Guitar Styles Of Eric Clapton

1. Guitar Styles Of Eric Clapton • Class II • Covered tonight • Finish Sunshine of Your Love • Review • Start of Solo • Some alternatives • Pentatonic Scales • Boom Boom – from early Yardbirds.

2. Start with the chords. Next page has the main hook!

3. Sunshine of Your Love • From last week. • Have added in a variation. • Listened closely and still feel not a 7th chord, but that being said I did find one reference that suggested that it was. It was an instructional video – listened closely and still feel it is just a major chord. But the 7th chord would work. • Take your time on this – you can work on it over time.

4. CD starts with just melody as shown below – later another method can be used.

5. Here adding the power chords on the 6th could also do 5th string.

6. 3rd way is to do full D and C chords for 1st part.

9. Another alternative is a hammer pull as shown below.

10. 2nd Part

11. A5 C5 G5 A5 C5 G5 A5 C5 G5 A5

12. Solo • We will just do the first part. • Here EC plays Blue Moon as a start. • I have included the whole solo but we don’t have time to do the whole thing as that would take about 3 to 4 full nights. • You might want to pick parts of it out though.

13. Solo – Starts with the song Blue Moon in the first 3 measures. While not as common in Rock as in Jazz this is a technique used by many to start a solo or quote. Listener immediately relates to this. I play it in a lower position and wrote it out in that position as Clapton most likely plays the very first part in 12th position but for many in class this is beyond where their guitar can comfortably be played.

14. 1 2 3 4 & Slide or bend to the 2nd note. Clapton bends to the note. Play with distortion

25. The solo section

27. The solo can be Clapton’s or Yours • I included the Clapton solo but you may want to do your own solo. • If you do your own solo (suggested), then start with the first part of Clapton’s. • He quotes Blue Moon in the opening statement. • This is very common to quote another song in the solo. Jazz particularly does that. • Lastly, use the book to put the form together.

28. Cocaine • Look at the start of this! • Just like Sunshine of Your Love!!!

29. Main Idea is similar to Sunshine of Your Love Note the anticipation of the D chord.

30. Pentatonic Scales 5 basic forms for these. By: F. Markovich These are the scales that EC mainly used in the early years.

31. What is a Pentatonic Scale? • Penta means five. A pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale as it’s simplest definition. • Unlike 7 tone scales which are called diatonic scales (step – wise). Major scales are diatonic scales. Also the modes are diatonic scales. • The black keys on a piano are a pentatonic scale. It is hard to play a bad note using the black keys only on a piano. • Pentatonic scales used properly will produce a consonant line but if over used can be boring. You must go beyond just the scale. Remember to use chord tones also.

32. Uses • Pentatonic scales are used in all forms of music. Even complex music such as jazz will use pentatonic scales. • Blues uses mainly the minor pentatonic but depending upon the player and tune major pentatonic scales are also used. • Major pentatonic scales are used extensively in country music. • Just listen to the sound and identify the scale in songs that you like. • There are really 5 pentatonic scale forms. This makes it easy to use. • They are even used in classical music by composers such as Ravel and Debussy

33. Major Pentatonic Scales • The formula is the 1,2,3,5 and 6 of the major scale. Notice no 4th or 7th degree from the major scale. • For those who have learned the CAGED system these are all based off of the CAGED major scale forms. • There is some suggested fingering but it can vary.

34. Here is the D Major Pentatonic based upon the C Major Form of CAGED. Note in Green is the root.

35. See relationship between D major scale and D major Pentatonic.

36. Here is the C Major Pentatonic scale in the A form.

37. You could also use 1 and 3 as fingering on the 1st 2 strings.

38. This is the G Major Pentatonic scale (E form of the CAGED). Notice how similar to the A form (C Major pentatonic on the last page.

39. Most players use a modified fingering for the Major pentatonic scale as shown below but a fingering of 2 and 4 on the 2nd string and 2 on the 1st string is also common.

40. Compare these 2 the E form and the A form.

41. A Major Pentatonic – G form of the CAGED

43. Notice the G and C forms of the pentatonic scale are very similar. Key is the tuning of the guitar with the 2nd to 3rd strings being a 3rd rather than a 4th appart.

45. One note on this. I find it easier to do the fingering shown on the E Major Pentatonic and it is different than on the E Major Scale. It affords the player to just move one finger out of the position.

46. Go through these until perfect • Practice these every day. • Next we will see the relationships to the minor pentatonic scales. • The 6th degree of a major scale is the relative minor. For example: C major has the relative minor of A minor. C D E F G A

47. Minor Pentatonic Scales • The formula for these is: 1 b3, 4, 5, b7. • Key is to see these as related to the major pentatonic scale. • With the addition on one note they become Blues Scales.

48. Here is the first of the minor pentatonic scales. What does it look like in relation to the major pentatonic scales?

49. Here you can see the D major and the B minor pentatonic scales. Notice that the form is the same only the starting note is different.

50. Here is the A Minor pentatonic related to the C major (A form) Another fingering is shown on the next slide. Either fingering is fine to do.