This past week was the 43 anniversary of the passing of Jimi Hendrix. The music Jimi created in his brief but prolific career has altered the course of modern music and produced unsurpassed levels of creativity and improvisation especially for rock guitarists. While Jimi's underlying style and sound were apparent whenever he played a lot of his tunes run a wide and diverse range from chordal based rhythms in "The Wind Cries Mary" to the controlled feedback and sheer screaming in his interpretation of the "Star Spangled Banner". Today I wanted to do a guitar lick that was inspired by Jimi's time with the "Band of Gypsy's. I've used a uni-vibe guitar effect with some fuzz to create a tone suited to that style. I've played over a chord progression that uses the E7#9 chord that Hendrix made famous in "Purple Haze". The chord progression is basically this chord then an octave shape that goes from G to F#.
For the guitar lick I played it through as written a couple times then improvised briefly over the progression to give you a few more ideas to play around with. I've kept mainly within the E Minor Pentatonic scale although I do add the F# note. I've tuned down a half step for this guitar lick if you want to play along.
RIP Jimi.
