Hey Blues Fans!
I was taking my daily 6 km walk (trying to lose a few kilos) with iPod in hand and earbuds in skull. With about 60 gigs of MP3s set to shuffle mode, I never know what I’m going to hear. Half way through the walk, Led Zep’s “Bring it on Home” started playing and I hadn’t heard that tune in a long, long time. It has that classic blues shuffles, killer blues riff in the middle, and a sweet ending. I thought to myself, “Self, this would make a good lesson”. So here it is. I’m sure it’s not exact, but it’s close enough for gub’ment work. The first video covers the opening shuffle, and the second vid covers the blues riff in the middle, the little funky part behind the vocals, and the ending.

Part 1
[flv:bring_it_on_home_part1.flv 512 384]
Part 2
[flv:bring_it_on_home_part2.flv 512 384]

This video is a remake of a YouTube video I did a long time ago. I got lots of complaints regarding the tone, effects, etc. So, I remade it using a clean tone. It makes it easier to hear the notes. This lick is inspired by Jimi Hendrix. I’ve heard Hendrix play parts of this lick in Red House off the In the West album.

One of the great aspects of Jimi Hendrix’ playing was how he embellished chords using hammer-ons and pull-offs. In this lesson, I show you a simple chord progression, A – E – F#m(7) – D, then how to add notes from the major pentatonic scale to get that “Hendrix feel”. I also show you how players like Robin Trower uses hammer-ons and pull-offs to outline the notes of chord, ala “Daydream”. Even though these are simple embellishments, it makes the progressions sound a lot bluesier. Have fun with this and see if you can’t come up with some of your own variations.