Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix - Guitar Lesson

What’s up, Free and Easy Guitar, it’s Aaron. This song is by Jimi Hendrix called “Hey Joe”. It sounds a little something like this, mostly guitar.

[Demonstration]

Okay, that’s what “Hey Joe” sounds like on most acoustic guitar. I’m not going to teach you the intro or the solo that Jimi Hendrix plays because I can’t play it, your problem with the intro practice that but, to be honest with you I got too many requests, thanks to you guys. But all right, you’re going to get into it. The chords you need, you’re going to use bass with the same strum pattern for each of these chords, which is down-down-down-up, okay. Now notice, if you want to play a four-finger G, you don’t have to live everything to play the C like this. You can use and play a four-finger on the G and place it Cadd9 or if you start at Cadd9, you can play four-finger G. Okay, now if you like the C and you play your G with three fingers, congratulations, it doesn’t matter you see the way, it’s up to you.

All right, so I’m going to start out with C chord, just for the sake of being correct so nobody gets confused. The C chord we’ll start out okay, down-down-down-up and then your going to move to G chord, down-down-down-up. Switch to a D chord down-down-down-up to an A chord down-down-down-up to an E chord down-down-down-up, okay.

You’re going to play two measure of an E chord but after the first one, what you just did is down-down-down-up. You’re going to lift your ring finger off of the D string, all right. So it wasn’t the second fret D string, now your D string is open. And you’re going to play A string, D string, A string, D string. Okay, A string has no finger in 2nd fret, your D string is open. So it sounds like this. So right from the E chord down-down-down-up, that’s A, D, A, D. So fast, it sounds like this. [Demonstration] You’re going to get the same strum pattern again down-down-down-up it starts over.

[Demonstration]

Okay, so the strum pattern is the same for each of these chords, just down-down-down-up, okay. That’s basically it for most of the song. There is one little part, the solo, I had some chords therefore in the strum and I will suggest strumming those C, G, D, A, E just like you did in the verses. And that’s basically all there is for the song, there is really not anything special. There is the Altro, ain’t no hangman going to hang in and put a rope around me, but to be honest with you, it’s all the same thing. Since all the whole song is just a C, G, D, A, E lift your ringer finger off with the D string and play A string. A, D, A, D, back to the E chord down-down-down-up.

Okay, one more tip on you guys as far in this video, there’s something that I have cover teaching called “common fingers” some people I have heard them called anchoring but “common fingers” is what I want you to remember. Okay, because I want you to realize that during some chord changes, you keep your fingers on certain strings, whether it’s on the same string you just slide up a fret or something like that as long as you have a finger that is common in those chords just where I switch.

So in this song, start out with your C chord, okay. I’m going to teach you a Cadd9 right here, okay. So you got your Cadd9 and the second chord you’re going to in this song is a G, all right. So this here are the common fingers, obviously it’s really easy when you see, okay, because they don’t lift. So even if I was not looking at the fret or the neck, over time, you will understand that and kind of getting your muscle—they were developed and you want to look at it. So you’re going from Cadd9 and you know that each of those strings up here, just moves up on the string. You have your G.

Okay, third chord you play is a D. Now if you think, you put your hand on your guitar, what’s the same between a four-finger G and D. This ring finger doesn’t move, okay. That’s why I always play the four-finger G because then you always have this ring finger here for kind of a place holder all right. So from your four-finger G, you go to do a D—just remember you want to take everything off to this finger. And for beginner, this finger is not going to listen to you, it’s going to come off to—but they just stick with it and keep pressing it and your fingers will learn to move independently, all right.

So you got your G, ring finger stays there, move to your D chord. Now the way I teach people to play an A is different in some people do, when your at D—okay, my favorite way to playing A is like this. Where you have your ring finger on the bottom and then your pointer finger is on the next string and your middle finger. It’s almost like a triangle when they’re on looking on the strings because you got one here, one here and one here. I like this because a lot of you get two fingers close to the frets instead of one if you play on this and then this pointer finger is all up here and it rattles a lot, all right.

So from your D chord, when you’re going from a D chord to an A chord anytime and especially in this song, keep your pointer finger to where it is, lift your middle finger up, slide that ring finger up to the 2nd fret, but keep on the B string and your middle fingers comes down here on the D string 2nd fret. That’s your A chord okay.

Now from your A to your E, there’s also another easy transition. You take you’re middle, okay and your ring off, so you got your pointer finger here. It’s on your G string 2nd fret. If you slide up to the first fret of your G string, you kind of picking it up which is much easier, just slide it up. Then it’s right where it is to be of your last chord which is the E chord. So you do that up and you put this two down, okay.

So starting in the C if you watch slow, these two stays the same in this and both move up on the string.

[Demonstration]

Going to a D, this ginger doesn’t move and you hold it down, the pointer finger doesn’t move. This one lifts up and over and it slides up. These two come up and then this one slides up to the 1st fret and this come down, that was your A. So, I hope that helps guys and remember check out for Free and Easy Guitar and, we got a bunch of instructors on there now who are busy with their other lounges like I’m busy for. But I’m trying to be as for today, so good luck, keep on picking and Free and Easy Guitar. See you.


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