It even sounds purple.Īlthough he did much to popularize it, Hendrix was by no means the first guitarist to use the dominant 7#9 chord, as complex dominant seventh chord voicings had been used in jazz for years. It’s a sophisticated chord voicing, but it isn’t hard to play. Whether you strike the high or low E strings can be a matter of taste, but the chording works either way. From low strings to high, you have an open low E (the root), your middle finger on the seventh fret of the A string (octave E above the open low E), your index finger on the sixth fret of the D string (a G#, which is the major third), your ring finger on the seventh fret of the G string (a D, which is the dominant 7th) and the kicker, your pinkie on the eighth fret of the B string (a G, which is the minor third), followed by an open high E. To illustrate, let’s dissect the fingering of the dominant E7#9 chord used in “Purple Haze” (see illustration above). Normally, these two notes sounded together would produce a naturally unpleasant dissonance, but the 7#9 “Hendrix chord” structure spreads the two notes far apart enough and includes enough root tones (and a seventh tone) to convey a singularly interesting and not at all unpleasant sound. The chord’s appeal lies in the fact that, like the blues scale from which it is derived, it is both major and minor at the same time, which is to say that it includes both the major third and minor third tones. Later, Hendrix also used the chord on live versions of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”. version of the landmark debut album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1967’s Are You Experienced. The chord is also implied throughout “Foxey Lady”, which appeared alongside “Purple Haze” on the U.S. “Purple Haze” starts with the mounting tension of its famously staccato tritone intro a tension explosively released when the Experience launches into the verse with Hendrix blasting out a raw and aggressively bluesy E7#9 chord. Hendrix built his siganture hit, 1967's 'Purple Haze', around his eponymous chord and one could argue that “Purple Haze” owes much of its sonic identity and appeal to its author’s choice of the more tonally colorful E7#9 chord voicing rather than a more straightforward E major or E7 chord. This chord form got its nickname because it was a favorite of Hendrix, who did a great deal to popularize its use in mainstream rock music. The 7#9 chord is an extended dominant 7th chord with an augmented (sharpened) ninth. As far as we know, no other rock guitarist is so honored.īut what is it about the 7#9 “Hendrix Chord” that makes it sound so dirty, so bluesy, so colorful and so huge? Such is the legend and influence of Jimi Hendrix that the man actually has a chord nicknamed after him.

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