Strange Brew Guitar Lesson

Eric Clapton is and will always be one of my absolute guitar heroes, and this song is definitive Clapton. I can't tell you how many times I have taught the intro solo for the track, and how beneficial it has been for every student who learns it. Yes, we're learning how Clapton plays the blues, but within these licks there are some Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Waters and various other influences that make Clapton the player that he is.

So, it's very well worth taking the time to learn this solo well, and Jed does an incredibly authentic job in this video, both in his playing and teaching of how the song is put together. Jed and I are linked via our love of blues, so you have both of us here helping to walk you through these concepts. Let's go for it!

Strange Brew Intro Solo

So let's kick off as we do in the video, with the intro solo. Jed does an incredible job walking you through the licks of the track, which means that my job is to help define where these licks are coming from. The first thing to note is that 99% of the solo is built using the A minor pentatonic in box 1 and box 2. That looks like this:

On top of those two minor pentatonic shapes, it's a good opportunity to get used to the major 3rd addition that we use a lot in the blues. Here's a great example of that appearing in box 1, which is where Clapton uses it the most.

So, as you work through the licks in the opening part of the track with Jed (in the video), do your best to attribute them to these shapes as this will allow you to use them again in your own improvisation, in any key, over any track!

Strange Brew Chords

The second half of this video takes the time to detail the chords we're playing in the track. As you may have worked out, it's fundamentally a 12 bar blues in A, but we have a cool little riff that we can learn alongside it. So, let's start by clarifying what a twelve bar looks like in the key of A blues:

These are the exact chords we're playing underneath the into solo, and underneath the main solo later on in the song. To clarify, the chords are | A | A | A | A | D9 | D9 | A | A | E7#9 | D7#9 | A | A | and this is a pretty typical twelve bar sequence. You may find that the last two bars vary a lot in different blues tracks, as this is often considered the turnaround section. You will notice some pretty cool looking chord shapes in there, and here is how you play those shapes:

You can of course just play them as simple 7th chords if you prefer, but this is more exact to what Clapton is playing! Alongside the chords, we are playing a very simple pentatonic riff, which stays the same all the way through the track. It's a riff based around the A minor pentatonic box, and here is an example of what it looks like just on the A7 chord. When you have this, you can simply duplicate that over every chord of the 12 bar:

This structure is then basically looped through the whole track, with the one difference being that in the signing parts (the verses) we are going to the IV chord (4th chord which is the D9) on the second bar. The verses therefore look like this: | A | D9 | A | A | D9 | D9 | A | A | E7#9 | D7#9 | A | A |. It's a subtle change, and quite often referred to as a "quick change blues", which is very common in slow blues playing.

Summary

How did you find that? What elements are tricky, and which elements are easier? I have found over the years that different students pick up the riff easier than the lead, or vice-versa… Whatever it is (or perhaps all of it is just hard or easy!), take your time working through it.