Talk:Little Wing

I added the lyrics, hope no one minds.

I guess it's acceptable, but I am not sure, though. I did not read carefully the docs about the rights of the author and the possibility to publish lyrics. I remember some sites did not post lyrics because of legal issues, but this is a very old. Some moderator should come and sput a definitive word about it, so that we can evetually add more lyrics.

p.s. post with the four tildes at the end please

Federico Pistono 11:46, 2005 September 4 (UTC)

This comes up every once in a while; the consensus says that it's a breach of copyright law. I've added an external link to them, which is our standard procedure. Thanks for the effort, though. Deltabeignet 03:49, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Origins

I was wondering if their should be a section of the thought process leading up to the song, and why it is named Little Wing. However, I've heard two accounts on the matter - one that it was named after a flightless bird which became extinct in America (the translation from Apache of the bird being Little Wing), and the second that Jimi wrote the song about the atmosphere at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. I don't have any solid evidence to back either of these stories up, but was thinking that maybe someone else would have. The second account is from here.

I've found a third, mentioned in the Wikipedia article about Electric Ladyland, that Little Wing was the name of Hendrix's 'Guardian Angel'.

I'd heard that "little wing" was an allusion to Jimi's native american ancestry

POV

The last two sentences of the second paragraph are very POV. "The Curtis Mayfield-influenced chord riffing is breath-taking throughout the introduction and the tone of his guitar is clean and pure; a perfect balance between aggression and sympathy. This is Hendrix at his very best." If the "breath-taking," "Perfect balance...," and "Hendrix at his very best," are all subjective and not appropriate for an encyclopedia article, and if the person who submite the second paragraph could provide corroboration for any influence by Curtis Mayfield, that would be great, because otherwise I have to believe that's also subjective.

Tonal Center?

From the article:

Hendrix makes great use of the relative minor harmonic concept by utilizing a tonal center of G major, but introduces the tune with an E minor chord played with authority and a sense of immediacy. The awesome power in the first miliseconds are achieved by gripping the E minor at the 12th fret with the thumb wrapping around the neck to reach the bass note E found on the 6th string (Jimi had huge hands). A muted percussive blast preceeds the actual chord by a split second.

To me, it doesn't sound like the tonal center is G major (actually G-flat, because the guitar seems to be tuned down by a half-step). That argument could be made, certainly, but it sounds more to me that the song is in a straightforward E minor, which is the chord that ends most of the phrases. And as for the second sentence (ignoring the POV of the first phrase), why would he have to wrap around to reach the bass note E on the 6th string? That would be an open string in standard tuning; that is, the left hand would not be involved in sounding that note. And as for the acrobatics involved, it sounds impossible even for someone with abnormally large hands. So unless someone can provide some support for either of those positions, I am moving the paragraph to the Talk page. ArthurDenture 06:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The thumb IS used to fret the 6th string many times during the song, I have an official songbook which specifically notes this, and it isn't remotely difficult to do for even someone with medium size hands. I can't speak to the tonal center of the song though as my knowledge of music theory is hardly extensive. User:PipOC

Yes, using the thumb on the 6th string is no big deal. Looking at it now, I think I the original poster may have been referring to an E played on the 12th fret of the 6th string during the initial chord rather than the low E on the open 6th string that is played immediately following that chord. So that part may be ok with some cleanup and NPOV, but I'm still skeptical about the tonal center bit. ArthurDenture 04:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Comping

I'm confused how the style of playing this song is similar to comping. If anything it's opposite to it. The Thumb fretting the root is a way of maintaining a strict tonal center while allowing melodic passages to go on within the distinct harmonic structure of the song. Comping has little in common with this, as it's a means of improvising harmony, not distinguishing it. The Jazz technique I would most closely relate this to is chord melody. PipOC 04:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)