Decoding Jerry Garcia with GratefulGuitarLessons.com

"The greatest changes on earth don’t mean anything to me if they don’t have a great melody tying them together." (Jerry Garcia, 1978 Guitar Player magazine interview).

Last week I emailed Seth Fleishman of GratefulGuitarLessons.com to thank him for creating his online video lessons on the playing of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. Even though I'm not a guitarist, I still play a plucked, fretted, stringed instrument that contains the same 12 notes that Jerry was working with. Seth's lessons and learning materials have made it easy for me to apply these concepts back to my instrument of choice.

Anyway, one thing led to another and Seth shared a whole bunch of knowledge with me via our email correspondence, and he's been kind enough to allow me to share this information below. Read on for Seth Fleishman's insights into the guitar style of Jerry Garcia!


Describe Jerry's approach to soloing.
In general what differentiates Jerry’s approach from most rock guitarists is that he was almost always playing to the chord changes, rather than playing a modal scale over the changes. So if a song goes from D to C to G to F, he would play to the chord he is on. He was trying to outline or identify melodically each chord using chord tones at key moments in his phrases, so that if all you could hear was Jerry, you would still hear the changes happening. 

Some might say, oh, so he was using arpeggios? And I would say, for the most part, not really. JG was using chord tones. He had ideas on the fretboard based on chord shapes, but because chords are derived from a particular major scale, he always had a choice of using chordal-based ideas, or scale-based ideas, or both. I usually refer to chordal-based ideas as vertical and scale-based ideas as horizontal, but that’s just a general idea, and doesn’t always apply. So whether he was using a chord shape or a scale, he was going to most of the time hit a target note -- a root, a third, or if applicable, a dominant 7th, on the change, to mark the movement of the harmony, all within a hopefully logical melodic idea.

On top of playing to the chord he was on, Jerry also tried to connect that chord to the next chord with a phrase that begins on the current chord, and lands appropriately on the next chord with some kind of natural resolution, using target notes that make you hear the chord change.

He had a whole bag of licks he could fall back on as needed -- no one can be purely creating at all times -- but he was always trying to make his solo well-composed, made up of phrases that become sentences, sentences that become paragraphs, and paragraphs that become the theme. Jerry tried to create these phrases based on the song at hand. Sometimes he’d play lines clearly based on the melody, other times it might be very loosely based on the melody -- perhaps the phrases are entirely novel, but they are rhythmically arranged in a way that follows the pattern of the melody. He had an ability to recall and build on what he'd already done up to that point in a solo. Sometimes he might imagine the melody continuing in his head, and he’d be playing around where it would be if it were there, creating a sort of counterpoint.

He's always playing to the song, never slathering over it with licks willy-nilly. And he's trying to build whole thoughts in a logical way. JG was able to retain that big picture and stay focused and concentrated, even while dancing out there on the high wire all the time. He was relentless in trying to find a new permutation each time. In a way, within each song, it's like he's trying to do the SAME thing each time, just differently. So the Sugaree solo is always Sugaree. He doesn't want to take it out a new door. He wants to find an undiscovered way of taking it out the SAME door, differently.

He made great use of ornamentation to make the solo interesting. With ornamentation, he could use returning tones, approaching tones, turns and trills to decorate a chord tone, thus transforming a simple chord outline into an elegant passage. Those ornaments could sometimes become a motif unto themselves -- an idea he could use to build and develop as a central theme for a solo or a section of a solo. He also made frequent use of sequencing (scale patterns of a certain ascending or descending character).

Jerry also had an incredibly wide dynamic range. He wasn’t blasting away the whole time. His lead volume would be set loud so that he could use his touch and pick attack to vary the delivery of notes from very soft to very loud.  

When playing repeated patterns and sequences in a modal jam, he would use his pick attack to make certain notes pop on unpredictable beats, creating interesting sounding lines that didn’t just sound like running scales.

On more lyrical passages, he could create emotional impact by emphasizing certain notes. He could also be incredibly tender and subtle, bringing things down to a level that was unusual for a rock player in a big arena. The Grateful Dead had an audience that listened intently, and because of this, Jerry was able to use a wide range of dynamics to great effect.

