how to play guitar like ed sheeran

In this guitar lesson we are going to have a look at how to play guitar like Ed Sheeran.

Ed is one of the biggest artists in the world. So, there has to be things we can learn from him even if you are a beginner or someone that has been a guitarist for years. Let’s see what we can learn.

MORE 'IN THE STYLE OF' LESSONS

'...clearly has honed his craft and found things that work for him, which is what we will look at today...'

Ed has had 4 very successful albums.

He has also made 17 EP’s. I would definitely recommend to people to go back and check out some of the EP’s if you haven’t listen to them before, they’re worth a listen. Graphics of EP’s.

With the back catalogue he has, the amount of success he has had and the sheer volume of gigs he has played he clearly has honed his craft and found things that work for him, which is what we will look at today, we are going to look for things that he does that are common in his playing

ed sheeran's

albums

and learn about them. Learning to play guitar like Ed will help us to understand his songwriting.

I’m going to look at 3 different aspects of his playing and then I will break down my 3 favourite things and give some tips that you can take away and add to your own playing, so make sure you stick around to the end for that.

ed sheeran's ep's

'...Ed Sheeran is very proficient on guitar and isn't limited to certain skill sets...'

For this lesson I learned and analysed a selection of 16 songs from his albums.

The keys of the songs varied quite a lot. But, over half of the songs I looked at used a capo. If no capo was being used the songs I looked at would have all been in 1 of 4 keys.

g major

c major

d major

e major

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THEORY

The keys of G, C and D major predominantly can be played with open chords whereas E major he plays using more barre chords.

This says to me that Ed Sheeran is very proficient on guitar and isn’t limited to certain skill sets, for example only using a capo to play in different keys because he can’t play barre chords.

Seen as he can play barre chords it is more likely that he chooses the types of chords in his songs based on stylistic choices rather than limitations in ability.

All of the songs I looked at were diatonic chord progressions, meaning that the chords only contain notes from within the key.

The progressions all used variations of the I IV V vi and ii chords within the key.

This is a great place to start experimenting, start your progressions with either the I or the vi chords and then make up chord progressions using the I IV V and vi chords you can use the ii chord as well, he does use it in his progressions too, but I will come to the ii chord in a moment.

MINOR 2 (ii)

Structurally Ed will often use the same progression for the verses and the chorus’ but there will often be a pre chorus that changes the chord progression to add some variety.

When analysing his songs I found that on a number of occasions he would use the minor ii chord to start the pre chorus’.

This sounds great and definitely something I would incorporate if I was looking to write an Ed Sheeran style song.

He uses this in songs like:

A team

Small Bump

Give me love

I see Fire

Thinking out loud.

There are more things that we could look at about chords and progression but these will be great to get you going. I will bring up another thing about chords at the end.

'...If no capo was being used the songs I looked at would have all been in 1 of 4 keys...'

Articulation

Anyone can play a C chord but it is how the person plays the C chord that can define a players sound. Articulation in music refers to how specific notes or passages are played.

This brings me on to why I think stylistically Ed chooses to use open chords and a capo in a lot of his songs.

Using open chords means you can get open string notes to ring out as you change between chords. This adds a smoothness and a connection to chord changes which you just don’t get from barre chord changes.

He also uses a lot of hammer ons to add movement to certain chords which I think it is likely he got from players like Damien Rice.

For example when playing a C chord Ed will go to the chord without playing the 2^nd fret of the D string he will have this string played open as if it was a Csus2 chord and then he will hammer the finger onto this second fret to complete the C major chord. This has a great sound. He will do the exact same thing on the F major chord too. I’ve noticed he will occasionally do it on the D major chord with the 1^st finger hammering onto the 2^nd fret.

These are the types of things to watch out for in a persons playing. How they play these things is quite often how they inject there own personality and sound to there playing.

The other thing I want to mention about his articulation is his approach to playing barre chords.

When going to a barre chord start by just playing the barred finger without the rest of the chord being held, strum the strings and then hammer on the rest of the chord. This works particular well with minor chords. This again adds some movement to chords add can make them sound a bit funkier and groovier.

