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Understanding 9/11View Post [edit]
| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 12:42pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | tighten up, beautiful jam |
I know you (LiA) are not a theory afficionado but I think you'll be able to follow this anyway - the chords from the two jams are the same, but in a different order and with different duration, and do come across with a different feel. Tighten Up looks like this:
Amaj7 | Bm7
Those two chords are just repeated again and again. The Beautiful Jam looks like this:
Bm | Bm | Amaj | Amaj
As you can see they both make use of ONLY A major and B minor chords, however, the "tighten up" repeated musical phrase begins with the A and ends with the B minor, while the beginning of the Beautiful phrase is B minor and it ends on an A. Also the Beautiful jam doesn't really make use of the 7th of the chords, while the 7th is crucial to the "sound" of the tighten ups. That jazzy quality that tighten up has is due to the 7th being added at the top of the A major chord to make an Amaj7 chord - here the seventh is a G#.
Without the theory, the two jams are similar in the chords they use, but altogether different musical ideas. And they are both very sweet-sounding.
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| Poster: | Jacky Hughes | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 12:07pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | jglynn1.2 | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 1:16pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | deadmax | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 3:18pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | greasymike | Date: | Sep 1, 2014 10:59am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
The Promised Land C
Rainy Day Women F
Help On The Way > Fm
Slipnot! > Fm
The Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion D
Loser Am
After Midnight > D
Eleanor Rigby Jam > Em-C, Aeolian-Dorian
After Midnight > D
To Lay Me Down G
New, New Minglewood Blues E
Uncle John's Band G
Wharf Rat > A, Mixolydian
Beautiful Jam > B, Aeolian (Bm)
Dark Star > A, Mixolydian
China Cat Sunflower > G
The Eleven B
Black Peter A
Cryptical > E
The Other One > E
Cryptical E
Franklin's Tower A, Mixolydian
Viola Lee Blues G
Box Of Rain A
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
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| Poster: | midnightcarousel | Date: | Oct 20, 2014 10:52am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Help on the Way - F Dorian (F minor with D natural instead of D flat)
Slipknot - Am
Golden Road - D mixolydian (I don't know if it's in D, but I do know it's mixolydian)
After Midnight - Probably mixolydian too
Minglewood Blues - E blues (so mixolydian, ish)
Beautiful Jam - A major
China Cat Sunflower - G mixolydian (although there there is an extended D major chord in the jam)
The Eleven - B blues/dorian for the intro jam, A major for the 11/8 section, E minor for the exit jam
Cryptical - A mixolydian (even though the first chord is an E, the thing is in A)
The other one - E dorian
Viola Lee - G blues / mixolydian
Box of Rain - G major
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| Poster: | robthewordsmith | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 1:17pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 5:01pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
The structure of Eyes, at least the 73-74 incarnation of it, usually goes like this:
Introductory riff on Emaj7 chord (everyone usually screams at this point)
First verse
First jam section/Jerry solo, on a repeating four-bar chord pattern: Emaj7 | Emaj7 | Bmin7 | Bmin7
Second verse
Second jam section/Jerry solo, on a slightly different four-bars: Emaj7 | Emaj7 | Bmin7 | Bmin7
Third verse
(The rest of the song is more or less jamming/soloing on single chords)
Jam on Emaj7, lasts any number of bars; Phil usually solos here
Jam on G#min7, usually lasts exactly 8 bars; Jerry usually solos here
Jam on Emaj7, any number of bars; Phil usually solos here
Jam on G#min7, usually lasts exactly 8 bars; Jerry solo
Jam on Emaj7, any number of bars; Jerry often joins Phil in soloing here
Jam on D#min7, usually lasts exactly 8 bars
Jam on Cdim7, usually lasts exactly 8 bars (often gets really intense - this might be the dissonant part you are talking about)
CRASH down to Emaj7, stays here for a little while
Jam on D#min7, hangs out here for a bit, then...
(*) That awesome riff in D#min7; this part is 7 bars of 7/4 time (count it!), and then the eighth bar is 6/4
(**) Drops down a half tone to Dmin7, jam here for 8 bars
(*) again
(**) again
(*) again (they usually do this riff three times)
Finally we drop back down to Dmin7 again and it stays here till the end of the song, dying out/transitioning into some other song (i.e. China Doll, Stella Blue). China Doll is in the key of D minor, so since the jam ends in D minor that transition works particularly nicely.
