Clapton's Unplugged Cover

[rodmbds]

Hi everyone, I made a quick video playing all the songs on Eric Clapton's Unplugged album. I didn't really play all the songs, just the main parts or the ones I like more.

It was pretty hard to play the slide songs on standard tuning, but I tried to improvise something.

The guitar is a 1991 Giannini Student Series made in Brazil.

Please comment and share ideas about my playing style, technique, the guitar and anything else you'd like to.

Here's the video:

https://youtu.be/L8KgQBD3uoo

Thanks!

[agfsteve]

Sounds great! I like your tone, style, and technique. I think I might copy the way you played a couple of bits of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out".

[rodmbds]

Originally Posted by agfsteve

Sounds great! I like your tone, style, and technique. I think I might copy the way you played a couple of bits of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out".

Great! Thanks a lot for the kind words. Now I'm curious, which parts of Nobody Knows did you like? Hopefully you can see those parts in the video, but it wouldn't be a problem to put them in tab, I could post it here or send it to you in a private message.

[agfsteve]

Originally Posted by rodmbds

Great! Thanks a lot for the kind words. Now I'm curious, which parts of Nobody Knows did you like? Hopefully you can see those parts in the video, but it wouldn't be a problem to put them in tab, I could post it here or send it to you in a private message.

The first part is the little trill that you did on the G# on the first fret on the E chord, and the second part is the run-down from the fifth fret (C chord in open A shape) to the A7 (x03334). I have been playing that run-down by first plucking an open C chord, then doing the run-down in single notes from the root of the open C down to the open A for the A7, which is how I saw Eric Clapton play it in a live video.

So I like the way you embellished those bits, and it reminds me that it's good to find different subtle ways to play songs, adding your own flavours.

[rodmbds]

That's great, to be honest I don't know how I came up with that probably from watching somebody playing.

You're absolutely right about adding our own flavours to what we play. In the beginning I'd be reproducing note by note, which was ok but sounded a bit "dead" and get frustrated when I didn't get it right. One of the best things I did for my guitar playing was to have this mindset that I songs are "organic" and I'll never be able to play the same thing twice exactly the same way, nor the guitarists themselves. That gave me more freedom to improvise and a whole world opened up

I also got to say that the guitar plays a big part in it. I've posted about this before, but long story short I'm currently in a bad financial situation and was blessed with twin girls recently. So I decided to sell all my gear and buy a cheap beater, which is the one I'm using in the video.

The guitar plays great, trying to make it sound good I've learned so much about repair and setup, action, loose braces, fret levelling and so. But trying to get the best sound I can made my guitar skills escalate. It still buzzes in some frets which makes me pay more attention to dynamics.

About the album, I've heard my mom play this over and over again when I was a teen and didn't play the guitar yet. It was a joy to learn these songs and discover I'm able to play something so familiar to me.