Eric Clapton - Crossroads 1st Solo (Songs Guitar Lesson CS-001) How to play

Justin's Completely Free Guitar Lessons, Lesson CS-001.

This is the first of my new series of lessons covering classic guitar solos. This one looks at Eric Clapton's first solo in the song Crossroads as recorded with Cream. It's full of interesting mixes of major and minor pentatonic, and got loads of great licks to steal!

I hope the "pace" is good, I to tried get the balance right between going slow and not making it too long... do let me know if you think it needs more or less detail so I can make the future ones better!

Because I had my amp up real loud I had to use different microphones than usual, in fact I had two mics on to pick up the vocal and they are slightly out but for some stupid reason I couldn't get them to linet up right, seemed close enough when I was editing, but sounds a little weird now on YouTube... just in case you wondered...

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/CS-001-Crossroads-EricClapton.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hey, how are you doing? Justin here.

In this lesson today,

we are checking out Eric Clapton's first solo,

from his song Crossroads, with the Cream band.

Awesome song all-round

and some great solos later on as well.

For these first two choruses of solo that he plays

we've got some really interesting stuff.

A lot of mixing up between the major and the minor pentatonic scale,

loads and loads of great licks.

So, what we're going to do...

Go to a close-up, I'm going to play it once through,

just kind of at a slow tempo.

So any of you fast learners can just kind of watch

where I'm putting my fingers and off you go.

But then I'm going to try to break it down, lick by lick

and explain kind of a little bit about what he's doing,

where he might have gotten the idea from,

so you can kind of chop it up yourself and steal the

individual licks and improvise with them yourself.

That's the plan.

So, let's get to a close-up.

Lick number one

And lick number two

Now both of these licks are quite similar.

This is an A major pentatonic scale.

Very common to use this second to fourth fret,

Second to fourth fret,

on the fourth string and the third string.

So really, the big difference here,

the first time it's a bend

And the second time he slides up from

the fourth fret to the sixth fret.

Lick number three is staying with the

major pentatonic.

So it's really here, five to seven...

We might let those two ring together a bit actually.

Two five's.

Playing both five's and hammering down the

third finger on the seventh fret.

Five, seven.

Now here we've got that little kind of minor to major thing.

Fifth fret to sixth fret.

While holding down the fifth fret on the second string too.

And lick number four...

Straight up the minor pentatonic scale.

So, now we've changed straight away from the

major pentatonic to the minor.

It's an important bit, to get that.

So, these first few licks together.

And all of that is of course played over the A chord.

Now the band's moved to D and he plays this...

Really like that lick, this is the great one.

So...

Nice bending, seventh fret.

Up to the root note.

Eighth fret, second string, bend.

And then, leaping off to the fifth fret to seventh fret hammer-on.

Love that lick, great.

This is an interesting one as well, so we've got

this little hammer-on and flick-off.

To the A.

It's a little bit muted on the record, you go...

Now, I always thought it was...

That he's bending and playing the E on the second string.

But when I was doing this transcription, I could

hear that the E note and the G note, which is the

next one are ringing together.

And you can only get that here.

So, I sussed out that it was...

So, it makes it a little trickier, but it's a lot nicer.

And you get that nice kind of...

Where you bend and then slide up to the same note,

so you've got...

That's the whole lick.

Really like that one.

Then we've got...

Now I suspect, to be honest, this was actually just

meant to be...

And a straight jump which is pretty common in a lot

of the guys that influenced Eric Clapton.

But he gets a little...

Where he's gone from the ninth fret to the tenth fret.

I suspect he's just kind of missed it a bit.

There's a little step up there.

Then we've got a little eight, ten.

And that's a ten.

Then we're going to get back down.

We've got here a little eight to ten hammer-on...

With an eighth fret on the thinnest string.

And then a nice little run-down.

Yeah and I always used to play that slightly wrong,

but...

A little bit awkward how, 'cause we've got this little

five-six hammer-on. Two notes on the note E, the

fifth fret of the second string...

And we've definitely got a pretty strong curl...

It's not a proper bend, it's just a curl with the first finger.

To the root, and then the same finger has to jump off

the A and slide down to the D, the fifth fret of the fifth string...

And he's playing the root note twice.

And we're finishing that off with a very classic little

Clapton lick...

It's a real, proper Clapton ending.

Mostly minor pentatonic of course, but we're adding

in the little...

bit of major there.

Forming just an A-triad.

Okay, let's have a look at that whole first section,

the whole first twelve bars. Here we go...

Okay and then after that, he kind of jumps up

the neck a little bit.

So, he's got quite a leap on and he's jumping up to

I think it's here, right? So, the thirteenth fret of the second string.

To the fourteenth fret of the third string.

He could be going...

Or...

So, I'm not one hundred percent convinced it's up here.

It's just to me, my gut-instinct, says it's this part of the neck. So...

Thirteenth fret with a curl.

Fourteenth fret, then...

So, thirteenth fret curl.

Fifteen.

Twelve.

Curl.

Fourteenth fret twice.

Then to the thirteenth fret.

So...

Very nice little lick again, nice.

Using the A minor pentatonic scale. That one...

Now he gets into using this, very very, again very Clapton-esque kind of..