They sometimes would forgo the 7/4 riff at the end of the jam - on 11/14/73, they skip it and Weir brings it straight back into the Other One. They did it almost every single time they played the song during this period though - even the very first version (2/9/73) has it!
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| Poster: | robthewordsmith | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 3:59pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 7:18pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | csaw44 | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 2:23pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 7:47pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
for over 4 years i've been occasionally tossing around tidbits of music theory hereabouts and no one has taken so much as a nibble at them (except for William Tell, but i think that might have only been out of sympathy...)
about a month ago i asked for what i believed to be a simple request for an early Slipknot prototype, only to be completely overwhelmed by the responses, i'm ashamed to say i haven't had time to even get started on it...you're more than welcome to join in, very much related to the diminished chords you list for those early Eyes (which i'm not all that familiar with being essentially an early 80's head)
LIA (and others) also list a multitude of other jams in this thread (and threads within threads...)
no doubt the people around here have some pretty nifty sets of ears!!!
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=283694
oh ya, and this post by LIA got me stoked to ask the Slipknot question (thanks LIA)
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=281279
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:35pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I also totally dig the second to last paragraph. I like learning about the theory because I have a predisposition towards it, but I in no way think that my own technical knowledge and experience make me "better" at listening to it - music is supposed to be heard and felt above all; it's art, not science. Science is used to make it, but that's not the way it's felt.
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 2:45am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by midnight sun on 2010-01-23 10:45:32
Attachment: Caravan.jpg
Attachment: Ju-Ju.jpg
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 6:23am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 11:19am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
even with Weather Report he maintains his gorgeous sense of phrasing and instrumental lyricism...and seeing him live, i get the sense that this is an incredibly humble person
a special from the Montreal Jazz Fest comes up on tv every once in a while that i never grow tired of (2001?)...an all acoustic quartet that totally defies the concept of "it's my turn to solo", more like a mosaic of sounds introduced at will...i get the sense that these guys don't follow chord changes or even altered chord changes in a "vertical" sense (although they still keep the "form") rather, "horizontal" lines that have a life of their own, at any given point one could draw a vertical line on a transcript after the fact and call it a "chord", but that would be of little use...can't really call it counterpoint as the lines are still very much interrelated and dependant upon each other (same as us people are individuals who depend on each other) just on a whole different level that has been entirely abstracted from traditional chord progression
for me, Bill Evans is THE MAN on keys along with Scott LaFaro on double bass, much of the same concepts as the above paragraph...rhythm sections evolved incredibly in a few short years around 1960, as pop/rock would follow a few years later
and then there is Lenny Breau....
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 1:46pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Don't know if you've seen this; if you haven't you're in for a treat, if you have, watch it again.
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| Poster: | spacedface | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 2:23pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Or is it just the mood?
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-Freddie-Hubbard/dp/B0002A2VMI
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 3:36pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
LaFaro's "Gloria's Step" has consistently held my fascination...i like to think of the 2 x 10 bar structures as partly based on shifting Lydian (Fmaj7, Ebmaj7, Dbmaj7) and Locrian modes (Ami7b5, Emi7b5, Gmi7b5, Dmi7b5)...somewhat similar as i would consider the Lady With A Fan jam based on F Lydian
stumbled upon this take (brisk tempo!) from 10 years after LaFaro departed this world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHxxzoRpZz0
btw, just wondering, are you still into playing keys GB?
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 4:24pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by GennyBenni on 2010-01-24 00:24:18
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 9:41pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | Judge TOOTMO | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 11:00am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I concur. If there is another lull in intelligent conversation, I'll be forced to post reviews of Alabama shows---starting with April '95!! Don't make me do it.
Jazz question: I'm very partial to Miles during his fusion period. I want to move on to the same type of sound but without what SWMBO calls "the noise".
Any guidance?
Thanks,
TOOTMO
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 12:44pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | Judge TOOTMO | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 1:09pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Just f*ckin'widdya.
Actually, I feel like most of my posts are like the guys racing on the four-wheelers who come out in between the monster trucks. Me=4-wheeler; Tell on 1968:Gravedigger!
