What Makes Jimi Hendrix Such a Good Guitarist

calling Jimi Hendrix a guitar legend would be an understatement few guitarists if any have ever changed the way that we view the instrument like him before Hendrix the electric guitar was still finding its footing in the emerging rock world after him it was synonymous with the genre itself and dominated popular music for over two decades between his virtuoso playing talents his willingness to push the technical limits of its instrument to the extreme and his ability to write songs that used the instrument in new ways Jimi Hendrix was the full package let's take a closer look at why almost 50 years after his death Hendrix is still revered by many as the greatest guitarist ever to walk the earth [Music] what you just heard is the opening to Purple Haze for a lot of people this was the first thing they ever heard of Jimi Hendrix it was the opening track to the North American version of the Jimi Hendrix experience's debut album are you experienced the UK and international edition of that album opened on foxy lady [Music] [Applause] [Music] regardless of what you heard if either of these was your intro to Hendrix it gave a good hint of things to come both featured his iconic guitar sound wailing with volume and oozing with personality but what's most interesting about these songs is Hendrix's chord phrasings you see both of these songs have passages built around a specific kind of chord the dominant 7th sharp 9th chord nowadays a lot of people call that chord by a more colloquial name the Hendrix chord Hendrix was far from the first to use this chord but he was the one that made it iconic so what makes the Hendrix chord so special well the key thing that makes it stand out is the tension between these two notes a lot of western music is built around stacking zuv major or minor thirds a major third is an interval spanning four semitones so the major third of an e would be a G sharp and then a minor third spans three semitones so e to G with that in mind let's take a look at the Hendrix chord in E if you look here you'll see that there's a major third clustered in the middle but that no way up high that's a G which is the minor third of the e root so the Hendrix chord encompasses both the major and minor third if these two notes were beside each other it wouldn't sound right but because they're spread out they give the chord just the right level of dissonance to throw your ear off and sound abnormal check it out on foxy lady and Purple Haze [Music] [Applause] [Music] now obviously the Hendrix cord alone isn't what made Hendrix such a good guitarist but it's an example of what separated him from the pack Hendrix was always trying to push boundaries with his music he wasn't happy settling with the easy option instead he was searching for ideas that subverted the expectations of the average listener and one of the ways that Hendrix did this was with bends bends are a technique wherein a guitarist pushes a string off of its usual track bending to change the note like with the Hendrix chord many people had used bends before but nobody used them in the way that Hendrix did instead of just using him as an accent Hendrix worked bends clearly into the melodies of a lot of his soloing he would use subtle bends to tweak notes but also wild intense bends that would find unexpected notes and create a bluesy dissonance on his first album Redhouse is a perfect example of this set in a traditional blue structure Hendrix is opening solo features a number of bends of different speeds and each row [Applause] [Music] as we move to the Jimmy Hendrix experience's second album access bold as love we can see this bending trend continue in a lot of his solos check out Spanish castle magic where he couples bends with fast runs and quick hammer-ons and pull-offs to create a prototypical Hendrix solo [Music] while his lead guitar riffing and soloing was impressive I think that Hendrix may have been even stronger in his rhythm guitar and this is something that really shines on axis bold as love check out the title track of that album for an example of this [Music] instead of being satisfied with simply playing chords alongside the bass and drum Hendrix adds dozens of little embellishments these embellishments give his music a kind of driving momentum there's always something neat and complex going on beneath the surface [Music] but wonder why the pilot ow to create these flares Hendrix was often breaking up his chords into smaller pieces he would play part of a chord and let it ring out while embellishing a small melody on the rest of the chord above the best example of this is probably little wing which is a feat in guitar playing that melodic theme drives the intro but throughout the entire verse you can hear Hendrix continuing to lay down a number of different ideas in the background he mixes trills and chords and puts dozens of tiny motions in each phrase filling the song with tiny little intricate [Music] one of the reasons Hendricks was able to do this was because of how he used his thumb traditionally you're not supposed to fret with your thumb at all but Hendricks would reach around his guitar and fret his lowest string with the thumb this allowed him to provide a bass note to his rhythmic ideas while he created flourishes up top while Hendrix's guitar technique is impressive he had another kind of mastery over the guitar that was essential to his playing you see Hendrix understood the guitar as a piece of technology in a way that few others in his day did by pairing his guitar with intense overdrive distortion Hendrix was able to create a completely novel sound for the day he was quick to adopt guitar technologies like the whammy bar and the wah pedal his use of the wah pedal on voodoo child is responsible for one of the most iconic riffs of all time and one that really helped change people's views of what these pedals could accomplish perhaps most amazing about this is the way that Hendrix used his guitar sounds live it wasn't just studio mastery check out his infamous performance of the star-spangled banner' where he uses feedback in a whammy bar to create the sounds of dive bombs and explosions [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] by doing this Hendricks manages to make an instrumental passage speak volumes in a way that words never could he used the guitar to imitate weapons for his anti-war music again in machine gun in that song his guitar sounds like the chaos of war thanks to his use of feedback loud distortion and rapid mutti [Laughter] [Music] everything that made Hendrix great comes together in one of his most iconic songs all along the watchtower in a remarkable feat of creative thinking Hendrix took an original Bob Dylan song that sounded like this there must be some way out of here Santa Jo go to the theme there's too much confusion and turn it into this [Music] there must be some counterweight out of here that decision alone showed his willingness to think outside the box and push the boundaries and the rest of the song displays everything that makes him such a great guitarist in the verses Hendricks puts his famous flourishes behind evocative chord progression so that chocolate do the lead too much confusion I can't get no really after the first verse he teases the listener with a short solo section dancing around the neck with runs and Ben [Music] the song features three guitar solos each of which shows off different aspects of Hendrix's abilities to warp tone to his pleasing in the middle section he even used a lighter as a slide to create a specific sound before launching into a wah heavy free [Music] [Applause] [Music] the middle solo of all along the watchtower is one of the most iconic ever that entire solo is broken up like a mini symphony linking together a half-dozen melodic idea [Music] then in the outro Hendrix continues to change his solos pushing for one final climactic explosion [Music] Jimmy Hendrix was a Titan in the guitar world he changed the way the world saw guitar and in doing so changed music history forever even in this video I'm only starting to scratch the surface of everything that made Jimmy Hendrix such an incredible guitarist [Music] you [Music] hey everyone I wanted to say thanks so much for watching if you want to help support my channel and protect your internet today you can go to Nord VPN comm slash Polyphonic and enter the coupon code polyphonic I also just want to give a big thanks to all of my supporters on patreon you guys really helped make this possible head on over to patreon column slash Polyphonic if you want to help me keep making these videos and keep improving on them