Now again, I'm not one hundred percent sure

what fingers he might use for that.

I think he uses his first and second finger quite a lot

for this riff from videos and stuff I've watched.

And then, 'cause he's using first and second finger,

when the third comes down, to get that little slide

back to the fifth fret, it's a real kind of a strong slide...

So...

Sliding up to the ninth fret from the seventh fret.

Eight, nine. Eight, nine. And then third finger

is going to overtake it and slide down to the seventh fret.

Fifth fret.

Then we've got the same.

But with a hammer-on from eight to ten.

Then eighth fret with a curl.

Then we're right up the dusty end again.

So we're holding the twelfth fret, and bending the fifteenth.

Sometimes I'm convinced that it's just a single bend.

Other times I swear I can hear the two notes together.

So, you have a listen and decide which one.

I think it's the two notes together, I think, on...

More of that minor pentatonic.

Then...

Really nice sort of slow release from the fifteenth fret.

And then we've got, our little Clapton-esque, little run

with the first and second fingers again.

But with a slightly different ending this time...

Also I think this time he goes...

He's kind of separating the notes. So, I think

he's going seven slide nine, eight, nine, eight, eight.

I think.

And here...

A nice little slide up there to follow the chord changes.

Then we've got another nice bit.

A little, short slide up to the eleventh fret.

Ten.

Then eleventh fret again.

This is now, for kind of a D. The chord has moved to D.

So, he's playing off of this D-7.

Arpeggio.

And then we're back to the root.

Now this one, here we're back to A major pentatonic.

This note here is B bending to C sharp.

Which is incidentally the same as that one at the beginning...

Is the B note bending to a C sharp.

C sharp being the major third.

That's of course saying "Hey, we're back on the A."

So just to clarify this a little bit more,

the lick before...

This is a D lick. Right? D-7 arpeggio.

And we're using those notes from the D triad.

Then to say "Hey we're back in A." He's going...

Bending the B to the C sharp. Which is

saying "Hey, we're back on our A chord here at this point."

So, it's important to see that's kind of how those licks

are working. You know? He's following the chord changes.

Now after that, he's got a little run-down there with his finger.

And he finishes with a little...

Starting with the open D.

Hammering second finger on.

Open G.

Hammer-on and flick-off at the second fret.

Second fret, flick off on the D string.

Third finger, third fret.

And we're back into the riff.

Okay that whole second part of the solo...

I really hope you've enjoyed checking out Crossroads.

And I hope I didn't go too fast, I'm a little bit worried that

I kind of skipped over bits too fast. But I think

if I go through every single note and every finger

and every fret that it should be on, it's going to make

it a really long and tedious lesson for both of us.

So, I'm hoping that that was kind of a good tempo

for you. Please let me know in the comments and I'll

try to fix it for future videos. It's a really important

thing to understand what was going on as well, so

if there are bits where I didn't explain whether it was

a major pentatonic or a minor pentatonic, have a

think about it. See if you can look at the notes that

I'm playing and go

"Okay, does that fit with the major pentatonic shape?

Or does that fit with the minor pentatonic shape?

Okay, what chord is that being played over?"

Because I didn't get into doing that too much. I think

that's a really important thing for you to do. It would

be difficult for me to do it as well actually, verbally.

By far the easiest thing is to kind of write it out and

then put your bar lines in.

If you can put rhythms in that's a great, great skill.

Can't emphasise what a useful skill it is, to be able

to read and write rhythms. If you struggle with that

I've got a book on that [wink]. 'Understanding Rhythmic Notation'. Hint, hint.

You can go and buy that from the website.

But, that will definitely help you when you're kind of

writing a transcription of something. You know?

To write down the tab and then to be able to write

the rhythms above it. It will help you sort out where

your bar-lines are, so you know where the

chord changes are. It will help you slow it down as well.

So that's a really good little tip for you. Is making

sure that you write the rhythms down. I do it with all

of my tabs, when I'm tabbing out a tune,

or transcribing it, I write down the tab first. And then

I make sure I write the rhythm as well, because that

means that I can learn a lot quicker, you know?

And I'm sure that'd be helpful for you guys too.

So yeah, do a little bit of your 'harmonic analysis'

and make sure that you know where the notes are

from, where they're major pentatonic or minor pentatonic,

or something completely different. Which they're not

in this tune mostly. And make sure you listen

to it a lot. Make sure you get yourself a half-speed

kind of player. That's a really, really, really important

thing when you're learning lead guitar stuff.

You used to be able to play along with the original

solo at like fifty percent or seventy percent or

whatever you could handle. Because it kind of helps

you get the feel right 'cause you're playing along

with them and you know, I really think that's an

important kind of thing. And lastly the other really

important thing of course, is to make sure you learn

them as licks. So learning the whole solo is great

and a really good thing to do. But probably the most

valuable thing you could do, is break it down into

little licks and then you can actually use them in your

own improvisations. And I think that's kind of the

point of learning other people's solos.

For me at least, you know, I've taken that solo,

learned it, stolen all of the licks that I really, really like

and I try to use them in my own playing and I'd

recommend you do the same thing.

'Cause that's what it's all about!

Have fun with that and I'll see you for another

lick solo song thing lesson stuff, sometime very soon.

Take care of yourselves, bye.