(#5)
"Purple Haze"
by David M. McLean
Jimi Hendrix released his debut album, "Are You Experienced?", in 1967. The opening track was a song called "Purple Haze, and it set the music world on fire. Recorded at Olympic Studios in London and released as a single (following the debut single, "Hey Joe") on March 18 in the UK...and raced into the Top 10.
Rock critic Dave Marsh calls Jimi's first album, "...the greatest, most influential debut album ever released...", and with 3 of the songs ("Hey Joe", "The Wind Cries Mary", & "Purple Haze") making it into the Top 10 in the British charts before the album was even released (& before Jimi's appearence at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967), it's hard to say he's wrong.
So, let's take a look at the opening riff of this amazing song. Various guitarists finger this riff differently (and Jimi did, too), so we'll settle on this fairly standard version.
Note how the 2 bar motif is repeated in bars 3 & 4, then a 2 bar variation in bars 5 & 6, and then a variation on the variation for bars 7 & 8, which nicely caps off the opening riff. The riff is repeated following the solo, and in some cases when Jimi played live, it's also repeated at the end of the song. Played on acoustic, one will note that it is very blues-based & strictly minor pentatonic (except for the occassional 1/2 bend into the "blue" note). Just for kicks, try playing this on acoustic guitar at half speed, tossing in your own variations.
Now for the famous "Hendrix Chord". While Jimi certainly didn't invent the #9 chord, he was most likely the first guitarist to use it in anything but a jazz context. The formula for this chord is 1-3-b7-#9. In simple terms, he's chording what is a blues fundamental - pushing the major 3 against the minor 3. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to look further into this staple at the moment, but we'll get to it in a later lesson. Here's the opening progression of "Purple Haze".
Notice the repeating rhythm. Jimi used this in a variety of songs (including "Foxey Lady" & others) to drive the song forward. He rarely stays strictly to the rhythm, stacking on endless variations as he went, but this will get you started.
For ideas Jimi applied to the solo, be sure to look into other installments of the series. That's all for now - see ya next time!
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(12-2005)
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David M. McLean is the proprietor of Skinny Devil Music Labs, former guitarist of the avant-garde fusion-metal band Aurora-Sen, guitar instructor, and columnist for TinFoil Music Magazine (where he conducts interviews in the on-going series “Guitar Gods”). His new solo album, “HUNGER”, will be released later this year.