The Best Thing To Learn In Order To Play Like Ed

[garbeaj]

Listen to this:


Learn how to play it. Then you will understand how to play like Ed.

[mr.twistyneck]

yup

[Santino]

I just watched Live Without A Net when it came out. Every day. Actually that's how I leaned to play guitar.

[Tone Slinger]

Most certainly Clapton had an influence to Ed's style, but so did this guy in another way,

Never mind the song, just listen to the solo,has that triadic 'spasm' and biting tone, ala 'DOA' or something.

http://youtu.be/pdNbBL4PnU4

[EJSLPlexi]

I dont know the ages of others here but i grew up listening to clapton and blackmore,jimi,uli roth,schenker,page,beck,etc
so i am familiar with them and their playing.
Ed to me was the next step from those guys like a logical progression of what to do next on a guitar for rock.
One of my all time fav eddie solo's has nothing to do with any of those above, the solo in Push comes to shove is where he was really getting into holdsworth and i thought maybe his playing would keep going that way but he kind of just went to writing tunes more than anything else the solo's and guitar work were really not all that out there after the "1984" release.

[bman5150]

Listen to this:

http://youtu.be/qDU_EHP0yl8

Learn how to play it. Then you will understand how to play like Ed.

That's exactly what Ed did, LOL!

http://youtu.be/qGIZ_LS1yxo

[Tone Slinger]

I learned 'Crazy Train' too, and I dont play very much like RR's. I think it is pointless to simply point to any ONE thing and declare it to be the synthesis of someones style.

[bman5150]

Yeah, I don't think you can point to one song. But I do hear that special tone on the clapton/cream bit above, and I hear the same thing in the EVH blues jam I posted above, which of course is his own version of that same cream song.

Really, if you marry claptons cream tone and his crazy bends with the reckless abandon that Page played with along with some good ole blues boogie a la zz top, you have covered a lot of what likely motivated Mr. VH to play the guitar when he was developing his own style.

[vh1tone]

Listen to this:

http://youtu.be/qDU_EHP0yl8

Learn how to play it. Then you will understand how to play like Ed.

Is there a video anywhere of Clapton playing that fast lick at 4:34 ? Like to see how he does it

[echoplexi1974]

bman5150 wrote:

Really, if you marry claptons cream tone and his crazy bends with the reckless abandon that Page played with along with some good ole blues boogie a la zz top, you have covered a lot of what likely motivated Mr. VH to play the guitar when he was developing his own style.

Amen to that! Well put!

[wjamflan]

The one thing that alot of folks don't get about Ed's playing is that his love for Clapton's rhythmic feel informed everything he played. It wasn't just certain licks. In fact, when he played licks inspired by Page, Gibbons, Blackmore etc., he played them with Clapton's feel. That's what people identify as his "EVH style". I think that's what garbeaj was trying to get at in his initial post.

FWIW, it didn't just inform his leads, it also informed his riffs. An out of left field example would be I'll Wait. Listen to his placement of the notes (keyboard), and then listen to (or better yet, learn) the live Cream stuff. It's readily apparent when you do.

Finally, having spent alot of time learning as much Clapton as I could, I would say that budding EVH wannabes have to spend the time learning the live versions of Crossroads, I'm So Glad, and SOTOTW, as well as Outside Woman Blues (at a minimum) if they want to have that EVH foundation to their playing. I would also add Zep, Purple, ZZ and Sabbath to the mix, but they are not as essential as the above 4 tunes.

[JimiJames]

[Tone Slinger]

This isnt tapped, BUT, it is very similar in its sequence/attack and SOUNDS tapped in a certain way. Talking about the SOLO -1975

http://youtu.be/Gm7yzZnFJQk


This has the real quick low string divebombs incorporated into the solo in a very decided/planned way

http://youtu.be/7LLBwzMxgQA

Using these two examples because dive bombing and tapping in accordance to Ed's style, are the most obvious (though we all know better than that.....its his timing/rhythm )

I actually hear a very different rhythmic stlyle in Eddie's playing as compared to Claptons. There is certainly similarities in those two tones, especially in certain left hand vibratos and licks/phrases, ala 'Rhythmic FEEL' (the two of them have a 'commonality' like Charlie Brown and Snoopy ). Ed has better timing and is a quite a bit Funkier and syncopated. Less laid back, more jacked up and goosed. Clapton had to put up with Bruce 'missing the beat' and playing and singing off key all the time, which, imo, seriously hurt much of thier work togather. Ed had Alex and Michael and TOGATHER, they sounded quite a bit different than Clapton/Bruce/Baker.

[echoplexi1974]

Tone Slinger wrote:

Clapton had to put up with Bruce 'missing the beat' and playing and singing off key all the time, which, imo, seriously hurt much of thier work togather.

Wow, i couldn't disagree with you more Jack Bruce came from a jazz background so he played behind, on, ahead of the beat. He wasn't strictly a blues player, he was a jazz bassist at heart.
And I don't recall him singing and playing out of tune He might have gotten a little out there with his playing lead on bass. But he was an innovator, one of a kind. He and Baker pushed Clapton into thinking outside the box and out came some of his best playing ever. Jack Bruce didn't hurt their work, he was one 1/3 of the reason they were so successful.

God bless his soul... RIP Jack

[fivecoyote]

Lots of similarities between the two bands, but one big difference: boogies, shuffles, even a little funk. The VH boys did that and do that so well.