for Clapton Wannabe's

[OG_Blues]

Let me give a little background. I have always admired Clapton's playing, but it was unreachable for me, i.e. impossible to play. His phrasing is just so sophisticated with the quasi free time licks and the fast flurries of notes. After working hard on my mechanics lately I decided to give him a try again, and this is my latest effort. The chord sequence jam is from Someday After Awhile so is not a straight simple 3 chord blues progression.
I played the first 8 (intro) more or less as EC played it, but the second 8 is more of an improv (several takes) of licks I shamelessly stole from Shuggie Otis and none other than our own Griff Hamlin. The lick at about 1:04 to 1:10 I stole right from Griff's noodling around on his recent Marshall amp video - of course in the context of this jam it is played much slower than he did - no way I can play it as fast as he did.
Copping these licks was a real education - all of it is just milking the house position and box 1 with an occasional foray into the major scale.
It's in D.
I hope someone else can have some fun with this one too. Feel free to extend it if needed.
Tom
Gear setup: Epiphone Lucille (both pickups), BD-2, Joyo vintage OD, Joyo compressor, Fender Blues Jr. with BillM mods, SM57 close center mic'd to Tascam recorder.

https://db.tt/OIFPMvSh

 

[Marv]

Sweet start!  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

 

[Ivan]

Awesome start Tom.

[smiley=thumbsup.gif]

 

[CaptainMoto]

Hot stuff
Nice playing. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

 

[Marv]

For those of us with tin ears, I went looking for the chords and, after the intro, came up with:

Verses:
D - D7 - G - D - Bm7 - E 

Bridge:
G - D - E - A.

Not sure if bridge will be encountered in this jam track or not, or if the verse chords will match what I found.  But since it isn't a straight 12-bar, I figured I'd throw this out and see what stuck. 

Maybe OG_Blues can clarify?

 

[vashondan]

That was really nice Tom.  You may not make it to Claptons level but you're doing pretty damn well. 

 

[OG_Blues]

That was really nice Tom.  You may not make it to Claptons level but you're doing pretty damn well. 

Thanks to all for the nice comments. I feel like I have made a big leap forward in the past year, thanks to Griff especially, but also to everyone on this forum that is so enthusiastic and supportive. Still miles and miles to go! I am not expecting a phone call asking me to stand in as a backup for Slowhand on his next tour. LOL
Tom

 

[OG_Blues]

For those of us with tin ears, I went looking for the chords and, after the intro, came up with:

Verses:
D - D7 - G - D - Bm7 - E 

Bridge:
G - D - E - A.

Not sure if bridge will be encountered in this jam track or not, or if the verse chords will match what I found.  But since it isn't a straight 12-bar, I figured I'd throw this out and see what stuck. 

Maybe OG_Blues can clarify?

Marv,
Let me take a closer listen to the jam track - I'm not sure if the track follows the original chord sequence exactly, which is slightly different than what you posted here. I don't think the bridge is in the track. There is a fair amount of movement in the chords - not a simple blues progression, but one can solo over them using the common scales without trying too hard to follow the exact chords. I got this track off of YT. If it would help I can post a clean version of the track for people to play with. I'll get back to you later.
Tom

 

[OG_Blues]

Ok, here is the chord sequence that I believe is used on the jam track - it's little different than the original recording but close.
| D9 / / / | D9 / / / | G7 / / / | Abdim7 / / / | D9 / Bm7 / |
Em7 / A7 / | D / G / | D / A7 / |

| = measure start / end
/ = 1/4 note time - repeat last noted chord

You have to pick the right chord inversions to sound like the track in order to get the top note "melody" in the chords.
Play the D9 at pos 5
Play the G7 as a little chord, top 4 strings only at pos 3
Play the Abdim7 at pos three also - just add the Ab note to the little G7 chord that precedes it
Play the Bm7 at pos 7
Play the Em7 at pos 7 also
Play the A7 same shape as the G7 but at pos5
Play the D as a little chord at pos 5

Use these as a starting point and there may be variations from it throughout the track. It's a pretty sequence IMO.
I did not hear the bridge sequence in the track - too bad - would be great to actually sing the song to if it were there.
Hope this helps. Let me know if there are any questions.
Tom

 

[CaptainMoto]

Chords...who needs chords?
I'm going to embarrass  myself and give this a shot.
be back later

 

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

OG_blues, that was awesome!  Where the devil have you been hiding?  Great to see you here and hope to see a LOT more of you!

