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

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 4/6/2023...

Nope!

A Powerful Tool for Learning Hendrix

Toronto_Matt | Toronto, Canada | 02/14/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

""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."

Great video

Ronald C. Skurow | 02/10/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

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

Not worth the money

Y.G | Austin, TX | 02/14/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"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."