TOOTMO
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 1:52pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I did suspect you were only toying with me (hmmm...okay...nevermind), and I must say, TOOTs, there are some fine folks with more than adequate sense of humorS, round here, but sometimes, you're the one that makes milk come out of my nose...for what it's worth to know you humbled the anal retentive, overly analytical sort hereabouts...Part of it is, unlike me, you don't post as often, and maybe you spend a great deal of time working them out, but they come off as "off the cuff", and, frankly, damn good. I think it was the one where you posted as skies to me that was one of your top five of late--that was you, right?
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| Poster: | Judge TOOTMO | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 3:05pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Yeah, that was me. But, I don't even remember writing it---I think I was channeling skies.
Which begs the question: if you are channeling skies, what channel are you on? (For example, you (Tell) would have to be a network channel since there was no cable in '68.)
Discuss.
TOOTMO
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 11:42am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
not sure what you refer to as Miles' fusion period, but you could try a half step back to "In A Silent Way", all star line up (acoustic/electric) and quite subdued as the title suggests (my wifey absolutely adores that one)...or a full step back to Miles' incomparable all acoustic quintet from the mid 60's, the quintet's first album ESP would be a good start, a nice mix of both modal and chromatic chord progressions as well as swing and "straight" rhythms...Miles Smiles would be another
i lost interest after Silent Way so i shouldn't comment on other bands w/o more info to your reference (maybe a youtube link?)
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| Poster: | Judge TOOTMO | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 12:22pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Here is a youtube video that will give you an idea of the "flavor" of what I like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO4sloGk3P0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Magus
This is Miles's live album I listen to the most.
I would say that Miles' fusion period starts with "Bitches Brew." Electric guitars and bass seem to be what differentiate it from other jazz for this tin ear.
TOOTMO
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 11:40am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by midnight sun on 2010-01-25 19:40:02
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 4:10pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | mickmac | Date: | Jan 24, 2010 7:15pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by mickmac on 2010-01-25 03:15:31
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| Poster: | Leonard Liotta Instructor English | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 10:57am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
in the into to "Punch You In The Eye".
The augmented 9 chord, in the key of E, is the chord the ABB use in "Mountain Jam," and Hendrix uses it in "Purple Haze"
Just a thought from way back when.........
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 8:21am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
from what i gather, this jazz/rock synthesis wasn't all that deliberate either, it may have resulted more from Miles' approach of letting it unfold rather than any specific dictation...Coltrane (who was forever fascinated with theoretical possibilities) mentioned that Miles always had this "pissed off" look on his face whenever Coltrane tried to engage him in analysis, Miles responding with, "Don't bother me with that shit, just play your fucking horn." (circa late 50's)
Footprints studio;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62p-CXrYmf4
Footprints live;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUULYE-LAA
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 1:15pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
"this jazz/rock synthesis wasn't all that deliberate either, it may have resulted more from Miles' approach of letting it unfold rather than any specific dictation"
That sounds like the Dead! Somehow I doubt they said to each other, "we've gotta use the E9sus4 here" - well, probably Weir would - but they resemble Miles in following the spirit of improvisation, & letting changes unfold without plan. I've rarely seen any of them say they deliberately made a musical change, just that they "played some things to death" and wanted to keep things fresh....
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 2:33am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by midnight sun on 2010-01-26 10:33:27
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 6:51pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I recall thinking that after I had really come to know the DEAD, which didn't really happen until the past five years (via the Forum and all the books), that they weren't the loosey goosey, free form sorts I understood them to be...that in many respects they were the most serious of the SF area musicians, a view completely counter to the tales I heard from my brothers and their friends that had seen them so many times in 66 & 67 along with the others that had impressed them as much more polished (MGrape et al. that I've babbled on about here many times).
Anyways, that's the sort of stuff I think of while reading the likes of the posts by you, MS, and GB...
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 5:35am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 7:42am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 7:58pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Actually, Lesh and Weir were both music-theory fiends who delighted in coming up with complex, complicated patterns for their songs. Many of the songs you list as being more 'modern'/jazzy-type songs are Weir's. Lesh was noted for coming up with tunes that were hard to play.
Garcia seems to have favored smoother, more 'flowing' or simpler structures in his songs. It's interesting that the songs of his you note as having 'jazz' progressions tend to be his country ballads....
I'm not sure I agree with your Dead musical progression, but you must hear it very differently.
