Customer Reviews

Guitar World -- How to Play the Jimi Hendrix Experiences Axis Bold As Love: The Complete Guitar DVD

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Guitar World: How to Play The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Axis: Bold as Love" is an amazing tool to help the intermediate or advanced guitarist get a handle on how to approach the tunes on Axis: Bold As Love" by Jimi Hendrix.

Firstly, Andy Aledort, is at the centre of the strengths of this video. Mr. Aledort is an exceptional player who has a personal affinity for the playing of Jimi Hendrix within his own professional career. When this man says "This is how most people play this lick, but Jimi really plays it like this." one has confidence that what he says is exactly so. He has the playing, tone and, more importantly, the timing to get these phrases sitting just right. This is important in this kind instructional video format.

The format of this video is "watch and play" approach. Aledort plays with a backing drummer at full speed and distortion and then repeats at a slower pace with explanation of what chords or scales are being alluded to in the musical passage being analyzed. We get a close-up of his left hand on the main screen and an inset close-up of his right hand work at the same time. He turns down the distortion/effects when playing the slower versions. Typically he instructs on the playing of the backing guitar track first and then moves on to the melody or solo part next playing it over the background tracks. As mentioned before the playing is of exceptional quality throughout.

Aledort explains details of musical explanation as he works the way through the video explaining, say, the pentatonic minor in the first tune and mostly just referring to it at later points in the video. If you aren't working your way through the video in order you may find this annoying but if you are, or you are a more experienced player, you'll be thankful to be saved some of the repetition.

This isn't a great video for a beginning player in terms of understanding the musical theory behind what Jimi is playing. Aledort explains it as if he is referring to concepts to people who already have a understanding of musical concepts. For example, when he says that "Jimi adds a 9 to the chord" here, he does so with the understanding that his audience will understand what he is talking about. The novice player would still know how to play the chord by watching the video though so it is not as if the video does not hold anything for the less experienced.

I would have liked a few things to be added to take this video to bring it to the highest imaginable level. I would have liked to have seen an inset picture of his foot when doing some of the more involved wah-wah work. Aledort doesn't go into enough detail about how he achieves the excellent, authentic sound on the video for the different tunes. He indicates that a particular track has Fuzzface or an Octavia on it and there is a plug for a reissue of a Marshall amp that Jimi often used, but there is no discussion of levels and, often, he has delay and other effects on and makes little or no mention of them. A gross oversight is the fact that for 90% of the tunes he doesn't mention which pick-up he is selecting and the close-ups rarely allow one to see which pick-up he is using despite the fact that when we do catch sight of them they are often different for different tunes. For another artist's work this might be less important but for getting down the tunes of Jimi Hendrix, the tools and tone are an integral part of the songs.

Overall, I would rate this video highly and what's more I would say that it is a tremendous value for the money. Despite this being an instructional video, I enjoy just listening to Aledort play, as I do Hendrix. Aledort puts into our hands a great tool for coming to understand the playing of Hendrix in a detailed way and the video while perhaps not having every note on the album has as much of it as one would possibly expect to be included.

This is a wonderful DVD that finally helped me learn to play many of my favorite Hendrix songs that I've struggled with for years. I own most of Jimi's tablature books and have so for a long time, and while I could play some songs fairly well (Purple Haze, Wind Cries Mary), I struggled with others (Castles Made of Sand, Axis Bold as Love). Jimi's rhythm playing in particular -- the way he colored his chords with all of those wonderful fills -- gave me the most difficulty. The tablature books, while accurate, only reveal the *what* and not the *how*, and when it comes to Jimi, learning how he played his songs is vital to recreating them.

As others reviewers have noted, this DVD is not intended for beginners. Furthermore, it is a supplement to the Axis Bold as Love tab book rather than a replacement for it. The tab book isn't required in order to benefit from this DVD, but you'll probably get the most out of it if you can reference the tab book while you're watching it. I find that the tab book is especially useful for the solos and not as much for the rhythm sections.

Andy's playing is phenomenal and he's a very good teacher. Not only does he teach you to play the songs, but he also explains in depth what is going on musically (i.e., the *why*). These insights are very useful if you want to go beyond simply recreating Jimi's songs and want to incorporate aspects of his guitar playing into your own. The ElectricladyLand DVD is equally valuable, but the Are you Experienced DVD is marred by Velvert Turner's poor narration.

