"So, private. Can you actually play that guitar, or is it just for show?"
More did-you-know trivia: It's a myth that Hendrix took a right-handed guitar and simply flipped it over, i.e., playing it strung normally so that the high "E" string was on top. Well...sort of a myth. Hendrix's father was not tolerant of his son's left-handedness, so young Jimi also taught himself to play a right-handed guitar that way...but only when his father was around.
Hendrix did play right-handed electric guitars, but he strung them normally: low "E" on top, high "E" on the bottom. And in part, that's what gave him his distinctive, signature tone.
The pickups on an electric guitar are each like a set of six tiny microphones, a magnet underneath each string. The distance between the magnet and the string varies based on which string it is, and the relative thickness of the string. When Hendrix swapped the stringing for left-handed play, it changed the positioning of all six strings relative to their magnets.
His Fender Stratocaster, like a lot of electric guitars, had a headstock with all the tuning pegs on one side. For a right-hander, that meant the low "E" ended up being the shortest string, and the high "E" the longest. But Jimi's was reversed, so the higher strings were under less tension than with right-handed stringing (remember all those long, extended "bends" he played), and the low strings were under a higher relative tension, which made them sound a little brighter and less booming.
File under, "things you never even wondered about before."
I'm in a hotel room with no access to a guitar. Darnit. I suddenly feel the urge to break loose with a 10-minute, bad rendition of Voodoo Child (Slight Return)...
