn Altered Tuning Basics and easily and safely retune your guitar.

The basic guitar parts to play Your Body is a Wonderland are fairly easy, but I’m still finding it tricky to sing at the same time!

Your Body Is A Wonderland: Chorus & Verses

We start playing an F chord as an A Shape Barre Chord using fingers 1 and 3. That’s X 8 10 10 10 X. The rhythm repeats throughout the chorus and verse. On beat 1, we play the bass note (string 5) with the thumb. On the “and” after 1, we play the chord notes with fingers 2, 3, and 4. Then on beat 2, we do a little percussive hit, followed by the bass note again on the “and” after 2. That’s 1 (bass) + (chord) 2 (hit) + (bass).

On beat 3, we move finger 2 to fret 10 of string 6, keeping finger 3 in place (10 X 10 10 10 X). We play the same pattern, changing the bass note.

This is an F/C chord. In standard tuning, fret 10 of string 6 is the note D, but remember we’ve tuned this string down one tone, so the note at fret 10 is now C.

And on the next bar, we play fret 8 of string 6 with the first finger, keeping finger 3 in place (8 X 10 10 10 X). Do you know what this chord is called? It’s really similar to the previous one! This one is an F/Bb – all we’ve changed is the bass note, which is a tone lower than before. On the next bar, we move back to F/C and play the same pattern.

So we have F, F/C, F/Bb, and F/C, playing each for half a bar.

👌 Before singing along, play this nice and slowly, making sure it’s flowy and easy. You want the guitar part to be automatic. Once you can distract yourself a little bit, start adding in the vocal. Check my 10 steps for singing and playing at the same time to learn more!

Your Body is a Wonderland: Pre-Chorus

The pre-chorus has eight bars and is a little different from the verse and chorus. Let’s have a look! We start with our first finger barring all the strings on fret 8. Fingers 3 and 4 go down on strings 2 and 3 of fret 10, giving us 8 8 8 10 10 8.

The pattern here is a little different. Watch out! On the first chord, we play: 1 (bass), + (chord), 2 (hit).

Then on the “and” after 2, we take off our little finger and play 8 8 8 10 8 8, with the bass at the same time. We leave beat 3 silent, then play chord tones on the “and” after 3, and a hit on beat 4. That’s 1 (bass) + (chord) 2 (hit) + (new chord with bass) 3 (silent) + (chord) 4 (hit).

💡Unveil your fretboard. Learn Music Theory and go further!

On the next bar, we repeat this again, with one little difference. The bass note is now at fret 10 of string 6, and we use finger 2 to play it (10 8 8 10 10 8). We repeat this two-bar pattern three times, for six bars in total! If you want to be a super pro, you can play the bass note again on the “and” after 4. You can hear this on the original track.

The next two bars use the chords Gm (5X533X), Am (7X755X), Bb (8X876X), and C (10 X 10 9 8 X). Notice that we use the same shape for both the minor chords, playing the bass note with finger 3, the note below it using finger 4, and a 1st-finger barre two frets back. We keep fingers 3 and 4 in place for the majors, using 1 and 2 for the other notes.

We play each for half a bar, in the order shown. The pattern for this is 1 (bass) + (chord) 2 (hit) + (chord). And that’s the pre-chorus!

Your Body is a Wonderland: Solo Section

John goes crazy with this Dm section when he plays it live! We’ll explore the octave part. Throughout, play string 6 and string 5. You'll hear the interesting drone effect.

This uses one octave shape throughout. Finger 1 plays a note on string 3 or 4, and the pinkie plays the octave of that note. We always place the little finger two strings down and three frets higher than finger 1, so I’ll only mention the position of finger 1. I suggest you watch this video or listen the original to get the rhythm.

💡Octave Technique – Learn to play octaves like a pro with my Octave Shapes lesson.

Make sure all the other strings are muted. You should be able to play them all but only hear the two octave notes. For the first octave, finger 1 plays fret 10 on string 3. Then it plays fret 10 on string 4, then we stay on string 4, playing frets 7, 5, then 3. You should hear the characteristic octave sound throughout. Make sure to keep the pinkie two strings down and three frets higher!

We then slide the shape from fret 3 up to fret 5, then from 7 to 5. At the end of the sequence, we play the octave shape starting with finger 1 on fret 7 of string 3, then fret 9 on string 4. At the end of the second repetition, we play string 3 at fret 12, then string 3 at fret 9. Again, listen to the original and use these shapes as a guide.

Your Body is a Wonderland: Extra Lead Guitar Part

If you have a looper or a jam buddy, you can try this extra lead guitar part over the verse riffs. It uses a little barre with finger 1 on fret 10 at strings 2 and 3, then we hammer on to frets 12 and 11 with fingers 2 and 3 and slide up two frets. Again, listen to this video or the original for the rhythm.

So, that’s Your Body is a Wonderland by John Mayer! This is a great song for exploring Drop D Tuning along with lead guitar and cool rhythm guitar. Master the guitar part before you try singing it!

🎵 Learn more songs! Use Artists, Difficulty, Chords, and other filters to choose from over 700 free song lessons. :)