Of course they started out with simple blues/r&b/pop covers (as I listed in the 1966 songs post), but 1967 they were writing more difficult stuff. New Potato, Born Crosseyed, these can't have been easy to play! Other things like the Other One or the Eleven (or various other 'numbered' jams) basically started off as time experiments. And tunes like Clementine or the Spanish Jam likely began by jamming off themes they heard on records. I suspect they were putting more thought (and rehearsal) into jamming themes & changes rather than songwriting.
And by Aoxomoxoa, there's a blend of originals (almost all from Garcia), notable for their quirkiness. It's starting in '69 that we see an intentional focus on simpler country-influenced songwriting (I went into lots more detail in my acoustic-sets post). From '69-'71 we see a process of simplifying the music & becoming more a basic rock band....
So I don't see the Dead as steadily moving into 'more sophisticated changes' - by that token, their '80s/90s songs would be the most complex - but I think about '75 is when they hit the peak of playing in a kind of prog-style wilful complexity. And even then, something difficult like Slipknot coexisted with a model of simplicity, Franklin's Tower....
There's a number of things at work. One, their openness to new music and desire to play in all different genres - Garcia said that he felt the Dead had unlimited possibilities, and any record they put out would only show a small part of what they could do. Then, their democratic equality as members - other than a brief phase near the beginning when Garcia was the musical leader, this was a band that would take songs & musical ideas from anybody, whether it be the new drummer or the kid guitarist.
As you say, rehearsals must have been very educational. And this was a band that rehearsed endlessly for every album & tour (at least up to '77) - the music onstage is like the tip of an iceberg.
And aside from how they composed music - this was also a band committed to improvisation - not strictly musically speaking (the Dead were only secondarily an 'improv' band), but in the approach to music. Setlists might get repetitive, but they never wanted to play a song the same way twice, they strived for the music to be 'in the moment' without being planned. Maybe one way of putting it is that they wanted a show to be a structured accident...they were willing to live with the failures & disagreements & sloppiness in order to stumble into those moments of harmony.
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 3:38pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
composition is only one small part of all of this, looking forward to checking out all of those jams you listed for some more clues...always a pleasure
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 8:47pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
The early Dead were musical magpies who were always happy to nab themes they heard here & there - like the Spanish Jam, FG, Tighten Up, Darkness, Nobody's Fault... I don't think this much 'quoting' takes place in later years, when the Dead had built up more of their own language - though there are some famed exceptions.
The 1975 studio rehearsals are very interesting listening if you want to hear how the Dead jammed 'for themselves', and to hear all the ideas getting tried out that ended up being dropped. And I always recommend that 1969 home rehearsal with Feelin' Groovy & the instrumental Uncle John being explored for the first time.
You mention that Let It Grow had an "unprecedented" latin/jazzy rhythm.... I might be wrong about this, but I think it was precedented, most especially in the Tighten Up jams of 1970 - or also check the unusual jam in the Other One on 4/15/70. Those might be more straightforward in rhythm though, and don't change tempos like Let It Grow.
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 27, 2010 6:36pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
the Cyptical "The summer sun looked down on him..." section has what sounds like diminished chord changes;
Emi /D /C G(B bass)/Ami Ami(G bass)/
F F#dim /G G#dim /Ami A#dim /B7 //
Phil plays the ascending chromatic bass line while someone plays acoustic guitar classical riffs (Bob?)...there is no "block" chording in this section to able to be absolutely certain (live versions tend to be too "ampy" to hear the nuances) if anyone has a different take on these changes (GB?) i would be grateful to see another opinion
New Potato also has some interesting changes;
D then to C#mi and F#, then to A...
for "all graceful instruments are..." the chords are;
Bbmaj7 and Ebmaj7#11 (mostly in the vocal arrangment, there might be a passing chord or 2 in there as well) then back to D for "...known."
so ya, you're right that there is some advanced changes here, although not generally as developed overall as 69>?...i'm also not very familiar with large part of their development, for me it is mostly the first and last 10 years i'm hazy about, i thank you for your patience with me on these early years
we may not be hearing all that different, what you might be referring to as "complex" could be the actual "arrangements" (orchestrations), which are indeed quite bit more involved than post Aoxomoxoa, rather than the chord structures i'm onto...most of these guys did live together in the early years, so it makes sense that they would be rehearsing a relatively small repertoire more often than later on
Tighten Up is definitely an Eyes precursor, and a very fast Eyes could be construed as the latin rhythms of Let It Grow...the 4/15/70 Other One you mention gets into some madness around the 4 min mark, i can see where something like that could lead towards Let It Grow
btw, nice touch on that last post,
re - "...very little serious writing about them so far..."
