Ed Sheeran is really an angel in my eyes. He sings about these deep, sensitive themes with a grace that is really only clear when you see him live. I think so very highly of his songs, and I’m so pleased to be using this song in this guitar series.
In addition to being an artistic gem, this song also has some interesting technical lessons to impart. There are easy ways and not-so-easy ways to play it. Ed plays this song with a lot of fluidity in the guitar part. This is a good time to use our college-prep vocab words: mercurial improvisation. You aren’t likely to find two performances of this song that are the same, but there are some important common threads. This basic lesson will show the most important pluck and chuck patterns as well as the chords. You’ll find that Ed’s most basic renditions of this song use all empty chucks, which picks up right where the ‘More Than Words’ lesson left off. I highly recommend anybody who wants to play this song start out with the simplified version before going into the studio album transcription. In an advanced lesson I will explain the way Ed jams on this. Make sure you do your homework ; )