Last but certainly not least, Jerry used a tremendous amount of chromaticism. Perhaps because triad-based music only gives you so many note choices, he would use chromatic passing tones, approaching tones, and returning tones to turn the simple into something interesting. He had a somewhat rich, elegant style that reminds me of early Baroque violin. So he wanted as many notes as he could have to work with. Chromaticism also enabled him to create phrases with a wide variety of rhythmic contours and length on the fly. If he needed an extra beat or two, he could fill in the gap with chromatic tones, as long as he landed on a solid target note.

Seth Fleishman - GratefulGuitarLessons.com

He was a brilliant and original player with a truly artistic mindset.


How did Jerry incorporate a wide range of influences into a unique(?) style? He seemed to be simultaneously distinctive and closely tied to various traditions.

He said in an interview somewhere that the only two major influences he could name were Chuck Berry and Earl Scruggs. I can see how that forms a simplified, but very true idea of his sound. The brightness of it. There was a joyful rock and roll spirit. The banjo incorporates so many of those time-worn folk tradition licks that provided a reservoir of ideas for Jerry to play with and reinvent. Even the tuning of a banjo, to an open G major chord, seems to suggest something of Jerry’s sound, which featured major 3rds so much more prominently than most rock players.

I think the raw power of simple chords on a somewhat dirty sounding electric guitar (Chuck Berry), plus the major 3rd leaning, 8th-note filled, always moving, ornate style of bluegrass banjo (Earl Scruggs) really do go a long way towards describing his sound.

I think Jerry also took inspiration from other instruments. That’s really a great way to come up with fresh ideas, and I recommend it to anybody. Transpose ideas from a different instrument. Floyd Cramer’s famous piano style derived from his copying of pedal steel licks. A piano can’t bend strings, so the bends became little approaching tone licks, and a whole style was born. It’s a great way to get out of a rut and find fresh ideas, not based on your instrument, but based on music itself.

I hear Jerry getting ideas from horns. I think some of his ultra-distorted guitar work, anything from Minglewood to Stella Blue, could be imagined as emulating a saxophone, and inspired by what a horn might do.

In fact, when he started tinkering with the midi set-up, you could hear him quite literally applying horn sounds. So where he might have imagined a trumpet in Let it Grow, it became a trumpet. I wasn’t crazy about this, honestly. I thought he took midi too literally, and I missed his beautiful guitar sound, and I found Weir’s rather sneaky, mischievous and creative application of midi far more interesting. But it shows you where Jerry’s inspiration may have been coming from.

Like everyone else of his generation, where needed, he could draw from the three kings -- BB, Albert, and Freddie, but I think he tried to use their ideas very sparingly. There were so many guys ripping off the blues in those days. I think his artistic mindset demanded that he find something different to do.

And I’m sure he picked up bits here and there from all over. He’s mentioned Django Reinhardt, and I could see how he might have been able to get some ideas he could use. I definitely think he was into Roy Buchanan around 1980 or so. I hear the influence in there. It comes out in JG's own unique way, but it’s there.

Did Jerry play differently in the Grateful Dead than in the Jerry Garcia Band?

That’s a good question. He played a lot more cover tunes, and the mood was a little more somber. I always used to say the difference between a Dead show and a JGB show is that at a JGB show, there are no beach balls. That may not be entirely true, but you get the point. JGB shows, in tone, reminded me more of a Dylan show: somewhat more serious, slightly less celebratory, less spacey or psychedelic. That comes from the songs he chose when he was on his own, and is reflected in his playing.

He was perhaps a little looser and freer with JGB. If you think of it, his band is there to support him. There’s interplay, to be sure, but in the GD, they were all presumably equals, and so the give and take was probably a little different, and perhaps more challenging.

I personally think he was more himself in the JGB. A little looser, but a little more serious. Maybe you could say in the GD he was rock player, and in the JGB he was a soul player, an R&B player. The first time I saw the JGB, while they were still playing the opening bars of “How Sweet It Is”, my first reaction was “Holy crap-- they’re better than the Dead!” Which also may not be true, but to this day I am a huge fan of R&B and soul music, and not so much a fan of rock.

How did you go about learning the styles of Jerry and Bobby, and what is your approach to teaching and explaining it through GratefulGuitarLessons.com?

Just listening. I refer to video where possible, but usually just to try to confirm what my ears are telling me. I have a pretty vast collection of soundboards, so when I am working on a particular song, I’ll listen to many, many versions, with my eyes closed, headphones on, and try to pick it all up. Some of that, honestly, is a gift. I didn’t always know the fretboard or music theory, but I’ve always had an ear.

