THE TOP 25 Rock PLAYERS
02 JIMI HENDRIX
Voodoo Child style wah-wah tips
Just two months after featuring Jimi on the cover of this very magazine we find ourselves talking once again about his influence. Perhaps it's no surprise. Jimi frequently tops online 'best guitarist' polls, and, so deep is his influence, there's a good chance you already use a raft of techniques and sounds he pioneered. It turns out you’d be in good company! Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Kirk Hammett and Ritchie Blackmore all cite Jimi as a major influence. Here, we'll take a look at three elements of his wah-wah approach on Voodoo Child (Slight Return). Truth be told, this song is a bona fide wah-sterclass and Jimi would never play it the same way twice. But these tips will give you a ballpark understanding of the opening licks.
1. Intro scratches (0:00)
Jimi kicks off by rocking his pedal in half-time. Roughly, you'll be playing heel-down, toe-down, heel-down, toe-down on the four beats of the bar.
2. The riff (0:10)
As the main riff comes in switch to double speed. You should be in toe-down position on all four beats of the bar. This is the easiest line to ‘feel’.
3. Loose flourishes (0:43)
On the long held string bend you can hear a typical Jimi-ism where he rocks the wah more loosely. Maybe it's a triplet; maybe he was playing deliberately out of time.
03 JIMMY PAGE
The Led Zep legend on the subject of riffs
“Well, when you think of what a riff is, it’s hypnotic and that’s going back to the blues, which is coming out of Africa. We didn’t know that at the time. Interestingly, I’ve just got a bootleg from a gig in Orlando and in between every song I’m playing all these riffs. Somebody played it to me and I thought, ‘Crikey, they’re really good riffs!’ They never got used again, but they just came out on the spur of the moment. It was such an inspiring time, playing with inspired people, and we were all absolutely on top of it.”
LED ZEPPELIN II-STYLE RIFF TRACK 25
The trick here is co-ordinating the sixth string palm mutes between the other notes. Try using alternate picking for the first three upbeats, and downstrokes for
