Three lessons,
free, in full.

The Rig & Signal Chain

Hendrix's core rig here is one of the most documented in rock, and also one of the most mythologized — so let's separate what's solid from what's lore.

• Guitar: A Fender Stratocaster, played right-handed-strung but flipped for a left-hander. That flip matters tonally: the staggered pole pieces and the slanted bridge pickup end up reversed, which subtly changes the high end. The bridge pickup does most of the work on the riff and lead.
• Fuzz: A Fuzz Face — period units used germanium transistors, which are touch-sensitive and clean up dramatically when you roll back the guitar's volume knob. This is the single most important pedal in the chain. It's woolly, a little unstable, and reacts to your hands.
• Octave: An Octavia (built by Roger Mayer), an octave-up fuzz that adds a ring-modulated, upper-octave ghost note. You hear it most clearly on the solo, where single notes high on the neck bloom into that piercing, alien doubling.
• Amp: Marshall stacks — commonly cited as 100-watt heads pushed loud. Settings are usually described as bright and near-full, but treat any "exact" numbers you see online as approximate; the surviving documentation is thin.

What's well-supported is the Octavia on the lead. Be skeptical of overly precise claims about "secret" settings — the magic here is mostly fuzz + a Strat + a loud Marshall + Jimi's hands.

The Tone Recipe

You can get ~90% there with accessible modern gear.

Key move: practice rolling your guitar volume knob. Fuzz-cleanup is the secret handshake of this tone.

What's Going On Musically

The song lives in E, but not plain major. Hendrix is working a blues/rock vocabulary built around the E minor pentatonic (E–G–A–B–D) and the E blues scale (add the b5, Bb), while the chords lean on E7#9 — the famous "Hendrix chord."

Why E7#9 sounds the way it does. A dominant 7 chord (E7 = E–G#–B–D) wants both a major 3rd (G#) and a flat 7 (D). The "#9" adds what is enharmonically G — the minor 3rd. So you're stacking a major 3rd and a minor 3rd in the same chord. That collision is exactly the sound of the blues: the vocal "blue note" frozen into a chord. Tense, gritty, unresolved — which is why it became shorthand for funk, psych, and hard rock.

The tritone. The intro hook is the interval E to Bb — three whole steps apart, a tritone, historically nicknamed "the devil in music." It's the most dissonant interval in the octave and it refuses to sit still. Hendrix exploits that restlessness as a hook before the riff even starts.

Signature Moves

1) The tritone intro (E ↔ Bb)

e|-------------------------|
B|-------------------------|
G|-------------------------|
D|-------------------------|
A|--7~----6~----7~----6~---|   <- Bb on the A string
E|--0-----0-----0-----0----|   <- E pedal underneath
    Bb    A     Bb    A

That clash of open E against Bb is the tritone — dissonant on purpose. Add slow vibrato (~) and let the fuzz growl.

2) The main riff (E blues vocabulary)

e|----------------------------|
B|----------------------------|
G|--------------------2-------|
D|------2--4h5--------2-------|
A|--0h2--------0------0-------|   <- lands on an E7#9 stab
E|--------------------0-------|

Pentatonic motion underneath, resolving to a stabbed E7#9 voicing. Pick hard; this is where the Fuzz Face earns its keep.

3) The E7#9 voicing (the Hendrix chord)

e|--x--|
B|--8--|   <- G  (the #9 / minor-3rd "blue note")
G|--7--|   <- G# (the major 3rd)
D|--6--|   <- D  (the b7)
A|--7--|   <- E  (the root)
E|--x--|

Both 3rds (G# and G) in one grip — that's the entire emotional payload of the chord. Stab it, mute, repeat.

The Drills

Drill A — 7#9 + R&B embellishment

Builds the funk-comping reflex Hendrix used everywhere: hold the chord, decorate it with hammer-ons and muted scratches.

e|--x---x------x---x----------x---x------------|
B|--8---8------8h8------------8---8------------|
G|--7---7------7---7----------7---7------------|
D|--6---6------6---6----------6---6----6/7-6---|
A|--7---7------7---7----------7---7----7-------|
E|--x---x------x---x----------x---x------------|
    >   >                     >   >    slide tag

Tone: bridge pickup, fuzz at 6–7, guitar volume rolled to ~6 so the chord stays defined. Keep the strumming hand moving in constant 16ths; let the pick skim muted strings between hits.