 

[OG_Blues]

OG_blues, that was awesome!  Where the devil have you been hiding?  Great to see you here and hope to see a LOT more of you!

Thanks RR - I've been away - practicing - and transcribing stuff
It helps!
Seriously, been working on my chops, but still have a long way to go on improv and jamming off the top of my head - I still need to kind of work stuff out ahead of time, but getting better at it.
I hope to start spending more time here.

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

OG_blues, that was awesome!  Where the devil have you been hiding?  Great to see you here and hope to see a LOT more of you!

Thanks RR - I've been away - practicing - and transcribing stuff
It helps!
Seriously, been working on my chops, but still have a long way to go on improv and jamming off the top of my head - I still need to kind of work stuff out ahead of time, but getting better at it.
I hope to start spending more time here.

Well, you have quite a few great licks just in what you played right here.  Just break that down into separate licks, mix and match, a voila ... an impromptu solo.  Quite frankly, most of my stuff doesn't come off the top of my head, I usually have to pull it out of the other end.  ;D 

 

[giayank]

[glow=yellow,2,300]recording light is on[/glow]
   all those chords got me confused so I just winged it . Not much slow hand going on . Fun track to play around with . I think at the very least my mix didn't have any clipping on it . Which was the main goal . My levels are still too high but then again so am I . Here it is loud and proud .


              https://db.tt/MQCa70DH

 

[Rancid Rumpboogie]

That was great, giayank.  Your levels are MUCH better.  And you sound better for it, too!

I had a front tooth pulled today @ 4:30 so I'm just not feeling up to playing tonight.  Maybe tomorrow evening if there's still a spot left.

 

[CaptainMoto]

Hey Mr G.
Nice!
Not so much clipping either.

I was gonna jump in last night and got called away.
Maybe I'll get in today.

 

[vashondan]

Nice job Gman.  Ditto to what others said.  Get to hear you a bit more.

THREE SPOTS LEFT.

Hey Tom, do you have the virgin link for this?

 

[CaptainMoto]

ok...I'm going for it now.
I believe I took one slot

Guess what I learned?
I'm not EC :'(
SAAXXXXXOO

 

[OG_Blues]

Nice job Gman.  Ditto to what others said.  Get to hear you a bit more.

THREE SPOTS LEFT.

Hey Tom, do you have the virgin link for this?

I ripped it off of YT here 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOO9UuqgSik
If you would rather, I can put the virgin track in mp3 form on dropbox and post a link to it. Let me know.
Tom

 

[OG_Blues]

Nice sweet playing by both giayank and Captain!! Glad to hear you jumping on this. A 8 bar track is kind of hard to deal with after playing mostly 12 bar jams, isn't it? When I first started playing with it, I always found that I wasn't "done" at the end of the 8 bars, and it didn't sound right - like I was in the wrong place. I had to shorten up my idea of what I wanted to play and cut some licks out.
Well, none of us will ever be EC! Nor will anyone else, so don't feel bad. He has a unique style that for a long time I thought had "quirky" phrasing at times, but I finally realized I just wasn't sophisticated enough to understand it. Like all the master players, he just makes it sound so easy - until you try to do it yourself, and realize there is a lot more going on than you thought. I found that just attempting to emulate his style, or play what he played, really made me push and stretch my capabilities a lot, which is good.
It was fun and educational.
Tom