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Here's a funny thought I just had:
The tunes I play, or licks and stuff are almost never Hendrix stuff. Even over the years 35+ years of playing, I've maybe learned 5 Hendrix songs verbatim.
Yet almost everything I play and some of my technique is Hendrix influenced.
It reminds me of what Greg Koch says in his SRV instruction DVD lesson (which Koch is a major SRV disciple) He says: People - forget all that stuff you were taught about how "the thumb needs to be underneath the neck so the fingers can be on the fretboard like pistons" you just can't play this stuff without full involvment of the thumb.
When I look at almost all the better rock/blues players of modern times, they have emulated that - even Frusciante (who is very Hendrixian by the way).
And what's funny is the first song I wanted to learn on guitar when I started was "Foxy Lady" which involved using my thumb. Well that brings me to another kind of funny story.
When my mom signed me up for guitar lessons at age 11 (I had exactly 2 lessons i my life) the first thing the teacher said to me was "where did you learn to you your thumb like that for a G chord? LOL! My hands were small so it was easier for me to grab the back of the neck and finger the G chord that way with index finger on the high E string and thumb on the low E, then I'd just deaden the low a string.
And I'm sill a major user of the thumb today.
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