TECHNIQUE FOCUS

Bending and vibrato

Jimi Hendrix was among the most significant musicians of the last century. For many he was the ultimate electric guitarist, with an innate understanding of previous generations of guitar masters, along with a clear vision of how he could interpret this music in his own personal and dynamically charged way.

Jimi’s playing was bold, hip, at times brutal and at times sophisticated. Super creative, very very loud and exciting as hell,

When adding vibrato to a bent note you’re basically bending and releasing so it’s essential that you reach your intended higher target pitch accurately. To sound authentically Jimi-like, add wide and slow vibrato but with control. The bending motion should come from a rotation of the forearm, rather than from the fingers alone. Unison bending is one the most identifiable of Jimi’s soloing techniques. What we’re aiming to achieve is two notes at the exactly the same pitch, the higher note fretted with the first finger on either the first or second string, while the third finger frets the note a tone below the target note on the adjacent string, bending up two frets to create our unison. Jimi then adds vibrato to the bent note to create a thick oscillating effect. Perhaps his most unique bending idea was the exchange bend. You push two strings up at the same time while only sounding the highest. Once you’ve bent both strings, sounding the highest string on the way up, you shift the weight across, exchanging the pressure as you do so and sound the lower string as you release the bend, so one bend goes up and one bend comes down. What better excuse to watch some live Hendrix footage and see the process in action. for any guitarist around at the time when Jimi exploded on the scene, and this included most of the members of the UK’s rock elite such as Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and The Beatles, it’s safe to say that once they’d heard and seen him play then their perception of what the guitar was capable of was irrevocably altered.

Jimi’s lead playing was as explosive as it was beautiful, with his flamboyant multifaceted style perfectly suited to the new sounds of the day. While guitarists had used these effects before, no one player assimilated so completely these new sounds in such a compelling and cohesive package. Fuzz, wah, feedback, whammy bar dives, sirens and wails, reverse guitar, echo, stereo panning and phasing, it’s all there on the few albums he released in just a four-year flurry of creativity as a band leader, before his tragic death in 1970, aged just 27.

Here’s how this feature works. We start with a selection of Jimi-inspired lines dividing the fretboard into five areas, or positions. As the Minor Pentatonic scale forms the basis for a huge amount of Hendrix’s soloing vocabulary, each line relates directly and is derived from its associated CAGED form, in this case in the key of E Minor (E-G-A-B-D). While the Pentatonic is definitely at the core of each idea, we are by no means restricted to these five notes exclusively, so you’ll see the occasional added 2nd (F#), 6th (C#) and

(Bb). bluesy flattened 5th

The beauty of the five-position system is that it gives you some instantly identifiable visual, aural and physical landmarks when learning, and importantly memorising new ideas. A really good idea is to purchase an A4

Jimi’s rig was simple: a Strat into a loud valve amp with wah, fuzz, and ‘vibe’ effect. This will place you in the right area for many of his classic tones. For straight blues Jimi would often switch to a Gibson SG or Flying V, allowing him to exploit the extended upper range that they provided. Make sure you use the guitar’s controls for cleaner or more driven tones.

You can’t go wrong with the three Experience studio releases: Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold As Love, and Electric Ladyland. All sound just as relevant today as they did back then. There are many compilations, too, and some great moments on People, Hell And Angels from 2013. Jimi’s first postumous release, The Cry Of Love, contains great tracks such as Ezy Rider, Angel, and Drifting.