Learn to play Edge of Desire by John Mayer on JustinGuitar!
View the full lesson at Edge of Desire by John Mayer | JustinGuitar
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Hi, maybe a silly question. But in the beginning of the song Justin counts 6/8 and in the chorus 4/4. Are the verses 4/4 with a triplet feel or is there a time change. I keep counting it and it is very confusing. Thanks
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Hello @IPlayForMyself and welcome to the community.
That is wholly not a silly question.
There are no silly questions.
Even if there were, yours isn’t one.
There’s a whole world of confusion to unravel there for sure.
Justin precedes talk of the solo by explaining that the same 6/8 picked note pattern continues.
He then shows the underlying chords.
From about 12:35 in the video lesson Justin very clearly counts 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 (twice) while playing each chord just once.
My take on this …
6/8 has accented counting on the 1 and the 4:
1 2 3 4 5 6
Two bars of 6/8 has that repeated:
|| 1 2 3 4 5 6 || 1 2 3 4 5 6 ||
Across those two bars Justin begins playing an accented Downstrum on the 1 and the 4 each time. He could (perhaps should) have counted it exactly as:
1 _ _ 4 _ _ 1 _ _ 4 _ _
with whispered counts on the 2, 3, 5 and 6.
Instead of that he counts:
1 _ _ 2 _ _ 3 _ _ 4 _ _
with some slight brushing of the strings Up or Down in other places.
This section could perhaps more easily be seen / written / spoken about as not being in 6/8 but being in 12/8.
|| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ||
Now the accented beats are 1, 4, 7 and 10.
To make for easier counting (try counting to 12 out loud constantly while you play haha) a simplification is to eliminate unnecessary bits and see this 12/8 sequence as comprising 4 main sections, each beginning with the number in bold.
||1 2 3 || 4 5 6 || 7 8 9 || 10 11 12 ||
And then to make it easier to speak the counting out loud, drop the non-accented beats, only say the accented beats - but instead of calling them 1, 4, 7 and 10, substituting the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.
This means it may sound like a move away from 6/8 (or even 12/8) but it is not. It is simply a way of continuing with the exact same feel and pulse but an easier means of communicating where the stronger parts of the rhythm sit.
||1 _ _ || 2 _ _ || 3 _ _ || 4 _ _ ||
I hope that helps.
Cheers 
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide, Approved Teacher & Moderator
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This is just my poor teaching 
I’ should have stayed in 6:8 but instead I’m moving to a 4:4 with a triplet feel (12:8).
My only excuse is that counting in 6:8 is a lot harder and was easier to count it in 4, but great question and I can but apologize!!
J
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Holy Moly, thanks @Richard_close2u for the VERY extensive explanation. Just goes to show that paying attention when watching helps.
And secondly, an immediate reply from @JustinGuitar! Thank you so much for the explanation. No poor teaching anywhere near and no apology needed! Thank you so much for many years of enlightening my slow but steady guitar journey and to many more years to come. From the bottom of my heart, THANKS!
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Here’s the live solo acoustic version for anyone learning this on acoustic guitar. it’s fab
Bit of encouragement for everyone tackling this song:
I’m practicing the main intro/ verse riff ten minutes a day- not longer- well, not much longer 
and doing it with Justin’s lesson each time as a refresher. The little and often approach is helping me get to grips with so much faster , better and more musically than going at it like a dog with a bone.
A thicker pick makes the bouncy, slight palm mute of the intro verse riff sound much richer. I’m trying it with a 1.5mm at the moment