i like to refer to what is known as "fake books" when i learn jazz standards because they only give the notated melody and the chord changes, that way i can allow myself to develop my own ideas and arrangement w/o being influenced by whoever i would be listening to if i was learning straight off a recording (the downside to this is my "ear" for picking out chords has grown lazy over the years, as i found out this afternoon...) how i would like to have a GD book like that w/o having to laboriously learn and pen every song (similar to David Dodd's, but for music only) and how easy it would be to turn on other musicians to the music w/o having to persuade them to listen and learn the tunes themselves...would also allow for a project to take it's own direction, some of the musicians interpreting GD who may not have ever even listened to them...
the possibilities...
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 28, 2010 3:49am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
You're right about Eyes being a Let It Grow precursor, I think Weir was influenced by it. (They'd been playing Eyes for 7 months before he finished Let It Grow.) Speed up Eyes a bit, there's a definite resemblance in places - for instance, the transition from the chorus to the jam. (This was even more obvious in later years when they did speed up Eyes into kind of a rumba....)
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 5:27am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
everything up to Aoxomoxoa is quite simple in chord structure, almost all of it is based on the mixo-lydian mode (major scale with b7th, more or less the blues scale in major, with a minor 3rd used for some of the soloing, esp Other One) there are some exceptions, as you point out New Potato and Born Cross-eyed have some variation (as well as Cryptical) i don't think there is anything beyond major and minor chords (although i would like to reference a copy of Anthem to be absolutely sure) the attraction seems to be mainly in complex rhythms, the Other One (based on E7#9) has a pulsating 12/8 time signature (4 groups of 3 per pattern) Eleven (E,A,B,A) is essentially the same except a beat is dropped every 4th group of 3, Born Cross-Eyed has accents on the 2nd beat of each measure and that quirky triplet run...the vocal parts for a lot of these tunes are quite complex, but there again i'm not hearing anything harmonically evolved...Dark Star (A and G sometimes D) and St.Stephen (E D A and sometimes B) are both common mixo-lydian mode, Chinacat is a little more sophisticated with the way it changes tonality, but still just the mixo-lydian scales...Spanish Jam is a 2 chord jam with E7 (E Phrygian mode with major 3rd) and Fmaj7 (E Phrygian with minor 3rd) typical for the Spanish vein
some of Aoxomoxoa is quite quirky, this is where Jerry makes the move into what i would consider more complex changes (Doin' that Rag, Duprees...) around 78 or so Garcia stated this was his first set of tunes, admitting he dropped these tunes because they were far too awkward for improvisation, he even said that Chinacat was "marginal" in this sense, although he did pick it up again a year or so later
High Time, Black Peter, Lay Me Down, Sugar Mag, Deal, Comes A Time...all of these have more complex chord structures than anything previous with the added benefit of being very easy to solo over...i believe the first tunes in minor keys show up around this time, Uncle John's has a 7/4 solo section in D minor, Loser has a chord progression that moves throughout A minor, then modulates to an A major mixo-lydian progression for the chorus...Playing is in 5/4 mixo-lydian mode (but for some reason lends itself to freeform)...Wharf Rat is a 3 chord mixo-lydian main structure that cycles through some tonality changes during the chorus...Bird Song is a gem that has some nice changes but mostly settles into a strong mixo-lydian mode jam
from there we go onto Stella where the progression incorporates a strong major-minor mix and a distinct chromatic descending line bridging the chords (E Emaj7 Asus4 A Emi Cmaj7 B7) as well as a solo section which is in half time value for the 2nd half...Eyes has more major 7th chords and a strong progression that modulates from E to G for the chorus, with the solos alternating between E Ionian and Bmi Dorion modes 2 bars each, with the addition of the relatively complex tag structures for soloing that BG pointed out to us...Let It Grow incorporates some more complex changes driven by a dynamic latin/jazz rhythm that i believe was unprecedented by GD as well as some distinct rhythm shifts throughout the solo...Scarlet is back to the mixo-lydian mode for the most part but also takes on a latin flavor for the jam theme...haven't fully checked out Unbroken Chain, but the changes sound more modern than anything from the sixties or even the previous 2 years ...Slipknot incorporates equal division of the octave and an intense jam in A minor...yes Franklin's is a 3 chord wonder, but very effective and would remain in the repertoire long after most of the 60's tunes of similar structure would get dropped...haven't looked at Stronger Than Dirt or Lazy lightning, but they sure sound modern to me
