What makes hendrix so good

Heck, I find it all at least mildly interesting. I'm intrigued by the broad range of possibilities for music as an art form. Indeed it is the art of noise. That's why I get concerned when I see guitar students become stuck indeed sometimes addicted to just one type of music. I've seen so much of it over my 25 years of teaching. Certainly Hard Rock is one of those styles but certainly not the only one and that's why I'm picking on poor Jimi here. All taste is acquired.

I know a lot of you don't want to believe that, but I've had to accept that fact time and again through my career. We want to believe that we all totally have our own minds. It's hard to accept that our tastes and decisions are often colored by outside societal factors. It takes courage and deliberation to rise above the constraints of our overly commercialized, peer group oriented, media driven culture and see art for the wonderfully expressive language that it can be.

I believe that true musical maturity comes by opening yourself up to new forms even if they don't immediately appeal to you. As I said earlier, I became interested in guitar pretty young and I was exposed to a lot of sophisticated music growing up. My Mom was big into Classical and Broadway.

My Dad liked Big Band Jazz. My best friend's older brother was listening to Elvis etc. My first great Pop music awakening came with The Beatles. I was 10 in So, even in the Rock genre, I was drawn toward the more sophisticated guitar players with more "chops" and broader harmonic sensibilities The Blues Rock guitar guys didn't really do all that much for me. It could all sound just too much the same. I needed more variety. By chance, I saw Larry Coryell and the 11th House featuring the Brecker Brothers my 2nd year of college and my life was changed forever.

I began to check out all the Jazz "Fusion" guitar players These guys played music that had "balls" like rock and blues, but also had the broader harmonic spectrum of jazz. So I would have to say that my great guitar heroes were those capable of playing more complex music in a variety of different styles.

Though better than many, Jimi Hendrix just wasn't one of them. Jimi was a great talent, but I think in many ways his lack of education prevented him from becoming a better guitar player. He played a very personal style of guitar that he developed in his own little world.

That's why he rarely played outside his "comfort zone". He played with bands he controlled and players he hand picked. People who actually play guitar themselves tend to listen to music differently than those who don't. Non-players often take what they hear at face value and accept it. Players are more capable of saying "I might have done this differently myself" or "There are other ways that this guitar solo could have been approached". An interesting question you might ask is, what percentage of the audience at a Rock concert is composed of real musicians who truly understand music theory?

The answer is not many. And this is where I might point out some of Jimi's limitations. As I mentioned, I have just reviewed the last material he produced before this death and though I am impressed with it's honesty, cohesiveness of vision, expressiveness, energy and pure "riffology", it still leaves something to be desired in my opinion. Though broader than some discographies, I see Jimi's guitar work as still not straying too far from the Electric Blues Rock, Funk mold we do, of course, have to give him credit as being one of the pioneers who indeed forwarded this genre Some of his attempts at breaking out of that idiom with slower ballads and more complex progressions sound kinda' "forced", contrived and awkward to me.

There isn't a very broad usage of different guitar chord types, consisting mainly of "Power" Chords, basic Major and Minor Triads, a lotta' Major, Minor and Dominant 7 Chords and their extended 9 chords , some Sus Chords and not much else.

Let's talk guitar soloing. The easiest chord progressions to solo over are mono harmonic Many, many of Jim's guitar solos are like this. Even if the song itself contains a more complex chord progression, notice how often the solo section is simplified It's actually pretty easy to sound impressive soloing in these situations. The next easiest guitar solos are ones where the underlying chord progression stays in one key. A high percentage of Jimi's remaining solos fall into this category.

Though containing more chord changes than Mono Harmonic solos, you still have the luxury of staying within the notes in one particular scale to form your melody. I do not hear a terribly broad use of different melodic strategies from him. I don't know whether he knew much about the broader subject of guitar scales. The Freedom This word can mean many different things to many different people. Well, how about you actually learn how to play in the style of Jimi Hendrix?

Recent Articles. August 23, 10 Best Overdrive Pedals for Blues. Editor's Picks. Best Seller. Joe libby July 5, Roy Smyth September 18, You left the world a better place.

Never forgotten. Douglas Campbell July 19, Please ask Bob Dylan the next time you get an interview who he believes is the best guitarist he has ever heard. I would be willing to bet he will answer Bloomfield. Ron snyder July 17, I just started to get into guitar the summer of , my older Cuz Gave me 3 albums to record on a cassette player I got for my birthday August 1st He turned me on to jimmy page , Santana and said this next one is my favorite, Jimi Hendrix Are u experienced album!

Terry Brower April 21, Yes, The Monkees. Going to see Hendrix was so exciting for a beginning guitar player like me, I was blown away by his first album and then the curtain opened up, 3 wildly dressed guys pushing a wall of sound that seemed to be moving the skin back on my face, NO band ever played that loud, NO band looked anything like that and no 3 piece band ever sounded like that.

The oddness of the moment was they were just standing there Jimmy was smiling. I was at the back of the floor seats, way back. I ran up to the stage and was standing about 15 feet from them and all I could hear was magic sounds and I knew this was a moment in my life I would never forget that sound and the feeling was tremendous. Between a song I turned around and finally became aware of the primo floor seat pirates who made me sit way, way in the back. They were CHILDREN and Mothers, no fathers, This is the truth as far as I could see were children between the ages of 7 or 8 to babies in strollers and mothers, tending the flock of kids screaming because of the loud noise of the best guitar player I have ever heard was scaring them.

They were there for the Monkees. The band was a total shock to them, terrifying actually, but the beautiful giant sound smothered their screams and yelling, they paid for the best seats and got the best sound as I looked at it. It was a crazy scene. It was sooo cool just to be there.

Jimmy finished his set and we heard that he burned his guitar at the end of the show? Until I turned around and looked at the motheres, they looked with their eyes really wide open in shock, if you can imagine, like lemmings from Africa standing on their rear feet up real high on their dirt mounds scared to death of the beast that was about to try and eat them?

Remember they were there for the Monkees!! This is the truth the Monkees were very good and entertaining but not like Are You Experienced…. Leave a comment. All blog comments are checked prior to publishing Post comment. This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website.

We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.