In a way, particularly with Jerry, I just got kind of lucky where I was able to sort out what he was doing, and see the logic and the method behind it, or at least divine a logic and a method from it. And then this logic ends up applying over and over again. What’s amazing is how inventive he was within that framework. Just an amazing improviser.

My approach to the videos has not changed. They are very straight-forward and come with tablature and a backing track to use for practicing. I perform a demonstration of whatever we are going to work on, and then I walk through it note by note, step by step, discussing whatever I think is important as I go. The song, or the solo, is the script for me.

I work in bits of music theory, ideas about what makes a good solo, ideas about scales and chords and understanding the fretboard, all in the context of whatever it is we’re working on. I always try keep the explanations simple and practical. I never try to make it sound high-minded or intellectual. So, for example, I’ll say "here’s some chromatic passing tones", but then I’ll say “just think of them as in-between notes.”

I like to use note-for-note stuff almost exclusively because otherwise one could get lazy and miss the true brilliance of the artist. Let's check out what he actually did and see what we can learn from it. It will usually be a combination of things. So you get to steal some actual licks, which is fine, or learn how to play a song the way they played it, but hopefully you learn how to create, you learn more about the fretboard, about music itself, about improvisation, and composition.

I’ve been very fortunate because the feedback has been so great, and leads me to believe that my approach works for a good amount of people. I love the music of the Grateful Dead. I love Jerry and Bobby. I respect all those guys so much as artists. I just wanted to show folks how cool the stuff really was that they were up to.

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Seth says that two lessons readers might find useful are 10 Steps to Jerry Style Blues and 10 Steps to Jerry Style Solos, because both of those get right to the heart of Jerry's overall strategy and approach to basic melodic improvisation in a mostly triadic work. If you start with those lessons, when you later look at specific songs and pick apart JG solos to get ideas, you'll get more out of it, and better appreciate his creative ideas within the context of his approach to the task.

Jerry Garcia Guitar Solos

If you want to plunge into Jerry Garcia's guitar playing, spring 1977 is a good place to base this study.  Jerry's playing was about as pristine, inspired and melodic as it ever got during this period.  Many of the Grateful Dead's best songs were already written by '77 and in the active repertoire.  Last Saturday I put together an ear-training playlist consisting of just the Jerry solo breaks from live recordings of over 30 Grateful Dead songs.  The idea is to have something to listen to, learn from, and play along with.

Jerry Garcia 1977 - photo by Rob Bleestein

The melodies to these Grateful Dead songs are very familiar to me and each one is distinctive and instantly recognizable.  Sometimes I slowed down these snippets to 85% of the speed but didn't change the key.  With a little bit of work I feel as though I could figure out the basic melodies to pretty much any of them, and then start to fill in around that based on things I might take away from what I hear Jerry doing.  The way Jerry fills out an otherwise sparse melody is of great interest to me.
I limited my sources to what is on Spotify with my focus on shows from May 1977.

From the 5/19/77 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA I used China Doll, Looks Like Rain, Loser, Peggy-O, Ramble on Rose, Row Jimmy, and Terrapin Station (the instrumental part after "strategy was his strength and not disaster").  From 5/21/77 at Lakeland Civic Center in Lakeland, FL comes Bertha, Brown Eyed Women, Comes A Time, Fire on the Mountain, Jackaroe, Scarlet Begonias, and St. Stephen (intro).  The 4/30/77 show at the Palladium yielded Deal, GDTRFB and Stella Blue.  By poking around on Spotify I found a few other stragglers such as Franklin's Tower (5/22/77), Friend of the Devil (5/18/77), It Must Have Been the Roses (11/5/77), and Uncle John's Band (9/29/77).

After all that there were some more songs I was looking for that I couldn't find on the 1977 shows available (some weren't written yet) so I had to expand the search.  These include Been All Around this World (1980), Black Muddy River (1989), Crazy Fingers (1975), Deep Elem Blues (1982), Dire Wolf (1973), High Time (1980), Mission in the Rain (1976), Ship of Fools (1974), Sing Me Back Home (1972), Stagger Lee (1978), Standing on the Moon (1989) and To Lay Me Down (1974).