Lady with a Fan flows beautifully despite all the odd time bars (which i wasn't even aware of until i tried to notate it) and features what i believe to be the first jam in the Lydian mode (extremely rare outside of jazz idioms)...At A Siding is one of the most powerful and unusual instrumental sections that moves through some strong changes...Estimated is in F# minor dorian mode with a strong change to G mixo-lydian for the chorus along with additional changes, features jams in both modes and alternating 7/4 and 14/4 rhythms...then their is another 2 chord wonder Fire On The Mountain that really works with it's reggae type rhythm...If I Had The World To Give has a strong sense of line through the chord progressions with diminished and major 7th chords...Shakedown has a strong disco/funk feel, good changes in D minor with a modulation to C minor for the chorus and an extended jam...Althea is another gem of a tune, strong chord progression...Feel Like a Stranger is another modern disco/funk jam...Lost Sailor has some of the most unusual progressions, as close to modern jazz changes as they get...Circumstance features a wicked jam in C over a Bb pedal bass
the 80's saw the writing slow down, Touch is quite complex although Jer does manage to solo over it...West LA has a good feel...Throwing Stones, Bucket, Esau all have some sophisticated progressions and each has their moments...haven't sat down with it yet, but i haven't heard anything before that even sounds remotely like the solos that Jer pulls off over the unusual changes of Victim or the Crime...Foolish Heart also has some unusual changes that i have to check out
lost interest after that...
so there you have it, most of it from distant memory, far from comprehensive, but then again, it would probably take 5 to 10 years to pull a "Gilamonster" and not only listen, but document the entire evolution in a theoretical sense
could be wrong, but i get the feeling that we disagree solely on subjective terms
in any case, one hell of a thread!
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| Poster: | jglynn1.2 | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 9:07am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
This post was modified by jglynn1.2 on 2010-01-26 17:07:55
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| Poster: | direwolf0701 | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 9:29am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
i feel so lowly after reading those two very informed posts. then again, i suppose that is my natural state.
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 2:53pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | direwolf0701 | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 3:24pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
:)
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 26, 2010 6:32pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I think our terminology of what's "complex" is pretty different. For instance, I think the Anthem album/songs have lots of complex things going on, that aren't in the chords. That was one phase when the Dead were aiming high, playing at the top of their skills and trying to be as far-out & challenging as they knew how to be....
It makes sense that as they grew older & soaked in more influences, they'd add more chords & techniques to their songs (so '80s/90s shows have, at least, lots more musical variety). But I don't think the complexity of a song can be boiled down to just the chords & modes as in your post....there's the rhythm/time, the melody/harmony lines, the interaction of guitar parts, the 'flow' or easiness of playing, lots of things to consider.
As late as the '90s, Garcia was still complaining about how hard it was to play St Stephen or Cosmic Charlie, even though they'd been composed way back in '68! Whereas something like Terrapin which you noted was unusually designed, seems to have been easy to play.
I'd emphasize that, to the untrained ear, the songs of '69-72 do seem to take a step back in complexity - they sound fairly simple, that is. I was surprised to see songs like To Lay Me Down & Sugar Mag listed as having more complex structures than earlier songs, since they don't sound like it...I'd thought that most the songs Garcia was writing in that time were designed for ease of playing. (As you say, they're "easy to solo over".) And there are many songs you didn't list that must be pretty regular even in chord charts!
'73 is the point where I can tell the Dead's songs are becoming more 'sophisticated'.
It's worth separating the different Dead composers as well. Garcia didn't like songwriting much (so he claimed), but he was natural, almost everything of his flows. Weir was not a songwriter at all....he often took YEARS to finish a song, and that only by piecing together a bunch of half-finished progressions. (Playing in the Band, the Weather Report suite, Music Never Stopped, are some examples of this.) He was also the most open to composing unusual, difficult songs; the result being that his songs tend to be full of challenging progressions, while lacking any of the memorable melodies or riffs that came so easily to Garcia.
