How to Play Hendrix Chord Inflections Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar

Jimi Hendrix aside from being the
foremost American Girl doll collector of
his era was also a pretty good guitar
player and today we're going to talk
about some of the things that made his
playing style so unique it is often
imitated but never duplicated it so
we're just going to talk about kind of
some of the chord inflections that he
used a lot and is playing that guys like
John Frusciante John Mayer Stevie Ray
Vaughn have all incorporated into their
own playing and we're going to start by
breaking it into two sections major
chords and minor chords right so we're
going to start on the fifth fret of the
a string this is going to be our root
note for both chords right and let's
actually start with a major Barre chord
right so if you don't know the most
common major Barre chord you're gonna
see looks like this you buy the whole
fifth fret you have your ring finger on
the seventh fret of the a-string pinky
17 middle finger six G right now the
nice thing about his kind of thing is
that you don't really have to keep the
barre intact the whole time the the cool
thing is he was a very sloppy player and
I mean that as a compliment sloppy in
the very best way it's not a very
technically precise way it has a lot of
feel and you incorporate a lot of
rhythmic techniques right so anyways
we're gonna start inflecting this Barre
chord right now what he does a lot is
he'll strike the root note first and
make it a real short kind of a burst
note right so this is a note yes that a
and to kind of establish there's an a
thing going on and then he'll jump into
a different type shape
right so like he'll take this and maybe
jump into like maybe like what you used
as an F major shape before in the same
area right so he's got your root note
here
he kind of switches off it gets into
something like this and now his other
fingers are kind of free to inflect this
chord right so what I just did right
there is I'm taking my ring finger I'm
moving it down hammering on the g string
where my middle finger is and then off
right so so all I'm doing is I'm adding
that note and this is in the major scale
so this works on any major chord that
you could do and it doesn't have to just
be this you can use any of these strings
right now this is just one note of many
that he utilizes in fact if so organ
we're kind of doing it on the fifth fret
the seventh fret is something that you
can actually go to a lot to kind of
influx these chords right on any of
these right so here's make order
I'm just using my pinky right now is
kind of a free-agent roaming around in
this cord and adding on the high E
string 7th fret
and then off then the B string seventh
fret and then the g string seventh fret
right now another thing that's really
responsible for the kind of the tone of
it is how long you allow the chord to
sustain right so again that first reel
burst I hit the I hit the the E string
and then with my left hand I'm letting
go the pressure so it's not like that's
a little too messy right to really get
that kind of sound you want to hit this
strike the string let go and then get
into the shape and then just start using
your pinky to kind of inflect that chord
right so we can do it from the root note
and all I did there was I just kind of
hammered on and off but within a chord
so basically this is kind of a lesson in
learning how to use scales within a
chord here's that major scale shape that
we kind of talked about before and we're
just adding the bottom of that into the
chord
and now the reason that he doesn't keep
his index finger here
is because uses a lot of vibrato on the
back on the top end of the course what I
mean by that is right here like if I
take a little piece of this cord the
dynamic playing that he's really known
for is all about breaking this cord into
pieces right
he's never using his pick kind of just
hitting everything at once right it's
all just getting little pieces
and then jumping back and forth so it's
a very busy kind of style you'll notice
his right hand is very active and his
left hand is releasing that bar and
getting into a different position like
if you see him play you'll always see
that well actually his right hand this
is left you will always be kind of
getting the most out of the vibrato of
these chords a lot of people just use
vibrato for single notes he'll use them
for entire chords right so by getting
your index finger off of its bar
formation if you try to add vibrato with
a full bar chord down you can still do
it but it's a lot more difficult you
can't really hone in and concentrate on
different things right so basically
again just recap room note chord hammer
on and then move it around so hammer on
g-string off and then move it up
all right and you can use on any major
chords so if we have a a major G
now the other one that we're going to
talk about is the minor chord version of
this right and I would say maybe this is
even a little bit more prominent is
playing so we're gonna stick in a still
and now we're going to talk about the
minor pentatonic scale which you
probably aren't already right looks like
this five eight five seven five seven
five seven five eight five eight now
he's going to do the exact same thing
but he has a little more vibrato options
for this because you don't have to keep
the shape like here you can just use
your pointer finger to kind of hit a
minor chord right so same thing we're
going to hit the root note jump to the
top and now if we look at that
pentatonic scale again any of these
especially these the ad and g string
right we can use these any inflection
point with in that chord and again the
cool thing about this kind of sloppy
type playing is that you don't really
have to specifically aim for picking one
string or two strings or three strings
you're kind of hitting anywhere in the
quarter now one thing they do does a lot
is he'll kind of use these groups of
strings so he's like hitting two strings
at a time maybe it's three strings
sometimes it's four strings whatever but
the nice thing about using this minor
pentatonic thing like let's just take
the first three strings so five eight
five seven five seven instead of playing
five seven on the a string he'll kind of
bar a little piece of it so he's getting
the a in the D string
and get five and seven but not when he
hits seven it's not just five seven it's
5a and 5b a seven eight and seventy same
thing for the whole thing so instead of
playing the pentatonic scale one note at
a time you can play them as chord
inflections
and he uses this a lot and then now you
can combine these with different type
class chords right so let's say we have
a a minor in to G major right to G
I'm doing is I'm inflecting those chords
with the notes we talked about another
very important thing in this kind of
playing style is using mutes effectively
right so in between any of these like
that kind of root note thing root to the
top there's a lot of so again as I'm
transitioning from the low E string to
the high part of the string I'm kind of
holding the string set so I'm not
sustaining it and I'm not totally off
and I'm just hitting the dead string set
so down down up mute and then again now
my index finger is open kind of adding
vibrato on that chord like he does
alright another thing that he likes to
do is sliding into a minor chord so
again any minor chord you can do this on
let's just read it on a ax
it'll slide into the fifth of the minor
chord run to the fifth here's the a
minor scale one two three four five so
in an a minor the fifth is an E he'll
slide it to the e into the rest of that
chord voicing right
and then especially using that kind of
like is a thing to jump around to you
right like say I'm just I'm this G major
and you do that one inflection you can
use it
that little piece of a minor chord
almost is just a transition to get back
to the same court or maybe different
coordinate so I'm leaving the G major
shape sliding into the fifth of that a
minor and then walking it back into it
right now there's really no limit to
what you can do in fact any almost any
song that has like a lot of chords and
is it all lead playing with his uses
these kind of like little tricks and
techniques right like
right so anything like that you're just
kind of going back to the pentatonic
scale there's a lot of different ways
you can do it and aside from just kind
of like playing Hendrix like inflections
you can do this with it with anything as
long as you kind of know what scale you
want to use behind a major or minor
chord you can do anything like that
right so let's take even something
totally different let's take like a
major 7 all right this is not Hendrix at
all but you could take a major 7th chord
voicing like this and you can know that
right and it's just kind of like the
principle of using a scale in
conjunction with a chord so again let's
maybe take two chords or a little
farther apart from each other
so let's take a G major - a D minor
right and we'll start sliding into the B
minor
alright biting into the 5th and the d
minor right so here's D the 10th fret of
the E string I'm sliding to the octave
12 eya
into the rest of that chord voicing
right
again right there all ideas I want from
below I established through no to the
cord and I laugh and I just played
backwards through the D minor pentatonic
scale a couple strings of time and then
I slid it back into it now the concept
of movement between chords is another
really important thing right so if you
know you're going to go from one
correlation to another find a note and
then just slide it and you slide a
higher note into a root note and it
creates kind of like just like this
feeling of a lot of movement and a lot
of stuff going on right so you can start
up here all I did is I went from this G
major chord with the inflection into the
five of that minor chord so again really
just experiment it you don't even have
to like learn hendrix type songs just
take any major minor chord you're going
to work over anything that's the beauty
the pentatonic scale is it's not gonna
work over just one chord any minor chord
will do and also if you have minor
chords right next to each other like
let's take a minor and a B minor any
kind of move you do on a right so again
let's take something like that where I'm
starting on the fifth fret of the a
string and I'm hammering on but I'm
still picking the a and the D string
so I do that twice here down a string
and then we're gonna do the exact same
thing in the B so here's the a I'm going
to repeat that same thing down two frets
because I know a minor and B minor I can
do the exact same thing so really it can
be a little bit tricky kind of getting
all of these together but really just
remember root note first into the chord
shape with mutes in between and then
just start hammering on and eventually
you'll find the ones that you like best
and everything is going to be a lot
easier you're going to be getting kind
of funky and bluesy in no time