There is another articulation concept that I will come to a little later.

RHYTHM

There a re lots of things we could go through about Ed’s rhythm playing and technique but I am just going to go through one element of his rhythm playing here.

Ed will usually play with his fingers, although contrary to popular believe he does use pick sometimes too.

In most of the songs I looked at Ed adopts this thumb strumming technique in which he will keep a constant up down motion with his thumb stroking the strings. This gives him a soft approach to his rhythm which helps with his control of dynamics.

Just like all strumming patterns he doesn’t always strike the strings on every one of these up down movements but the motion is continuous as to keep the timing and the groove consistent.

While doing this he will use the nail side of his first finger to strike down across the strings to create accents. Getting good at these accents is great for getting a good feel and groove to your playing.

To practice this play a constant up down rhythm strumming lightly with the thumb the down strums being numbered 1 2 3 4 counts and the up strums being off beat ‘+’ counts.

Then using the nail side of the first finger strike the strings on down strums on different subdivisions of the count. You can obviously accent the upbeat counts as well.

To get you going with this start by accenting beats 2 and 4. This adds accents to what we call the back beat.

Get good at this and you will be on your way to grasping a lot of the rhythms that Ed uses in his songs.

MY TOP 3...
favoutie things to play like Ed

'...This adds that little bit of edge to a generally standard progression...'

Now I am going to go over my 3 favourite aspects of Ed’s playing and the tips I have taken away from analysing his playing. I hope you are enjoying this lesson if you are please like the video and subscribe to the channel and let me know of any other artists you would want to see covered in this series.

D/F#

The first thing is another thing he adds to his chord progressions and that is his use of the D/F# chord. This chord is the D major chord 1^st inversion which just means that it is the regular D major chord but starting with the 3^rd instead of the root.

To play this the way Ed does, make you normal D major shape, replace where your first finger is with your second finger, and move your first finger to playing the 2^nd fret of the low E string. Try to mute the high E string if you can.

This is a great substitute for the regular D major chord and gives the regular D major a different colour.

This came up in a lot of the songs I looked at. Mainly in the songs that used the chords from the key of G major or D major. He uses this change a lot and often he will use it to transition into or out of the G major chord.

Try playing a D then go to this D/F# then to G and you will get a good feel for how you can use it.

To hear this chord in action check out the songs:

A team, Drunk Small Bump, Thinking out loud and perfect to name but a few of them. He really uses this chord a lot, so keep an ear open for it.

PUSHING THE CHANGES

The next of my favourite things that Ed does in his playing is another rhythm based concept which is to push the chord changes.

This adds some variety to chord progressions.

The thing Ed does a lot is to do what we call pushing the changes. This is the act of changing chords on the off beat before the bar ends. So instead of changing chords on beat 1 he will change chords on the upbeat ‘+’ after beat 4. This is a nice touch to add to chord progressions.

On a side note he will also do this on the off beat after 2 and 3 as well so experiment with the concept of pushing the changes and changing chords on upbeats instead of downbeats and it will help you with the Ed Sheeran sound.

Check out these songs to hear the pushing of the changes,

Small bump, I see fire, Thinking out loud, Galway Girl to name a few.

DYNAMICS

My favourite aspect of Ed Sheerans playing is his use of dynamics. This is another one of these articulation things that I loved about Damien Rice’s playing too.

When playing live in particular Ed has complete control of his dynamic range which is one of the reasons he can add so much ‘feel’ into his playing.

Being able to play and have such a light touch that the guitar is practically inaudible and implying the sound of the chords, to then being able to thrash out the rhythms with full energy and being able to control everything in between is something that is hard to do and is often overlooked by people. Listen to his live version of “Give Me Love” captured in The Live Room on the song kick YouTube channel, and really pay attention to his use of dynamics throughout, how he makes it lift and then dip but without going full power until the end. Just being mindful and aware of this while playing can excel your playing.