It would be worthwhile to take a look at every single original Dead song & analyze them to see the stylistic changes over time - your post is a starting point, anyway. (I don't think it would take 5 years, either!)
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 27, 2010 12:11pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
i was well past the bulk of my formative musical training before first experiencing a GD show, what hooked me was the combination of sophisticated chord progressions and instrumental abilities coupled with genuine emotion...so rare to see both! Bird Song, Loser and Stella touched more than a few nerves, i mentioned in one of my first posts here, "My first show, 4-9-82 I was absolutely enamored by a very eerie rendition of To Lay Me Down. I remember saying to myself over and over again 'this is how country music SHOULD be played'."
chord progression is similar in all genres, the only thing that is different is the "style" through which the changes are rendered and the only limitation is the "context"...jazz allows for more possibilities because the context is so open to not only greater possibilities of progressions but alternate changes and extensions with the original progressions, in some ways it is more difficult to play due to complexity of progression but in other ways it is easier because of greater possibilities of what is acceptable within the context...this is not to suggest that anything can be played and still sound good, just that the context allows for more choices to extend from the chordal or scale tones, choices that must still be made based on what "sounds good", subjective for both musician and listener...in any case, in a strict theoretical sense it has all be done before in classical music a hundred or so years ago (so i've been told)
you're right there are many songs from 69>72 (and beyond) i didn't list that are quite simple in structure, i have to confess to some "subjective cherry picking" in this regard, the songs i gravitate towards tend to be the ones with involved progressions (many of these i also didn't list)...you're original point that they encompassed many genres stands, as well as the fact that they kept a lot of tunes with simple structures in their repertoire right till the end, my statement "they started out blues/folk/country (modal) and then started developing into more sophisticated changes" wasn't meant to preclude earlier forms as the development occurred, so in this sense my Miles/GD "opposing theories" isn't altogether sound, as Miles went from extreme complexity to single chord modal structures and stayed there (could be wrong about this as i haven't listened to everything post Silent Way)
never found Garcia's tunes difficult to learn, the structures are so logical and his playing is so definitive there is little doubt as to what he is doing, even though the chords wind their way through some ingenious musical progressions they are not difficult to solo over (in that same 78 interview he said he wrote his tunes with improvisation in mind), suspect a lot of it has to do with the extreme emotional conviction he puts forth...i would also have to think that some of the additions to his tunes are band contributions, such as the modulations added to the end of those early "Eyes"...interesting that they dropped this development, in a sense one could consider the later Eyes as being "devolved"
as you point out, Weir's compositions are a tangle of half baked ideas, he admitted that the band helped him fill in the blanks, going as far as to compare his approach to Tom Sawyer sucking his friends into white washing the fence for him...Jerry mentioned how important it was for him to be challenged by Bob's structures, how they pulled him out of his shell by stirring up ideas that may not have transpired if he had been left to his own path of least resistance...i find Bob's tunes to be quite a bit more difficult to decipher, many of the changes feel forced and many seem ambiguous, at times i'm hearing him and the keyboards playing what sounds like different chord extensions making it difficult to pin down the progression
i also find it interesting that most GD songs feature a solo section(s) across the chord progressions and another solo section in a simplified form (usually at the end and very much open-ended) this actually incorporates both structural extremes within the same tune, no doubt the "work" being done in the more complex solo sections contributes to the ideas and energy released a short while later in the open section..."opposing theories"
writers of musical biographies say that it takes them a good 10 years to complete their work on a single musician...i would think that one would want to include performance as well compositional development, which as you state tends to follow at a later time...you might be right that a work of this magnitude could be done in a shorter time span if music theory was the only focus (a lot of time would be saved by excluding personal and professional research) and no doubt the archive would be more than an ample source of research...but nonetheless epic in proportion to my measly effort to date
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 27, 2010 1:52pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
You could no doubt spend a lifetime studying Garcia alone, and still not 'finish'.
It could take 10 years or more simply to hear & become familiar with all his shows, across many bands....
Or, if you were just concentrating on style & theory, you needn't listen to many shows at all, when just song examples would do.
I think what you accomplish depends on what your focus is. I'm focused on the first half of the Dead's career, as a band - it means I'm very vague on their last 10 years - but at least I'm well-acquainted with the years I do listen to. Not enough for my standards....there are still years of listening & re-listening to do before I could call myself really knowledgeable about the early Dead. I'm still in a crash self-education program.