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Views: 2,923,136

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Keywords: polyphonic, music, video essay, guitar, hendrix, jimi hendrix, jimi hendrix explained, understanding jimi hendrix, what makes jimi hendrix great, bold as love, little wing, all along the watchtower, purple haze, foxy lady, machine gun, star spangled banner, jimi, psychedelic, blues, blues rock, 60s, what makes hendrix so good, good guitarist, hendrix greatest, greatest

Id: hCLxV1JdHlM

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 19 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I think it is that he created a new voice/approach to guitar playing. In comparison to many modern guitarists, Hendrix is far from "the best" technically; in fact, one can make a strong argument that he was a rather sloppy player (a la Jimmy Page), although that DOES NOT mean that he was a poor guitarist.

I believe Hendrix is revered because he took the guitar to to places it had never been before. Several aspects of his playing took the current state of guitar playing and stretched it almost beyond recognition (for the time). One needs to remember, electrified music was still a (relatively) new thing, let alone deliberately using distortion, feedback, etc. Hendrix's approach to guitar set-up, pedal set-up, and amp set-up, created a sound palette that was original and exciting. On top of that, his note choices and approach to playing were uninhibited and exciting as well.

All of that stuff got mashed up at the right time to create what we know as Jimi Hendrix. If we're being 100% honest with ourselves, Hendrix's technical ability has long been surpassed (although he was a great player, don't misunderstand). Therefore, I believe Hendrix's true legacy was in the musical innovations he created on the guitar, rather than being "the best player of all time" as some would claim.

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Just my opinion btw. And I love Hendrix as much as the next guy, he was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting me to start playing guitar at all.

[u/juanbonjuovi]

Answer to every question like this: he understood and leaned how to play the tradition, then tweaked it with outside influence to create something new that resonated with the current culture.

[u/WarriorsDen]

This post isn’t getting enough love. Hendrix was a musical genius

[u/GoHomeWithBonnieJean]

The answer is GIANT HANDS! His fingers were crazy long. Strat was like a miniature children's toy in his hands. Zoom in on his hands in this photo & look at how his hands wrap around the neck.

[u/imbrotep]

He played so much he didn’t have to think. If I could sound as good as his mistakes, I’d be happy. Another thing I think that made him great is that he was always seeking to improve and broaden his musical abilities.

[u/TheJoker1432]

Practice?

[u/8549176320]

Just as a bird doesn't choose to sing, Hendrix had no choice; he HAD to play/write/create. What was inside had to come out.

[u/prankster959]

He's dope but i always hear he was the greatest guitatist of all time. After hearing all of his songs and learning a few classics like little wing, purple haze, and foxy lady i feel like i got shorted on this idea that people always pervade that he transcended music or something. It was real chaotic and dissonant and feely; he embraced new concepts at the time like feedback, fuzz and wah wah pedals. He definitely made the guitar his voice and is a hell of a guitarist. But does anyone still listen to all of his albums back to back? I prefer zeppellin, pink floyd and the beatles.