Their Root Word Jimi Hendrix On Stage example essay topic

Butler 1 Ryan Butler Professor Collins Musical Experience 11 November 2003 Born on November 27, 1942, a musical wonder was brought into the world. Jimi Hendrix reigns as the most influential instrumentalists in the history of rock music. He was awe inspiring, a showman for the first degree, and a wizard of electronic cause and effect. Through his passion and emotion for music, his cultural influences because of his willingness to be different and his electrifying stage presence, is the reason this man is legend. Jimi Hendrix was born into a family who wasn't very well off financially. So, at age 11, when he received his first acoustic guitar bought by his father for $5.00, he loved and appreciated that gift and treated it like it was an angel's golden harp, handed from God.

Jimi's first love was the guitar, when he played emotions ran wild whoever was around stood in awe to watch this amazing man turn a simple instrument into a voice of his imagination. He was an impressionist in that he created the feeling of the sound, as well as a realist, depicting that sound by reproducing it on his instrument. He couldn't afford to own a tuning fork, so he would go to the music store, run his hands along the open strings of a guitar, then go home and tune his own guitar up, only someone with perfect pitch, and passion for music could perform this intricate task. Another gift that Hendrix had, was mastering the guitar Butler 2 in many aspects that most wouldn't have thought of; all this may be explained in the method by which he learned how to play. Self taught and without money to purchase him a left handed guitar, he experimented with the guitar right handed before realizing the difference. In the later years of his career Jimi preferred the right handed Strat as opposed to the left handed model, because he could use his arm to control the switch, now at the upper bout, as well as the volume and tone controls and tremolo bar, which would be similarly located.

This enabled him to play the string and simultaneously operate the electronics and mechanics of the instrument - allowing the guitar to speak. A simple example to illustrate his untouchable passion was when he played the "Star Spangled Banner", at Woodstock, 1969- when he played the line "bombs bursting in air", he put forth the sound to most people's ears that rang as though there really was bombs bursting in the air. Another example of the emotion he rooted in the soloed national anthem was when he played the climatic sentence " in the land of the free", Jimi let the note ring on for what seemed like eternity, since in his time during the fifties and sixties, for most African Americans this line wasn't entirely true. Jimi was such an incredible musician because of his ability and agility to perform and pursue the crowd to feel his emotion through his magical instrument. Jimi Hendrix, legacy in music influenced many great musicians, as well as his fellow African Americans in style, and freedom of breaking the "all white world cycle". The great guitarists of his time were his biggest fans, and even they were often intimidated by his drastic moves on the guitar.

When Hendrix first hit his musical debut, Butler 3 at a club in London, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend went to see this young man who was pushing the boundaries of Rock. Arriving late, they met Jeff Beck, who was already leaving. They asked "is it that bad?" and Beck replied, "No, he's that good!" The legend had been born. The Beatles had enthusiastically found a liking in Hendrix during the guitarist's early days in London.

The admiration was mutual, as Hendrix enjoyed the Beatles and the creative freedom their music expressed. Although a few before him had experimented with the feed back, Jimi took control of this chaotic noise and mastered it so it was pleasing to the ear. He took effects to heights that had never been heard before - effects that guitarists today, twenty years later still rely on as basics. With his newfound techniques he used every piece of the guitar that could help him put forth the music he heard in his head and played it to the world flawlessly. Toggle switching, vibrato bar usage, talking wah-wah, heavy distortion and harmonies were just a portion of the Hendrix's legacy, built out of what in today's life is common musical tools that are used by all. These musical tools are known as wah-wah pedals, amps, fuzz tone, octive box and a univ ibe.

He adopted many different guitar styles sci-fi sounds, modal jazz, and acid rock and industrial / animal blues. Jimi combined wah, fuzz and octive with extreme panning and studio mastering, finally resorting to the use of white and filtered noise - this being the purest of all sounds, as it contains the presence of all frequencies. Not only is Hendrix mastering the musical world, he is tying the two worlds of language and art to science with the usage of frequencies. Along with his many different styles of music, came Hendrix's many different ways of playing the guitar, because of his unusual long thumb, Jimi used it as an extra finger for fretting, his ability to play both right and Butler 4 left handed guitars with an equality between the two allowed him to even turn the guitar upside down without restringing it aided in his unschooled knowledge of blues. Awe - wonder, admiration, respect, amazement, surprise, wonderment, astonishment the definition of all these words comes down to their root word - Jimi Hendrix on stage. When Jimi Hendrix performed he put the audience in a trance, a trance that allowed them to ride on the waves of the musical frequencies that were coming out of the simple instrument played by a musical icon.

His onstage antics included setting guitars on fire - showing the sacrifice of his once true love, playing the guitar with his teeth, playing behind his head without looking at what his was playing, he did a lot of finger tapping and one handed solos. One of the most popular techniques discovered by Hendrix's that is used nowadays is the wah technique of Jimi talking to his guitar and the guitar talking back, and often imitated device. Other techniques include diving with the whammy bar, panning and harmony guitar work. What Jimi did with the guitar on stage, was what many would pay an arm and a leg for; he showed fellow musicians, fans and onlookers what he could do with the guitar; taming the guitar as though it were a vicious beast. Jimi had his own style on the guitar as well as in his outward appearance; he was one of the first black men to introduce the "fro" even before it became popular in his African American culture. After his death something ironic happened... people started to dress like him, talk like him and become friends with white people.

Jimi Hendrix had an enormous although not spoken of influence on an entire generation of people. Hendrix was a man who embodied power and peace along with his fame and fortune; he passed Butler 5 along this message thru his music that flowed from the ten magic wands that we call fingers. His emotional and cultural influences ran free when he was on stage in front of a crowd, he was quoted "music makes me high when I'm on stage, and that's the truth. It's like being almost addicted to music" most fans could relate to the addiction for music when Hendrix was involved.

His awkward and psychedelic appearance along with his many different stage antics and his beautiful tamed music that came as natural to him as the air we breathe is what made people want to hear more. Jimi Hendrix a legend a man of the musical world who will never be forgotten is famous for many different aspects of his career. His ability to enhance people on the cultural and emotional level as well as he immaculate stage performance are what people remember this twenty seven year old icon by. Though short lived, Jimi's legacy will continue to live on in the hearts of those who can appreciate a man who took a simple guitar, and went outside the limits of playing and performing to the entirety of a new genre. His simple gestures in making different sounds come from a guitar will continuously shape the world into influencing guitar players to reach for the limits of music; after all it is the universal language. Butler 6

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