Drill B — Tritone riff

Trains the E-against-Bb tension move and locks in a swung, lurching feel.

e|--------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------|
G|--------------------7-----------------------|
D|--------------------------------------------|
A|--7~----6-----7-----7-----6-----7~----6-----|
E|--0-----0-----0-----0-----0-----0-----0-----|
    Bb    A     Bb          A     Bb    A
  (tritone)           (resolve up to D then back)

Fuzz growling, guitar volume ~8 for bite. Let the open E ring under everything so the dissonance stays in your ear. The brief jump to D gives the line somewhere to breathe before it falls back into the clash.

Drill C — Octavia-style lead lick

Trains high-neck single-note phrasing with bends, where an octave-up fuzz sings hardest.

e|--12b14r12----------12-15-12-----------------|
B|-----------15--12----------------15b17~------|
G|---------------------------------------------|
D|---------------------------------------------|
A|---------------------------------------------|
E|---------------------------------------------|
   bend & release     run down     wail + vibrato

Engage the octave fuzz and use the bridge pickup. The effect tracks cleanest on single notes above the 12th fret, so keep the lines high and avoid full chords. Bend slowly and add wide vibrato — let each note bloom into its ghostly upper octave.

Make It Yours

The takeaways travel far beyond this one song. First, the E7#9 grip is a permanent addition to your vocabulary — drop it as a funk stab, a turnaround chord, or the last hit of any blues. Second, fuzz-cleanup: practicing your volume knob turns one pedal into a whole pedalboard, from clean-ish sparkle at 4 to full snarl at 10, all without tap-dancing. Third, the tritone is a tension tool you can sprinkle into any riff — pit a root against its b5 and let your ear feel the pull. Steal these ideas and you've got the DNA of a sound, not just a cover.

This is the lesson where you stop measuring solos in notes-per-second and start measuring them in intention per note. Gilmour's outro solo is one of the most loved in rock not because it's hard to fret, but because every bend lands exactly on pitch, every note is allowed to bloom, and the whole thing climbs like a story with a beginning, a middle, and a roof-raising end. Your hands can probably play these notes today. The work is in the patience.

The Rig & Signal Chain

• Guitar: A Fender Stratocaster (his famous black Strat), typically on bridge or bridge-plus-middle for leads. Single-coils are central — that glassy attack is doing real work.
• Fuzz: An Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, the violinist's secret weapon, for that endless, vocal sustain. The Muff is a fuzz, not a tube-amp overdrive — it compresses hard and sings.
• Delay: Tape/analog-style delay for the wide, rhythmic repeats that make the solo feel three-dimensional.
• Compression: A touch of compression (he's a known MXR Dyna Comp user across this era) to even out sustain and round the attack.
• Amp: Hiwatt heads run clean and loud, a big uncolored platform so the pedals define the dirt.

The signal philosophy matters more than the brands: dirt from a pedal, cleanliness from the amp, space from delay. That's the template for the whole genre of soaring lead tone.

The Tone Recipe

You can get ~90% there with very accessible gear. The point is the relationship between fuzz, clean amp, and delay — not boutique exotica.

What's Going On Musically

The famous outro solo sits over a repeating loop in B minor: Bm – A – G. Your core scale is B minor pentatonic, rooted at the 7th fret. The magic ingredient Gilmour adds is Dorian color: a minor scale with one bright note raised, the major 6th (in B Dorian, that's G#). Hitting it over the A or G chords gives that hopeful, lifted, "not-quite-sad" sound that keeps the solo from feeling like a generic blues.

Here's the chord-tone map you'll target — the whole secret to why his notes sound "right":

• Over Bm: aim for B, D, F#.
• Over A: aim for A, C#, E.
• Over G: aim for G, B, D.

When the chord changes, a great soloist changes their target note to match. That's why Gilmour's lines feel like melodies that belong to the song rather than scales sprayed on top. Targeting chord tones is the single highest-value skill in this lesson.

Signature Moves

1) The conversational opener (call-and-answer phrasing)

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|--10b12r10--7~~~------------7--10b12~~~----------|
G|---------------------9~~~-9----------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

Phrases that pose a question (the first bend) and answer it (the resolution), with silence carrying the line. Let the delay fill the gaps.

2) The soaring sustained bend

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|--15b17~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
G|------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

Push the 15th-fret B up a whole step to the target pitch, then sustain. Don't rush the vibrato in — let the note bloom first, then shimmer it. This is the Big Muff and compressor doing their job; your job is the vibrato.

