Jimi Hendrix - Red House - Guitar Tab

Are You Experienced

1967 3:50

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About Red House

Few songs teach you more about blues guitar in one sitting than "Red House." The slow, swaggering feel at 96 BPM in B minor gives you plenty of space to work on every detail, and that space is exactly what makes the song demanding. Jimi Hendrix builds the track around a slow blues-rock 12-bar framework, but what sets it apart is how he weaves lead vocabulary directly into the rhythm parts, bending, hammering, and releasing in a way that blurs the line between comping and soloing. In E Standard tuning, everything sits in an approachable range, yet the string bends in the upper positions need to be controlled and in tune, which is harder than it looks at tempo. The turnaround lick at the end of each 12-bar cycle is one of the best things to isolate: use the Practice Toolbar to loop it slowed down until the phrasing feels natural in your fingers before you bring it back up to speed. Getting the behind-the-beat phrasing right is ultimately the real challenge here.

• The signature opening lick is a slow-bend phrase in B minor, played in E Standard tuning, and it sets the behind-the-beat feel the whole song depends on.
• Controlling intonation on wide string bends in the upper register is the core technical challenge, so practising each bend in isolation is time well spent.
• The turnaround lick recurs every 12 bars and combines hammer-ons, pull-offs, and a position shift, making it one of the most instructive short phrases in blues-rock guitar.