I have many guitar heroes.
These range from slightly more obscure to obvious.
One of my more obvious guitar heroes is the great Jimi Hendrix.
I even suggested to Archie’s mum that we call him ‘Hendrix’ when she was pregnant – she was not up for that!
The reason why I love Hendrix is probably not for the same reasons why most people love him.
When talking about him, people rave about his Fender Strat tone.
People love his pentatonic lead-playing.
And everyone remembers his wild stage antics of playing with his teeth, or creating walls of feedback, and setting his guitar on fire.
Those aren’t the reasons why I love Jimi’s playing (although I love all that about him).
For me, what made Jimi so great was he had the ‘holy grail’ of guitar playing…
The ability to play the same things but vary them every time in exciting and unique ways.
Never did he really just strum chords like 99% of guitarists do (even the famous ones often just do that).
Jimi would play the same parts over and over…
But on each repeat, he would throw in something different.
A hammer on, a pull-off, an extra note, or something else exciting.
I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had Jimi been around to cover the most cliché song of modern times – “Wonderwall” by Oasis.
Or another hit that is still popular these days… Something like “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen.
Heck, he could have made “Sussudio” by Phil Collins sound amazing (and that’s probably my least favourite song ever).
But alas, we will never know.
All those songs were released after Jimi died.
If you ever want to spice up your playing, listening to recordings of Jimi is a good thing to do.
Although he could be a bit wild and frantic, there’s some amazing stuff he played that has been a big influence on my own playing and teaching.
I imagine if the world hadn’t lost Jimi at a young age, he would have gone on to create much more truly exceptional music – and possibly on the acoustic too.
That is something I can only dream of.
But one way I’ve been sharing my love for Hendrix lately is strangely in my new course, Christmas Crackers.
The course features five Christmas carols, all taught on the acoustic.
…And Christmas carols on the acoustic are about as far away as you can get from the music of Hendrix!
But in the course, I show you how the Hendrix-inspired idea of embellishing the same parts but playing them differently.
I don’t go into massive detail on this in this course, but…
…In each song lesson, I show you an alternative option for taking the simple melody from within the song and playing it with some exciting legato techniques.
There’s also a specific mini bonus lesson in the course where I give you a closer look at how I methodically emulate this skill of Jimi’s.
Anyway, this will be the last time I mention this…
The sale for the course ends tonight at 11:59 pm Pacific time.
Order before then and you’ll get a big discount on the course and you will get two very cool bonuses which are:
- “Silent Night” (The ‘Intermediate’ Arrangement)
- How to Create Beautiful Fingerstyle Arrangements of Your Own
Here is the place to find out more:
Christmas Crackers: Play 5 Beautiful Carols, a Stunning ‘Medley’, and Get Exclusive Bonuses
Have a great day and keep being inspired by your guitar heroes.
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
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