3) The climactic repeated bend

e|--15b17~~--15b17~~--15b17~~--15b17~~-------------|
B|------------------------------------------------|
G|------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

Repetition is the payoff. Every repeat must hit the exact same pitch — wandering intonation kills the climax. Dig in slightly harder each pass.

The Drills

Drill A — Sustained bend-to-pitch with delay

Trains intonation and patience. Set delay long with a few repeats.

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|--15--15b17~~~~~~~~~~~~--15--15b17~~~~~~~~~~~~---|
G|------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|

Builds pitch-perfect whole-step bends. Trick — first fret the destination note (17) and listen, then bend the lower note and make it match exactly. Tone: Muff Sustain ~7, delay mix ~4 so the repeats reinforce your sustain.

Drill B — B minor pentatonic chord-tone targeting

Trains landing on the right note when the chord moves. Loop Bm–A–G underneath (or imagine it).

      (Bm)              (A)               (G)
e|------------------|------------------|------------------|
B|--10b12~~--10-----|--10--7-----------|------------------|
G|-------------11---|--------9--7~~----|--7~~--9--7-------|
D|------------------|------------------|------------9~~---|
A|------------------|------------------|------------------|
E|------------------|------------------|------------------|
   target: F#/D        target: C#/A       target: D/G

Builds hearing the chord under your line. The held notes are chord tones of each chord — that's why the line sounds "composed." Tone: a hair less gain than the climax so the note changes stay articulate.

Drill C — Long-phrase building (the narrative arc)

Trains stamina and dynamic shape: start low and quiet, climb, and peak. One continuous four-bar idea.

e|-------------------------------------------------|-----------------|
B|-------------------------------------------------|--15b17~~~~~~~~~~|
G|--7~~--9--7----------9b11~~--9--------------------|-----------------|
D|------------9--7--9-------------9~~--7------------|-----------------|
A|-------------------------------------------------|-----------------|
E|--7~~--------------------------------------------|-----------------|

Builds solo architecture — the discipline of saving your highest, loudest note for last. Play it three times without stopping; the high bend should feel earned, not early. Ride your volume knob up as you climb for a built-in crescendo.

Make It Yours

The lesson of "Comfortably Numb" transfers to any solo you'll ever play: slow down, bend in tune, and target the chord. Next time you take a lead break, give yourself a one-note rule for the first phrase — bend to pitch, hold it, add vibrato, and stop. Let the silence (and a little delay) do the talking. Then build, raising your register and intensity only as the section repeats, so you always have somewhere left to go. The Big Muff sustain is fun, but the real tone here is restraint: a clean amp, a held note, and the confidence to let it ring. Steal the architecture, not just the licks.

The Rig & Signal Chain

• Guitar: SRV's "Number One," a hard-played early-'60s-spec Stratocaster with a fat neck. The defining feature is the strings: famously heavy gauges, commonly cited as .013s and up, tuned down a half step. Heavy strings are a big part of why his tone has that piano-like fundamental and refuses to sound thin.
• Overdrive: A Tube Screamer (TS-808 / TS9 family), used less as a "distortion" box and more as a midrange-pushing, signal-fattening boost: it tightens the lows, bumps the mids, and shoves a clean-ish tube amp into early, touch-sensitive breakup.
• Amp: Fender — a Vibroverb and/or Super Reverb, run loud and fairly clean-to-edge-of-breakup, letting the Tube Screamer and his right hand do the dirty work.
• Pickup: Bridge for the rhythm bark; neck and middle for fatter lead moments.

Settings are best treated as approximate. Avoid anyone who quotes you exact "secret" dial positions — those are guesses.

The Tone Recipe

You can get ~90% there with very accessible gear.

What's Going On Musically

This is a 12-bar blues in E, played as a shuffle — a swung, triplet-based feel where each beat divides into a long-short "dah-da" rather than even eighths. The "Texas shuffle" is a particularly driving, full version of that.

