Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze Pt.2 - Guitar Solo - Guitar Lesson

About Purple Haze Pt.2 - Guitar Solo

Few solo sections in rock guitar ask as much of your hands as this one. Jimi Hendrix built his solos around a fluid mix of blues bends, hammer-ons, and pull-offs that flow together so naturally they can fool you into thinking they are simpler than they are. Working in E minor gives you the whole pentatonic box to draw from, but the real challenge is matching Hendrix's phrasing: the way he lets notes breathe, cuts them short, or pushes a bend just past the expected pitch. Getting that feel under your fingers takes focused repetition, so isolate the trickiest phrases with the Practice Toolbar, slow them down until every note speaks cleanly, then gradually bring the tempo back up. Pay close attention to how your fretting hand sits behind the neck, since his wide vibrato and full-step bends demand a relaxed thumb position and a firm grip that many players have to consciously build over time.

• The solo sits in E minor, making the minor pentatonic scale your primary tool, but expressive bends and vibrato matter far more than scale knowledge alone.
• Hendrix's signature thumb-over-the-neck grip allowed him to fret bass strings while bending treble strings, a technique worth learning slowly to avoid tension injuries.
• Looping the solo slowed down in the Practice Toolbar reveals the exact pick-attack timing and bend targets that are easy to miss at full speed.