35 - Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix)

Well she's walkin...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay, I'm pumped to talk about Little Wing right now. Obviously, I wasn't around at the time, but it feels like this song really changed the game for guitar playing. I just I'm gonna play a little bit of it just to like just check out what he's doing. Like even even the first thing he does of the like look at that, just the way he's muting the middle like three strings. When he's playing the low E and then the B and E string. Oh man. Okay, so let's talk about it. Let's break this down. Uh I don't even know where to begin. Like, ugh God, okay, so Stratocaster, it's an E flat standard tuning. Everything, every string is tuned a step down. Very common with Jimi Hendrix tunes. I'm just plugged into uh Fender Deluxe and I got it mic'd up with my SM57 and I'm putting some compression on it and some EQ to brighten it up. But I want some compression to feel like more up front, like more like in your face, and you can like kind of hear everything going on. Um, you know, squishes the audio just a little bit. Okay, so we do that little flick here. Okay, so and then it goes and then right here, so that is G. I'm gonna it's actually G flat or F sharp, but let's just call it G, guitar talk, E flat standard tuning, right? Half step down. So it lands on the one chord. This is the key of the song. It feels like home, right? Okay, um and we're sorry, that intro that's like E minor. That's the relative minor of G major. Every minor key has a relative major, every major key has a relative minor. In this case, it's in the key of G major, and the relative minor is E minor, and that's what it starts off. And then like even that is just so awesome. We land on the one. So he's just playing this is G major, this, like bar chord, but he's doing it the Hendrix way, his way, with the thumb, like here on the bass note. So instead of this, I don't really pay bar I don't really I don't really play bar chords like this. I play them more like this. This is called the Hendrix way. And I just love how he's playing with the chords, like he does it, he has his own unique way of approaching chord playing on the guitar neck. It's so nice. Beautiful way to play G major. We go to the minor two chord, okay? Then we're going to A minor now, just slowly climbing up. Oh my god. I love the slide down to the six. This is the six chord E minor. And then he does this. So he goes, so he's this is just the higher E minor. We can play E minor like this. But he's choosing it to go up here. But he plays around with that. He goes, it's like a play on like E minor seven, right? But he plays that fourth too with that A. That note. Like what a nice little melody to play in this E minor moment. And then okay, cool. I'm just gonna stop right here and say that this song is one long chord progression, and you can divide it in half. Or not really in half, but in two parts. Now the first part is what I just played, and then the second part begins here. It starts with that B minor, okay? So just to recap real quick, first half is this. A minor. B minor. Now this is where I like to call where that second half or that second part begins. It's the B minor. It's like kind of walk down. Chromatic walk down. We're back on that minor two chord. Now this is so sick. Like what man? I I love that displaying it right there, just half steps apart. So sophisticated. And then we land on the one. So we see how we went down where B minor, A minor, da du du du du. Actually, this right here, check this out. It's like a hidden chord. When he does that, he's outlining C major. So it's actually going. So he does a quick C major there. Right. That's that's C major. But I just love it, it's like kind of kind of playing around with like first inversion. First inversion just means the third is on the bottom. So instead of playing C major like this, which is the same thing as this. See how the root is on the bottom here? That's C. This is also C, you have C on the bottom. But when you put the third on the bottom, which is E, because that's the major triad, when you play that in the bottom, you just get. So you got that's C major first inversion. Okay, now this is awesome. This is part of part two, like the second half. Uh but this is like the sus2 section though. Like, wow. He starts there, G sus2. He slides up to A7 sus 2. Okay. And then back to G sus2 and then goes to F sus2. This is like the wing part, right? Just wings, just it's kind of tricky to get down at first, but essentially it's just 5035. And I'm playing that low G first. And then and it it's always that uh fingering right here. Okay. 5035 to 7057. And then slide down a full step, slide down a full step. That F sus 2 is beautiful. Oh, and then we go to the C chord, which is the four chord. I love that flick. Regular D major, but then he adds this. Well she's walking! Now we begin the whole chord progression again. That's the whole song. Like it never changes from this giant chord progression. Um, but let's go over it again and I'm gonna talk about like the theory more, like the Roman numerals, because I kind of stopped talking about it in the second half. But it's just such a blast to play. Like that's so creative. Second half, minor three chord, because that's like G, right? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one again. So here's the three chord. So, so two quick four chord because we're doing C. So this part is key, right? So this moment right here is when we like break G major. We go to Mixolydian, which is a major mode, so it's like a it's like a twist on the major scale. Makes things sound very open. So like that is a beautiful moment. We're breaking G major for a second. We enter Mixolydian. Like, Mixolydian sounds can sound very bluesy, but it also sounds very just like open and mountainous. The one song that's coming to mind is like God against you in my life by the Beatles. Like, I was alone, it's a garde, I didn't know it was I love that because he's he's singing G, he's singing the root over that Mixolydian chord, like the flat seven.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Which sounds like the beginning of uh It's been a high I know it's more involved than that, but maybe I could see another kind of Okay, but I digress.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So that's what he's doing there. What but he's not only is he playing that mixolydian chord, the flat seven, and when I say flat seven, it's because one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. That's the major scale. When you flatten that, you get mixolydian. So in the key of G major, it's F. So it's right. Oh man, and but like I said, not not is he just playing F, not only is he just playing F, he's actually making it F sus two. So he's taking the third, and then you suspend that, you change that, you alter that to a major second. So F sus two, you're suspending the two. Okay. All this to say it's just a very creative, a very beautiful move. It's like celestial, it's it's majestic right here, and then that's C major, right? But then he does a it's like a C6 as he's playing the the major six, or he's playing A in the key of C. Starts with regular C major, not the key of C, but in the chord of C. I love that flick. And then regular D major. This is the five chord, okay? And then that is just another way of playing D major. Open position, here's another way, here's another way. So he's just playing around with that. Hendrix is so creative with the fretboard, like he's so many voicings, and like it's so melodic, right? Mitch Mitchell, boom, boom, boom, well, she's walking and playing around with the E minor through the cloud. Oh, look at that!

