Anyone can learn a handful of chords and strum them straight up and down. But Jimi Hendrix really knew how to make them come to life. Using embellishments, you can learn how flutter around in that jangly rhythm style like Hendrix.

The Blues Scale is one of the most popular scales in rock guitar, which takes its name (obviously) from Blues music. We'll see how this scale is related to the pentatonic scale, and we'll learn a few tricks you can use to play it all over the neck.

Exploring the topic of Hendrix-like embellishments even further, this lesson explains where all of these extra notes come from: the notes in the surrounding pentatonic scales, whether they be major or minor. This technique can help you add in "fills" and keep your chord playing sounding lively like Jimi Hendrix's.

In this section we're going to talk about all of the different ways to incorporate bending and vibrato into your rock guitar playing.

In this lesson, we'll see how to play the blues scale up and down a single string. This can be played on any string.

In this lesson we'll move the blue scale into the open position, which means we're going to use a combination of fretted notes and open strings.

Parallel octaves are by no means a new musical idea, but Hendrix used this technique in his rock playing to create a beautiful, lush sound. It effectively blends the best aspects of rhythm guitar and a lead melody line. So the next time you are trying to decide whether to play rhythm or lead during a section, try this cool Hendrix-y technique out. It can be used in many styles, not just blues rock.

In this lesson we'll learn how to play the blues scale across the neck diagonally. This will help you understand how to move your playing up and down the neck, as well as across the neck. That way, your playing isn't stuck in just one place -- you can move it anywhere!

In this lesson, we talk about Up & Down Bends. We'll talk about how to keep your other strings quiet by muting, and why it's important to bend within the scale you are playing in, so your playing will be melodic and tasteful.

In this lesson we'll talk about pre-bends. To do this, we bend the string up or down before playing it. Then we learn how to incorporate this into a melody or solo by moving to adjacent notes.

Guitar is one of the few instruments that will allow you a great deal of control over pitch-bending. There are many subtleties to this technique, and this lesson will show you some of the ways Jimi Hendrix did it to make his playing more emotionally expressive.

In this lesson we'll learn about something called Major 3rd Slurs. It's really just a way of bending a Minor 3rd of your scale degree up a half step to a Major 3rd. This adds an extra bluesy sound to an already blues scale.

Hendrix didn't only slide single notes up and down the neck. He also slid his basic first-position chord shapes around while leaving his open strings ringing. This lesson will show you the basic idea on how to do this. You can try using these chords on different frets for different levels of harmonic tension. This can at times give your playing an "exotic" flavor, which is something that many guitarists were influenced by in the 60's. The droning of the strings can sometimes invoke the sound of an indian sitar.

Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs were central to the Jimi Hendrix style. These simple tricks allow for a more fluid "slur" between the notes, adding style and variation to your articulation. If you watch old videos, you might notice that sometimes Jimi's picking hand was doing everything BUT picking the notes. That is because he was a master of legato, sometimes letting his fretting hand do all the work. This would leave his picking hand free to work the whammy bar, or to just swing it around for dramatic emphasis (never underestimate the power of visual performance!). This techniq...

In this lesson we'll talk about how to slide from the blue note to another note that is within the pentatonic scale. This can give you a very heavy blues sound.

Artists on the level of Jimi Hendrix don't just use the wah pedal to make funny noises (although they do their fair share of that) -- they use it to add personality and additional syllables to their melodies and rhythms. It's easy to just pump it all the way up and down on each quarter note, but there is a lot more to it than that. You can and should practice all of the subtleties to this seemingly simple pedal and use it to add a new level of organic energy to your playing.

This is the chord that Jimi Hendrix is known for. It's the chord used in Purple Haze, a song that every guitarist learns at one point in their career. Out of everything Hendrix did in his short career (and he did a lot), this one chord alone could be his most defining musical sound. Even though it was not of his own invention, when played on a grungy strat, it is instantly recognizable as "The Hendrix Chord." This lesson will show a few ways to play it.

Now we'll put it all together. Let's take our single string, open position, diagonal positions and add some of the tricks (major 3rd slurs, sliding the blue note) then throw in some bending and vibrato to bring our rock playing to life.

Sliding is another legato technique that Hendrix used a lot. In combination with hammer-ons, pull-offs, and all the different ways of picking, you can add a lot of variety and personality to your melodies, making them unique. (One bit of advice: don't push down on the string too hard while sliding up, or you will make your notes go flat.)

A unison bend is a way of playing unisons (two notes of the same pitch) via bending one of the notes. This can thicken up your melody considerably, adding a dirty texture and passionate whine. Hendrix used this quite a bit to evoke dissonance, since the two notes begin out of tune and are slowly brought to the same pitch as he bent them. This is very effective for adding personality and grit to what would otherwise be a simple melodic line.

In this lesson we'll talking about the Bend & Choke. To do this, you bend a note up, and immediately mute it. You can do this with both up bends and down bends, as well as adding this into a melodic structure and moving to other notes in the scale.

Now we will talk about how to Bend One And Not The Other. This means that we hold one note in pitch while bending the other to create either a unison or harmony. It is important to consider what scale you happen to be using for this technique to be effective within a musical passage.

Now we'll talk about what really adds a lot of personality to your guitar playing - vibrato! This makes the guitar sing. We'll talk about some players who use varying amounts of vibrato to stylize their own personal sound.

In this final summary, we'll put it all together. All of the different ways to bend up, bend down, bend & choke, pre-bending, and vibrato will help you form your own musical identity and bring your playing to life.

An examination of the blues scale in a rock context.

A look at bending and vibrato techniques, used in rock lead guitar playing.

Even though the playing of Jimi Hendrix was based on blues and rock techniques, he may have been from another planet. He had a unique style -- a combination of melodic and rhythmic tools -- that made him stand out from other players of his time period. This tutorial will explain some of the core "tricks" that Hendrix used to influence the future of guitar playing.