The vocabulary is the E blues scale (E – G – A – Bb – B – D) over dominant harmony. Because each chord in a blues is a dominant 7th (E7, A7, B7), the underlying color is E Mixolydian. The magic of blues is rubbing the bluesy minor-3rd (G) and b5 (Bb) against the major-leaning chords — that friction is the sound.

| E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 |
| A7 | A7 | E7 | E7 |
| B7 | A7 | E7 | B7 |   (last bar = turnaround)

What makes SRV special isn't the form — it's that he plays bass, chords, and lead simultaneously. The thumb and low strings imply a walking bassline while the upper strings stab chords and fills. A double-stop gives those fills their thickness. And everything is glued together with enormous vibrato — wide, vocal, as much a part of his signature as any note choice.

Signature Moves

1) The Texas shuffle engine

A moving bassline under a chord stab — a boogie pattern that walks while the high strings answer. Keep it swung.

e|---------------------------------|
B|---------------------------------|
G|---------------------------------|
D|-------2----2----4----5----------|
A|---2----2----2----2----2---------|
E|-0----0----0----0----0-----------|
      (let the low E ring, walk the A string)

A two-bar fragment of the boogie engine — thumb and low strings imply the bass while the pulse stays swung. Palm-mute lightly for punch.

2) The turnaround

The last two bars resolve the form and set up the repeat. This descending figure over E is a blues staple SRV peppers with grit.

e|----------------------------------|
B|----------------------------------|
G|--3-------2-------1-------0--------|
D|--2-------2-------2-------2--------|
A|--2-------2-------2-------2--------|
E|--0-------0-------0-------0--------|
   E7      (chromatic descent)    B7

A classic turnaround shape — the top voice steps down chromatically over a held E, then you'd land on B7 to restart.

3) Raked double-stop fill

SRV "rakes" — dragging the pick across muted strings into the target double-stop so the notes arrive with a percussive scrrr-CHANK.

e|--------------5b6----------|
B|--x--x--x-----5------------|
G|--x--x--x------------------|
D|---------------------------|
A|---------------------------|
E|---------------------------|
   (rake the dead strings)
                (bend the top note up)

The rake (xxx) is the run-up; the double-stop with a slight bend on the high E is the payoff. The dead-string scratch is the attitude.

The Drills

Drill A — Shuffle independence

The hardest part of this music: keeping a steady swung bass while stabbing chords on top. Thumb (or pick) hits the bass note; fingers and pick answer on the upper strings on the off-beat.

e|------------------------------------------|
B|----3-------3-------3-------3-------------|
G|----4-------4-------4-------4-------------|
D|--2-------2-------4-------5---------------|
A|-----------------------------------------|
E|-0-------0-------0-------0----------------|
   BASS  stab   BASS  stab    (walk D string up)

Builds bass-and-chord independence plus a rock-solid swing. Bridge pickup, palm-mute the low E for thump, let the stabs ring. Start painfully slow — the groove is in the spaces.

Drill B — Raked double-stops up the neck

Trains the rake attack and double-stop intonation across positions. Each rake (xxx) leads into a clean two-note hit.

e|--x--x--5/7~-----x--x--7/9~-----x--x--9/10~-----|
B|--x--x--5/7~-----x--x--7/9~-----x--x--9/10~-----|
G|------------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------------------------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|
   rake   slide+vib   rake   slide+vib   rake   slide+vib

Builds the percussive rake, double-stop sliding, and vibrato on TWO strings at once. Push the Tube Screamer's Level so the rake scratches bark. Keep both fingers parallel so the slide stays in tune.

Drill C — E blues lead with wide vibrato

The vibrato exercise. The whole point is the shake — slow, wide, vocal. Don't rush past the held notes.

e|------------------------------------------------|
B|-------------------8b9r8-----5~~~---------------|
G|--7b9~~~-------7----------7----------------------|
D|------------9-----------------------9~~~---------|
A|------------------------------------------------|
E|------------------------------------------------|
   big bend+vib   blues phrase   land + WIDE vib

Builds the SRV vibrato — wrist-driven, wide, and patient — plus full-step bend control. Use the neck pickup for a fatter lead voice. The held notes with ~~~ are the lesson: make them sing, don't just touch them.

Make It Yours

You don't need .013s, an Eb tuning, or a Vibroverb to absorb what makes this great. The transferable lessons are three: play hard, swing everything, and commit to your vibrato. Take the shuffle independence idea into any blues — even implying a single bass note under a chord stab instantly makes your rhythm playing sound like a whole band. Steal the rake as an accent on any double-stop fill; it turns a polite lick into a statement. And spend real time on a slow, wide vibrato — it's the single fastest way to sound like a player with a voice rather than a player running scales.