Check out this free lesson from Guitar Control. This time instructor Darrin Goodman demonstrates How to Play Banana Pancakes on Guitar – Jack Johnson Song Lesson. With the step-by-step video instruction and the included free tabs (just click the link) you will be rockin’ this modern classic in record time.
Introduction
Hey how’s it going? This is Darrin from GuitarControl.com bringing you this video lesson. Today I want to show you some riffs from the Jack Johnson song Banana Pancakes. It’s got some cool stuff in there, a lot of seventh chords and minor seventh chords, you know a lot of barre chords. So it’s a good workout for your left hand for working on those barre chords and you know making those barre chord changes. So be sure to click on the link in the description for the tabs and let’s get close-up and take a look at this.
Banana Pancakes Chords
Okay so to start off let’s just take a look at some of the chords that we’re going to be using in this one. The first chord we’re going to use is A minor 7; so for that I’m barring all the way across the fifth fret with my first finger and I’m playing the 7th fret of the fifth string with my third finger. Then we have G7; so we’re just going to go down and barre across the 3rd fret with our first finger and then I’m hitting the 4th fret of the 3rd string with my second finger and the fifth fret of the fifth string with my third finger…
Then we have D7; so now I’m at the fifth fret I’m going to bar across the first five strings, not playing the sixth string on this one, with my first finger and then I’m going to get the seventh fret of the fourth string with my third finger and the seventh fret of the second string with my fourth finger… Then we have C7; so we’re just going to take that shape and move it down a whole step, so now I’m barring the third fret and I’m fretting a the fifth fret of the fourth string with my third finger and fifth fret of the second was my fourth finger. We also have another chord which is C7 suspended two (Csus2) and we just simply remove your fourth finger.
Banana Pancakes Parts
Okay so the intro it has this little melody lick that we’re going to start off with. We start off with a slide from nowhere to the seventh fret of the sixth string with our third finger. So if you don’t know what a slide from nowhere is, in this case I’m just going to start at the third fret, but if you if you pick the third fret and then slide to seven you get… but we don’t want that, we don’t want to hear this note first, so simply all you do is you just pick and slide simultaneously.
Now you could start at the fourth fret or you could start at the second fret or you can start at the fifth fret, it doesn’t really matter, I just like to start at the third fret because it just kind of gives me a reference point for everything. So we’re going to slide up to the 7th fret with our third finger and then go to the fifth fret of the fifth string with our first finger and then back to the seventh. So then to the fifth fret of the sixth string with your first finger and slide to three and then the sixth string open and then another slide from nowhere to the fifth fret.
This time I use my first finger because I’m going to follow that with that A minor seventh, but before you strum the Am7, it’s got this percussive sound, I simply slide up to the fifth fret and rest my finger, I’m not pressing down on the strings, I’m just touching them so that way when I hit it I get that percussive sound; so that accounts for the first two measures.
So now we start off with the same little melody, we do a slide from nowhere to the seventh fret again of the sixth string, to the fifth fret of the fifth string, back to the 7th fret of the sixth string, to the fifth fret of the sixth string and then this time we’re just going to hit the third fret muted and now we’re going to do the G7. So those four measures together… So moving on from there the little riff has a slight variation.
Now we do a slide from nowhere again to the seventh fret on the sixth string and then to the fifth fret of the fifth string and then to the seventh fret on the fifth string with our third finger, back to the fifth fret and then back to the seventh fret of the sixth string, to the open sixth string, to the fifth fret of the sixth string and the muted Am7… Then the same little riff we did at the beginning of measure 2 again and then you strum the G7 and then a mute and then the G7 again and then D7 twice with a rest in between. So that’s the whole intro and then that leads us into the verse.
Now with the verse, when you listen to the original song at this point this is where the bass guitar comes in and the bass guitar plays little pick up notes before the chords are played because the guitar is just hitting the chords. But if you just play it like that without the bass guitar there it sounds a little empty and it’s kind of hard to keep the rhythm going.
So if you’re not playing with a bass player a simple way you can account for this is just to play the root note before you play the chord so that way it gives you those little pickup notes. So there’s a rest between the chords; so G7, A7, Am7 and C7 and in this case we’re just going to hit the C and then hit C7; so and that’s two measures and it repeats three times. So on the first two measures of the verse it repeats three times then it goes back to the G7, to the D7, and to the Am7. Then it has this little riff; so you have a slide from nowhere to the seventh fret of the fifth string and then to the fifth fret of the fourth string to the 7th fret of the fourth string and then back to the seventh fret. So this little riff is kind of what ties the verse into the chorus. Then it goes to Am7 and then a mute…
Now we’re going to do the little the little riff from the intro; so we have the slide from nowhere to seven on the sixth string to the fifth fret of the A string back to the seventh fret of the sixth string to the fifth fret of the sixth string slide two, three, open back two, three and then G7. So a strum of the chord, a mute, strum, strum, mute, strum and then to that same riff again. This time it slides back to five; so now we do Am7 with the same rhythm that we just did for the for the G7 riff again to G7 and then the D7 thing again just like we did on the intro and then from there it would just go into another verse which is the same as the verse that you all have already played and then into another chorus which is again the same is which already played and then from there it goes into this little interlude.
Now this interlude starts off with Am7 and we’ve got two strums and a mute and two strums and a mute, two strums and a mute, two strums and a mute and then to a G7 and then from there it goes into the bridge section. So we go back to Am7 with that same rhythm and we’re using a D barre chord. So it’s just like the D7 but instead of doing this with your 3rd and 4th finger you’re going to take your third finger and lay it across the first five strings and then your third finger is barring across the 7th fret of strings 4, 3 & 2, same rhythm, and then it repeats.
Then from there it goes to B minor; so we’re going to go down to the second fret and barre your first finger all the way across the first five strings and then the third fret of the second string with your second finger, fourth fret of the fourth string with your third finger and fourth fret of the third string with your fourth finger, same rhythm, and then to an E minor. So our first finger is barring across the seventh fret and then your second fingers on the eighth fret and your third and fourth finger on the ninth fret and this is only one measure. Then from there it goes into a another set of verses, the same thing that that you played before and then from there it goes into another chorus, same thing that you that you played before and then from there it goes into the outro. So for this we start with Am7 and it’s that same rhythm that we did in the bridge section.
Conclusion
So those are the parts for banana pancakes by Jack Johnson. I hope you enjoyed that and you got something out of it. If you like this video be sure to subscribe to the channel and leave me a comment down below and until next time…
