Little Wing

Little Wing is a perfect example of how scales and chords are connected. If you understand the CAGED system, this can be an amazing way to turn theory into a beautiful song.

The chord progression

Let’s talk about the harmony first, as understanding the chord progression of Little Wing will make your life a lot easier. Playing this song is not just about learning licks one after the other. It’s about knowing what chord you’re playing over! And just so you know, we’ll be playing in standard tuning, but the original guitar was tuned down a semitone.

So the chord progression goes like this:

Before you start playing licks on each of these chords, I’d suggest you spend time on this chord progression! Take your time and make sure you know where you are.
And just so you know, as Little Wing is quite a slow song, it's also common to count double time. So feel free to count twice as fast, with each bar feeling like two if that makes it easier!

The intro

On the intro, we start with a muted strum, followed by an upstroke on the top three strings at the 12th fret. Slide down the neck, and hit the low open E string. After that, play a downstroke and an upstroke on the muted strings.

The first E minor

We’re now going to break down each lick in relation to the chord we’re playing. So the first chord we’re tackling is the first E minor, and we’re going to play over shapes 1 and 3 of the E minor pentatonic scale.

Or, alternatively, over shape 3 of the E minor scale!

The G major

On this G, and on a number of the following chords, the idea is to “stack” our chord and scale together. Here, we’re playing G using an E shape barre chord, with the “thumb over” technique (classic Hendrix!).

On top of that, we’ll use shape 2 of the G major pentatonic scale to play the 5th fret on the high E string with a quick hammer-on/pull-off. We’ll then turn our G major chord into a Gsus4 by adding the fourth on the G string to our chord shape!

The A minor

On this A minor chord, we’re playing over shape 1 of the A minor pentatonic scale, with a touch of the natural minor scale at the end of the lick! At the end of this phrase, slide back to the open E string to introduce our next chord, E minor!

The second E minor

On this E minor chord, we have a position shift. We’re now playing over shape 1 of the E minor pentatonic scale.

The Bmin7

On Bmin7, we’re starting with a lick over shape 1 of the B minor scale.

We then shift to a Bbmin7, which we use as a little transition chord to move down to Amin7, our next chord!

The Amin7 and C

On the Amin7, we start by strumming the chord once. Remember that the shape we’re using is the same as the Bbmin7 we just saw. Just shift the whole shape down a semitone! After that, we have this beautiful lick played over the A minor scale.

The G major run

On this bar, we have a cool little run using three chord shapes. We’re going to need a Gsus2, an Asus2 and an Fsus2.

Slide from the Gsus2 to Asus2, without playing the root note on the low E string. Then, slide back from Asus2 to Gsus2, and back again from Gsus2 to Fsus2! To finish this little run, stay on the Fsus2 again, but this time, play the root note with your thumb on the 1st fret of the low E string, and feel free to strum it again to fill the space we have at the end of the bar.

The C major

First of all, this bar is shorter than the other bars we’ve seen! We only have two beats, which is why you’ll see the “2/4” time signature on the structure we started with. We’re playing a C major chord, but we start with a hammer-on on the A string, from the open string to the third fret. After that, we add a bit of colour to this C by turning it into a Cadd9.

The D major

We start this bar with a D5, and then play the final lick of this beautiful intro over shape 1 of the D major scale!

After the intro?

Once you’re done with the intro, it’s time to be creative! You can use the same scale shapes over the chords we’ve seen, and experiment with them, or you can move to different shapes! Again, the idea is to always use the scale of the chord you’re on, as if the chord was its own key.

For example, on Emin, use the E minor scale. On G, use the G major scale, and so on!