In response to other reviews posted here I have stated that this is not for beginners. I found it helpful to have a copy of the Axis; Bold As Love Song Book from Hal Leonard. As with most instrucionals, it is assumed that you have a certain amount of musicall knowledge of the fretboard amd of music theory. Some knowledge of chord qualities and intervals will be helpful to know what Aledort is talking about. Also this is definitley for those are fans of this album is a and don't mind spending three hours listening to someone talk about it. You get out of it just what you pu inot it.
Self-taught guitarists may find themselves stuck in a rut trying in vain to copy their favorites. If this is the case and one of your favorites is Hendrix then this is for you. It will take time and patience to get through as there is 3 hours plus worth of lessons here and you might benefit by just taking one song at a time.
I have played for over twenty years and still found this helpful. The songs are demonstrated in painstaking detail (even "EXP" is detailed herein) phrase by phrase, bend by bend and Aledort demonstrates the songs with a lot of enthusiasm rather than "wooden", "boring" stale rehashings of these tunes. A good teacher is one who enjoys his subject. You can tell the Andy Aledort admires Hendrix as much as you and even gives some hints as to how Hendrix achieved his tone and so forth. There are some things that Hendrix did that they just don't teach in Music Theory 101. This is a thorough and complete package from someone who recognized the work of a master.
Highly recommended to guitarist wanting to learn the songs from this album.

To sum it up: its just not worth the money.
Why?
1. This DVD does NOT come with any TAB's or notes which makes it VERY difficult to follow. you would expect from a guitar instructional DVD to come with some type of clear Tab either in a separate document on the DVD or even better as part of the DVD video like you see on other instructional guitar DVD's.
2. There is no doubt that Andy ( the instructor ) know his Hendrix. This guy can play Hendrix like he WAS Hendrix but as much as he is a great guitar player he is NOT a great instructor - He goes way too fast, he will play a part of the song but than forget to explain how to play notes he played and just skip them or he would just play something once and move on to the next section. now dont get me wrong - he does explain the major parts of each song and if you pause and replay the videos many times you will get it however that is not what you would expect from a good teacher. I know HE can play it but the idea is to teach ME how to play it.
3. The DVD is structured in such a way that each song is a separate video and each song to its relevant parts ( intro, verse, chorus, solo...) however the DVD menu's do NOT allow you to access the songs sub parts directly from the menu. what does that mean? it means that lets say you want to work on "Little Wing" verse today, you will have to seek through the song video until you find it. I dont know if this is a technical limitation of the DVD format but it sure is annoying since you really dont cant learn these songs in one sitting so you find yourself constantly using your DVD player's ( be it a physical one or a player on your PC ) forward and Rewind buttons.
4. The DVD does NOT come with separate backtrack of the songs. you would expect that the DVD will have the back tracks that the instructor is using so you can later practice on your own with them ( just like in the Hal Leonard Guitar Play-Along books ).

Should you buy it?
In my opinion it is just not worth $20 or $17 - for that amount of money I will suggest you get the "Jimi Hendrix Experience - SMASH HITS" Play Along book and CD from Hal Leonard or even the book "Jimi Hendrix - Signature Licks (Signature Licks Guitar) (Paperback)" from the same instructor.

I have been playing a long time, been a fan of Hendrix for ever. This is a great video.

I bought this to learn Little Wing - a song I've had trouble finding an accurate tab for.

First of all, this DVD does not come with a tab book. The videos on here I had actually saw on You Tube for free. Not knowing they were on this DVD I purchased it. The videos are terrible. The guy goes through the songs way too fast. You cannot see what he's doing with his picking hand as it's not in the camera's view.

I wouldn't recommend this DVD to anyone.

I would recommend this dvd even if it cost $100+. That's how good this guy is at teaching Hendrix.

What's great about this DVD is that Aledort really teaches you the nuances of Hendrix's guitar playing on the record. Things that would be missed playing from sheet music/TAB alone (and would take a painstakingly long time to pick-up/transcribe by ear from the record). For that alone, this DVD is a great buy. A beginner will find this DVD frustrating though. The pace is rather brisk, and unless you can pick up the phrases "quickly" you'll be doing a lot of pausing. Which can be frustrating, especially considering the amount of material that's on the disc. I typically play the disc on my computer (often opened up as a folder) so I can work through each video/song sections one at a time, taking notes along the way for future reference. Yeah, it takes quite a while to work through this if you don't know the songs ahead of time. But it's totally worth it.

if you are looking to take your guitar playing to the next level and have patience with yourself learning new concepts and techniques on the guitar, this dvd is for you. hell, i'd even recommend it if you don't like jimi hendrix. watching andy break everything down step by step will CHANGE YOUR GUITAR PLAYING for the better, it has for me, and if you are the type of person who can follow directions, it will for you too. all the hendrix techniques he teaches are vital to get better at the guitar, especially the rhythm playing. anybody can teach lead guitar, but andy has a real talent for showing you how jimi gets down when it comes to play each and every individual chord voicing. don't be another self taught youtube guitarist, or someone who reads tabs, please do it the right way, the next generation of musicians is depending on you and your talent. buy this dvd.

If you are a Hendrix fan, and like to play some Hendrix, and you don't already own this DVD, then what is your problem? Andy Aledort is a cool guy, and probably the most knowledgeable Hendrix player in the world, so there is no better instructor. These songs are tough, but slowly, small piece by piece, you can learn them with Aledort's help. You don't need the tab if you are patient with this. This is as good as it gets for Hendrix fans and I thank Aledort for this video as it is a true gift.