joe satriani's guide to jimi hendrix-style r&b rhythm guitar playing.pdf

7/24/2019 Joe Satriani's Guide to Jimi Hendrix-Style R&B Rhythm Guitar Playing.pdf

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guitarworld.com

Joe Satriani's Guide to Jimi

Hendrix-Style R&B Rhythm Guitar

Playing Video

One of the most important aspects of becoming a competent,

well-rounded and in-demand guitar player is a dedication to the artof rhythm guitar playing.

This is something that doesnt get addressed nearly enough within

instructional parameters, and I believe that is because it can be

more difficult to practice rhythm guitar than it is to practice soloing

techniques.

All guitar players love to play and practice licks, solos and scales all

day long, but having the discipline to practice rhythm guitar is

another matter entirely.

For me, the study and appreciation of the art of rhythm guitar was

greatly inspired by the music of Jimi Hendrix. Jimi himself had beena keen student of the R&B/soul rhythm playing of guitarists such as

Curtis Mayfield, Ike Turner and Steve Cropper, all of whom had

devised creative ways to fill out musical arrangements with small

chord voicings, voice leading techniques and an overall sense of

oe Satriani's Guide to Jimi Hendrix-Style R&B Rhythm Guitar... about:reader?url=http://www.guitarworld.com/joe-satrianis-g

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melody. Just a cursory listen to Jimis Castles Made of Sand,

Little Wing or Bold As Love tells you all you need to know about

his brilliance as a trailblazing rhythm guitarist.

Lets say, for example, you had a chord progression of E to C to A

and you wanted to spruce it up with some little connecting

passages. The overall approach is to put together a major

pentatonic-based toolbox and apply elements of major pentatonic

to each of the chords.

In FIGURE 1,my index finger is barred across the A, D and Gstrings at the ninth fret, and I use my ring finger to hammer-on to

the 11th fret on the A and D strings, creating the sound of E/G#

along with a quick reference to A/C#. The notes that are

accentuated here are the second, third, fifth and sixth of E, and all

of those intervals are found within the E major pentatonic scale, as

illustrated in FIGURE 2.I will use those pitches for chordal

improvisation when playing over the E chord.

When I switch to the C chord, Ill use the notes of C major

pentatonicC D E G Ato create two-note harmonies to embellish

the sound of C major. The same approach can be applied to the A

chord, using A major pentatonicA B C# E F#played similarly in

harmonized two-note pairs, as shown in bars 1 and 2 of FIGURE 4.

In bar 3, I switch back to E and shift down to the lower area of the

fretboard, followed by a return to ninth position, as demonstrated in

FIGURE 1.


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Bar 5 features a return to C and more chordal embellishment based

on C major pentatonic. In bar 6, on the switch to A, I instead opt to

play a single-note melodic line based on A major pentatonic, and in

bars 7 and 8 I return to E and navigate through harmonized note

pairs in E major pentatonic in a similar manner.

Lets say the chords in the progression change more frequently: in

FIGURE 5,I play two beats of E then two beats of C, followed by a

full bar (four beats) of A. Once you have these shapes down,

experiment with the myriad of ways in which one can weave

interesting rhythm parts based on the techniques illustrated here.

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 5


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joe satriani's guide to jimi hendrix-style r&b rhythm guitar playing.pdf

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