Jimi Hendrix Little Wing Analysis

Analysis coursework on ‘Little Wing’

From the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967 album “Axis: Bold as Love”, Little Wing has arguably become one of their most celebrated songs, and can perhaps be said to be Hendrix’s most endearing ‘ballad’. This essay will attempt to analyse how aspects of the music have given it such an admirably distinct character.
The sound is somewhat determined by the ‘rock trio’ instrumentation, and the most defining aspect is arguably Hendrix’s guitar playing. Hendrix’s guitar was tuned a semitone down for the recording, and this had the effect of creating a denser tone than would be produced normally, and made certain guitar techniques easier. Through this and other sound-shaping processes, such as assumedly choosing
The A and Fb are not diatonic to the key of eb minor, and whilst A is a passing chord between bb and ab, the Fb seems more structurally significant. Because of this, Brown [1997] states “the intermediary chords arise from contrapuntal motion between the V chord in measure 5 and the VII chord in measures 9-10,” suggesting that the chords between bb and Db are not of much structural importance. However, if these chords were omitted, the harmonic character of the song would become so different that it seems they cannot be merely decorative. It is perhaps more apt to consider bars 6-8 (or just 6-7) as being in the subdominant, ab minor - as all the chords within these bars are diatonic to it - and that bars 9 (or 8) to 10 return to the tonic
In cycle 1, the guitar melody outlines the chord changes by beginning each bar with a bass root note, doubled by the glockenspiel. The melody seemingly alters the harmony in cycle one from what is described above. For instance, the first bar of the other cycles is simply eb, but the phrases on the last two beats of bar 1 suggest Gb and ab, leading the melody convincingly into the Gb phrases of the next bar. In bar 2, rather than simply being Gb, the hammer-on to and repeated striking of B on the 3rd and 4th beats suggests Gbsus4. Bar 5 has a C in the top voice, evoking bbadd9, which makes this the first non-diatonic phrase in the song. The ending of the double-stop phrase with Eb and Gb in bar 6 suggests, along with the Cb from the ab chord, Cb/Eb. In bar seven, starting on beat 2, descending parallel 5ths imply abmadd9, Gbadd9, and Fbadd9. Yet another 9th is used to colour the following Cb, and another double stop phrase ends the opening guitar section with Db/F of first beat of bar