What Jimi Hendrix can Teach you about Rhythm Guitar

Wait. Jimi who?

Wasn’t he the guy with the big hair who held his guitar the wrong way round?

Jimi Hendrix was a guitarist who — to many people — is considered to be among the greatest guitarists ever to have graced our ears. His style is easily recognisable – raw, melodic, rhythmic and with more than an ounce of showmanship and virtuosity, especially on stage.

What set Jimi apart from the rest, especially in his heyday back in the late-60′s, was his ability to play rhythm and lead on his own, sometimes simultaneously.

Jimi could play these amazing harmonic lines, with embellishments that make for that trademark laid-back, groovy kind of sound. Just have a listen to songs like “Little Wing” and “The Wind Cries Mary” to hear what I’m talking about.

I first heard one of Jimi’s songs not too long after I had started playing the guitar. I became totally obsessed with figuring out how he did these harmonic embellishments. Luckily, when you break it down and analyse, it becomes clear that they almost always revolve around two standard patterns — extensions to the standard barre chords. It is these patterns that I want to share with you.

Barre chords revisited

First off, we need to take another look at the standard barre chord, in particular the E-major and A-major shape ones (see this article). Jimi played the first one in a different way, an easier way, that gave his fingers more freedom to play little fill notes. We are going to focus on major chords. Once you know these, figuring out the appropriate thing to do for minor chords should be pretty straightforward.

Here is Jimi’s way of playing the E-major shape barre chord:

Note that he plays the root note (given in red) with his thumb, denoted by the `T’. The index, middle and ring fingers are denoted by `1′, `2′ and `3′, respectively. The A string is not strummed, although it is possible to strum it by placing your pinky where the `X’ is.

Playing this chord requires some thumb flexibility. If you have trouble placing your thumb over the string you can 1) choose to only play the highest 4 strings or 2) play the following in dropped-D tuning, which is somewhat easier:

Jimi style chord extensions

The interesting bit is that you now have your pinky available to do some specific hammer-on’s and pull-off’s. Have a look at the following chord `extension’:

Your pinky can be used to hammer-on and pull-off any of the three individual notes denoted by the dotted circles with the `4′  in them. These notes are — unsurprisingly — all part of the major scale; they are the 2nd, 4th and 6th notes. That only leaves out the 7th note.

A similar pattern can be constructed for A-major shape barre chords. Here it is, with the root of the chord denoted in red:

The actual chord shape is denoted by the solid red root dot and the solid blue dots. The pattern requires you to bar the middle four strings with your index finger (the number `1′). This means you cannot play the chord and do the embellishments simultaneously the way you can with the E-shape barre chord pattern.

It is these two patterns — the E shape and A shape ones — that Jimi used for playing most of his embellishments. At first sight, they might leave you with very little inspiration: How can we actually use these patterns in practice?

Example

I have recorded a small piece to show you how you can use these E-major and A-major shape extensions in your playing. The piece consists of the following chords: B, A, and E. The first two chords use the E major shape pattern, the third one the A major shape. There is a point where I use the A major shape pattern for the A chord somewhere in there. See if you can spot it.

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