Foxey Lady

Jimi Hendrix being the amazing player he was, he played all versions a bit differently from one another. We’ll take riffs from the record version (Are You Experienced), and we’ll add variations so you can learn how to add your own touch to it!

The intro

Foxey Lady is in the key of F#, and the song starts with the F# note being sustained. Ideally we’d all want a very loud amp so we could get some feedback, but some overdrive might be enough at home! You can play the note F# either on fret 16 of the D string, or on the 11th fret of the G string.

Stay on F#, and add some intense vibrato. It doesn’t matter if you catch other strings as it adds to the sound we’re going for!

The main riff

The main riff is played a few different ways, so let’s focus on the record version first. We start on the second fret of the low E string, and we hit that note twice. We then jump to a double stop on the B and high E strings on the 5th fret.

We then play the fourth fret on the D string twice, and the same double stop we’ve just seen on the B and high E strings.

After that, we go back to the low E string again, where we play F# on the 2nd fret, followed by the same double stop we’ve played before.

We then have a little walk up where we start on the 5th fret of the low E string, move up to the second fret of the A string, and finish on a B major triad on fret 4!

Main riff’s variations

Let’s now look at some variations you can add to the main riff we’ve just seen. First of all, on live versions, you can hear Hendrix play the open E string before starting the riff again! So feel free to play that open string before you jump back to F# on the second fret of the low E string.

Then, we can play the first part of the riff the same way we’ve seen it, but we could add the little chromatic walk that Hendrix plays before the B triad. To play that, we start with the 5th fret of the low E string like we always do, but we then play frets 2, 3 and 4 on the A string, and start the riff again.

The idea is to play around with this riff, for example by bending the B triad we’ve seen before. You can also improvise like Jed’s demonstrating, using a mix of the F# minor and major pentatonic scales! For example, Jed’s demonstrating a slide from shape 1 of F# minor to shape 3 of F# major, so feel free to experiment with that!

The chorus

To play the chorus, we’re going to need F#, E and B. We can play regular shapes, or tweak them so we’re missing out on the A string. Another thing we can do is add the 9th to the E, as that note is an F#!

Let’s focus on the B for a bit. We don’t really want to strum that G shape, but instead, we want to improvise on shape 1 of the B major pentatonic scale, which we can “stack” onto that G shape using the CAGED!

In terms of rhythm, you can keep it simple and just play downstrokes on F# and E, and again, improvise over the B!

The structure of the chorus would look like this:

Let’s look at the chorus break lead, we’re playing over the F# minor pentatonic scale shape 1, starting an octave higher than what we’ve seen so far, on fret 14! We start with a bend on the 16th fret of the G string, and we then land on the 14th fret of the G. After that, we hit the root note on the 16th fret of the D string. We then repeat the same bend idea twice.

Once you’ve played that phrase, we jump back to the verse!

The solo

The solo is played over the verse riff, so we’re in F# minor/blues. We’re still on the same shape we’ve seen just before on the break, with shape 1 starting on the 14th fret, and all our classic blues licks will work. Something we can do is bend the D string on the 16th fret up a tone, reaching the 9th of our scale.

Of course, this is a classic Jimi Hendrix song, so feel free to have fun improvising on it, and make noise. After the solo, we go back to the intro idea with the F# sustained. We then go back into the main riff!