Chords for Eric Clapton Cream Solo Riffs on Guitar | Reverb Learn to Play

_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ [B] _ Hey, this is Jeff with Reverb.com.
In this video I'd like to talk a little bit about some Eric Clapton inspired licks.
Basically revolving around more of stuff he was doing around the Cream era.
And Clapton was known to play with Cream _ 335s and the famous SG, which I think was called the Fool. _
_ So I happen to be playing on a 77 Gibson Les Paul Custom today, [G] which Clapton did not play on.
But I just happen to like this guitar and I'm using it to demonstrate.
I remember seeing an interview with Clapton years ago where he said a lot of times in
Cream, when he was playing two humbuckers, he would keep it in the middle position so
he got both pickups going, _ roll the neck pickup _ tone off, and then roll the volume down to
about _ 8 or 9.
If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure [E] that's how he ran his tone a lot in Cream.
I'm using a 70s Fender Vibrolux amp and I'm using a Manticore drive pedal made by Pro Analog Devices. _
_ _ _ [G] _ [D] _ _ _
I'm right inside the pentatonic or the blues scale, depending on your note selection, but
I'm in the key of D.
Something you might hear him do in Sunshine of Your Love or Politician
or a song like that.
But I'm coming right out of the box here _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
and I'm playing at the 14th fret on the G string
with my ring finger, I've got my middle finger here, and I'm doing little triplets on the
B string after I [Ab] play this note.
_ [F] _ _ _
I'm kind of sliding into them.
When you're on that, you've got that tone rolled off on that neck pickup, you get that
nice wooly kind of warm sound.
_ _ _ _ Then I'm kind of sliding back, _ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ back into what I call the [E] Bach scale, _
[Dm] your typical [Am] pentatonic. _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ Then Clapton does this thing, a lot of other players of the era did it too, where he's
folding his ring finger over [G] _ _ _ _
_ _ and hitting the 12th fret of the D and 12th fret of the
G string, the octave.
[D] _ Then he would do these real subtle, almost like a quarter bend. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ I guess I'm doing it more on this note here, but as you can see.
_ _ _ [Eb] Put that together.
[Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ That'd be very typical of something Clapton might play in a cream song.
Another cool lick of Clapton's that you might hear in the cream era arsenal.
You _ _ _ [E] _ notice here I switched to the bridge pickup.
You could do, when I explained the tone earlier, _ _ _ _ get that sound, but when he would switch to
the bridge pickup, it really jumped out then, because he had the tone off on the neck pickup
[G] _ _ [Dm] and switch. _ _
_ _ [A] _ Either way, that lick here, I'm doing kind of a [D] typical, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and then pulling off, coming
back down the pentatonic Bach.
[Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Gb] [G] I'm ending it just like I ended the previous lick.
_ [D] _ [A] Then just adding the five tone there.
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ [G] There's that same trick again I did earlier. _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ A lot of the time he would do it when he heard the band getting ready to go to the five.
_ [Gm] _ [D] _ _ [A] _
[Gb] Land on it there.
Another Clapton lick _ that he does quite often, even to this day, is this little three note combo.
[D] Once again, I'm inside the D minor [Bb]
pentatonic.
_ _ _ [D] _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ I'm basically at the 10th fret here, going to the [Am] 13th.
_ _ I'm picking the 13th and then doing a hammer on pull off where I'm only picking this note.
_ _ _ _ _ Then I'm hitting the 12th fret on the G string [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [A] and ending with a bend. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ You could bend that note too.
There's so many variants you can do with these, but that's the [G] basic idea. _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ [A] _ There's three very identifiable Eric Clapton licks that you can weave together or _ weave
with other things.
Try and put them into your own play and see what you come up [G] with. _ _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ [Am] _ _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _