Unit 3: Minor Licks & Chords

Em Shape & Box 1

Let’s kick off with Hendrix’s favoured minor chord shape, the Em shape CAGED chord. This chord needs no introduction, but for those of you who play it as barre chord shapes, we will be altering that to develop our Hendrix style. Whenever you play this shape, you can play the pentatonic box 1 underneath it. Let’s have a look at those shapes in the fretboard diagrams.

Lick Three

In this lick, we are using the B minor chord and B minor pentatonic box 1. This neatly demonstrates how you easily move the two things up and down the fretboard. As always, the most important thing to take from the lesson is the rhythm of the lick, so take your time!

Click on the tab to see the lick tabbed out in our super cool interactive tab player (this will allow you to slow down the tab and play along with the lick). Alternatively, just click play on the backing tracks to hear the lick.

Am Shape & Box 4

Now for the Am shape CAGED chord. This chord can be found on the A string root note, and whenever you play this shape, you can play the pentatonic box 4 underneath it. Let’s have a look at those shapes in the fretboard diagrams.

Lick Four

In this lick, we are using the E minor chord and E minor pentatonic box 4. This neatly demonstrates how you easily move the two things up and down the fretboard. As always, the most important thing to take from the lesson is the rhythm of the lick, so take your time!

Click on the tab to see the lick from this video tabbed out in our super cool interactive tab player (this will allow you to slow down the tab and play along with the lick). Alternatively, just click play on the backing tracks to hear the lick.

"Right Beside The Pool Tower" Part 1

Let’s take the two licks we have learnt and apply them to a mini track in a Hendrix style. The most important thing to note is how we can break up the lick to fit into a variety of examples. Sometimes you can use the whole lick, other times it's just one beat of it. This is our focus when learning this track. In this lesson, we will tackle the ‘A’ section of the track.

Click on the tab to see the song tabbed out in our super cool interactive tab player (this will allow you to slow down the tab and play along with the lick). Alternatively, just click play on the backing tracks to hear it.

"Right Beside The Pool Tower" Part 2

In this lesson, we will tackle the ‘B’ section of the track. This is shown in the tab below, and we now move up to the higher end of the fretboard. Once again we utilise the licks and CAGED shapes we have learnt, and break them down to work in different bar lengths and timings.

Top Tip

With each lick, really pay attention to the beat it is on within the bar. Sometimes leaving the space is great, other times you want to take up the whole 4 beats of a bar. Variety is the spice of life, as they say!

Click on the tab icon to see the song tabbed out in our super cool interactive tab player (this will allow you to slow down the tab and play along with the lick). Alternatively, just click play on the backing tracks to hear it.

Improvising

In this final lesson of the unit, we look at how to take the core ideas and add your own flavour to them. We run through a variety of ideas, but here are the top things to remember: 1. Lay down the main groove first, and get a good feel for it before trying to add any licks. The licks come second. 2. Once you have a solid rhythm foundation, try adding one or two licks, quite sparsely to the track. Don’t over-do-it at this point, we want to keep the rhythm grounded. 3. As you get more confident, you can start to explore more licks in more places, and before you know it, you’re starting to sound like Hendrix! 4. Finally, above all else, remember that this is a rhythm part! Don’t fly off with an across the neck lead part in the space of 2 beats... Keep it simple, but keep it rhythmical.