Research on the Dead, anyway, is in its infancy. Hard to believe when it's been over for 15 years, but there's very little serious writing about them so far. (As opposed to numerous books on the music of, say, the Beatles. Which, granted, was far more influential.) A nearly-complete range of the early shows has only become available in the last 10/15 years anyway - internet resources about the music are still relatively frugal and out-of-date. So I feel like my posts are an incomplete, unfinished mosaic, which at least the writers/listeners of the future can take further.
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| Poster: | ringolevio | Date: | Jan 25, 2010 6:17pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 6:27am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
It's nice (and fun), though, when someone has a musical insight on here but doesn't have the knowledge to quantify it with actual musical descriptions, to be able to do that for them.
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 7:23am |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | midnight sun | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 12:11pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
gotta hand it to you William, you have never been afraid to engage me (or maybe indulge me is a better term, lol) in these theory conversations...it has really made me rethink a lot of these concepts and redefine what music appreciation is all about, otherwise i would've probably been stuck with my archaic notions
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| Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Jan 23, 2010 1:19pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Always a pleasure--have to ask, do those disks still "work"? I always ask when I think about it with folks here as I always worry my "cheap disks, good burner" system is leaving folks with a bunch of crappy, unusable disks!
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:17pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=283831
is because I had no idea what you were talking about!
Presumably the same is true for others here....
Although, there's a GD forum at rukind.com which is mainly musicians, so you might get more technical/knowledgeable discussion of chords & theory there.
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 6:58pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
Here is a great Tighten Up page (now deleted), although I think the author is very loose in his definition of Tighten Up....
http://web.archive.org/web/20030825202854/www.stellarjay.net/timle/tighten_up_jam.htm
There was a discussion here a while ago, about how many people mistake that end-of-Eyes riff for either Slipknot or Stronger Than Dirt -
http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=283694
Would you say there's any musical connection? With Slipknot, I'd say very little, but I do hear a vague similarity to the Stronger Than Dirt riff.
And strangely, I do hear a resemblance to Slipknot....in the Seven riff from '68!
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:00pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I think people get a little trigger happy when it comes to jam-naming. The worst example of that in my opinion is all of these 1974 slipknot jams I keep hearing about that just plain aren't there, like in 2/23 for example - I understand that Jerry or someone might have played a riff that gave you a similar FEELING to slipknot, but I'm sorry, it's not slipknot.
That being said, I have heard two dates from '74 that definitely did have a slipknot riff, and I think it's the actual existence of these genuine slipknot jams that have caused people to claim they've heard it when they haven't. 6/20 definitely has a slipknot jam tacked onto the end of the eyes, and 7/25 definitely has one at the end of dark star. Jerry plays the same notes, but the thing comes off feeling much closer to an irish jig than to what slipknot ended up sounding like.
Also the Beautiful Jam is definitely not a tighten up - just having the same chords doesn't mean they're the same. To me the two jams have a completely different feel. The band clearly worked on tighten up in many performances and REALLY liked playing it. It became a very specific, directed musical excursion. Beautiful Jam on the other hand seems to just appear out of nowhere - truly an on-the-spot invention that happened in all three guitarists at the exact same time, and they all instantly knew and agreed on what to do.
The jam at the end of so many Eyes kinda sorta sounds like stronger than dirt, but only in the fact that it has a really catchy, balls to the wall bluesy kind of riff to it. There's no tangible musical relationship between the two. They're not even in closely related keys; the Eyes jam is in D#m and Dirt is in Bm. The seven is another vaguely similar riff, but again, it's not the same.
I think the reason we're all confused is that despite having been around for so many years, the dead were THE SAME BAND and inspired themselves throughout their own history. It's no mistake we're finding all these similarities in the notes these guys chose to play from night to night or year to year - they did it on purpose!
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:44pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
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| Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:50pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
I think all the '74 Slipknots I listed in my jams-post were right, I tried to verify each one myself. I don't think there are others from that year. As far as people saying there are proto-traces from '72/73 - maybe; I don't go that far. You get the same guitarist improvising endlessly for years, sometimes he'll anticipate himself!
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| Poster: | GennyBenni | Date: | Jan 22, 2010 8:58pm |
| Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: tighten up, beautiful jam |