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Look at the way he's playing around with that G major with a circus mine that's driving her wild.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

And then butterflies and zebras. He's just doing more like noodling around these chords.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Butterflies and zebras, moon beams, fairy tales. That's all she ever thinks about.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Right there. Riding with the wind. I love that. Like that's like it was melody for a second. Like it just takes off. It's like like a little way, like a bird just taking off.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Well she's walking.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Just pentatonic. And then bluesy, right? It's like it sounds like a guitar lick. Bluesy. And then moon be kind of talks in moon beams. And fairy tales. That's all she ever thinks about, right? Riding with the wing. Love that. He's like outlining a D major triad as he plays D. Riding with the W. Really nice. And I love the lyrics.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

When I'm sad, she comes to me with a thousand smiles. She gives to me f me free.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

It's alright. The way he says alright there, it's like so raw. It's so real. It sounds like it's like the first time he recorded. Just it's alright. It kind of cracks. It's alright. It's alright. She said, It's alright. Take anything you want from me.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

He does like other noodling that I don't really know in that second verse. But that's all it is. And then it goes. Right? He just plays these these harmonics. The sension with the bar. And then the solo. I'm gonna kick on some distortion here with my black box 2.0 pedal.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

He's just killing it with the E minor, just on Little Wing. And as he does it, he goes, he goes, I love this right here.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

What the heck is that? It's beautiful, but in the whole like first half of that, like he's just staying in the box, the pentatonic box, like the main just soloing grid. Just that's just E minor, but again, we're in E flat minor because we're two and a half step down. But he's just staying there, just it's just his touch, right? Just fly on. But when he lands on he's like playing an A, and we're like we're in the minor two there, okay, and then back on outlining the chords, right? And I love this little moment here. This part is awesome. This is a mixolydian moment, right? So when he hits the F, he goes beautiful moment, and then I love that. And then this part is crazy. Back to and then Oh my god, and it just fades off. But I just love like it's like a short little song, like fly on little wing. While she's walking through the clouds with a circus mind that's running wild. Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales. That's all she ever thinks about, riding with the wind. And I love how he ends on the five chord, riding with the wind. The five chord just leads perfectly to G major, so he ends like the sequence with this. And then landing on the relative minor, right? Just such a melodic intro. This part. That's the brilliance of Jimi Hendrix right there. I really hope you enjoyed diving into Little Wing with me. I had a blast learning it. And if you'd like to work with me as your personal producer to really dive into your songs, your musicality, learn about your sound, and really craft out your productions, just check out learn.dambaricuda.com slash own your sound. I'd love to work with you directly.