The uniting thing about each of the solos is that they are loose, melodic breaks based on the structure of the songs.  Some of them are traditional songs that the Grateful Dead added their unique touch to, and the rest are originals that seem directly evolved out of traditional music - like taking the same basic folk music concepts and adding one or two new levels to it.  This gives me another option when playing tenor banjo.

Three (of Four) Qualities That Make JRAD Different Than Other Grateful Dead Cover Bands

I haven't gotten to see Joe Russo's Almost Dead (JRAD) yet.  I hope that changes with Lockn', if not before.  Frankly I had never really paid any attention to them until they were included in the initial Lockn' lineup announcement.  Recently I've been listening to JRAD a lot and have been continually impressed.

JRAD is not your average cover band. They are a veritable all-star supergroup bringing new life into this music in a way that even the officially-sanctioned Dead and Company doesn't do.  Here are three - and maybe four - areas that set them apart.

Credibility
The members of Joe Russo's Almost Dead all come from successful pre-existing musical projects.  Joe Russo and Marco Benevento were The Duo - an instrumental jazz/rock duo with a strong indie following.  Benevento has since gone on to front his own trio while Russo was picked up to drum for Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in Furthur.  Guitarist/Jerry-vocals Tom Hamilton is the creative force behind American Babies, one of the top emerging rock bands.  Guitarist/Bobby-vocals Scott Metzger has been a member of Rana and Particle, and is currently part of the guitar trio WOLF!  Bassist Dave Dreiwitz is of course the bassist for Ween - an American institution in its own right.

Being songwriters, composers and contributing members to these other creative outlets ensures that each member brings a unique perspective to the tribute band format.  Ultimately, JRAD is just a fun, mortgage-paying outlet for these guys, and the fact that it is not an end-all be-all musical occupation affords them a looseness that is one of the band's most appealing characteristics.  JRAD would be a great band no matter what music they were playing.

Led By Drums and Keyboards
Arguably the two most musically talented individuals in The Grateful Dead were lead-guitarist Jerry Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh.  With apologies to Bob Weir - the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time - Jerry and Phil's boundless creativity and sense of adventure were the driving force behind the Grateful Dead's musical superiority.  There were times when drummer Bill Kreutzmann played a bigger than expected role (check out the Grateful Dead Movie bonus footage) but being paired with 2nd drummer Mickey Hart for most of their run inhibited his fluidity.

In JRAD the foundation stems from the deep connection between keyboardist Marco Benevento and drummer Joe Russo.  The confidence and musical palette that these two draw from has a greater impact than guitar and bass in this interpretation of the music.  That said, JRAD is a true democracy where all members contribute to the creativity.

Improvisation and Risk Taking
Joe Russo's Almost Dead might primarily play the music of The Grateful Dead, but in between the lyrics and written parts JRAD improvises like a completely original ensemble and isn't afraid to take it waaaaaaaay out there.  Their jams almost always retain a semblance of "Deadness" even while venturing into waters that The Dead never swam.

Years ago Phish fans came up with a term called Type II jamming to describe moments when their beloved band leaves behind the structure of the song in favor of completely improvised music making.  JRAD often goes Type II multiple times each set.  In these moments of psychedelic sorcery JRAD can sound like some heretofore unheard of combination of '74 Dead, '97 Phish and Pangea/Agharta Miles - an osmosis of collective influences that also relies on sharp listening skills and a willingness to believe that magic can happen if you let it.

BONUS:  Song Delivery
Besides being the best guitarist of all time, Jerry Garcia is without a doubt one of the best vocalists of all time. Granted my standards are much different than an American Idol point of view but as far as I'm concerned Jerry was a great interpreter of songs, whether these were his own pieces co-written with lyricist Robert Hunter, or a Dylan song, or even something from the Great American songbook such as Irving Berlin's Russian Lullaby.  Anyway, the way Tom Hamilton pours himself into these Jerry Garcia numbers is starting to take on a broken quality of its own.  It's the same familiar songs coming from a comforting voice -- sung with a different perspective.  No other Dead tribute band does it so well and so singular.

It's not all Tommy Hamilton on vocals though.  Having a force like Scott Metzger at the ready for the Bob Weir songs gives JRAD sets the back-and-forth of a classic Jerry/Bob duel.  Metzger can really sound like Bobby when he wants to, while Hamilton "sounds like Jerry" by not sounding like Jerry.  It's more of an attitude in his case.

There you go.  It might be stupid to write this much text about a tribute band, but in a time when cover bands are a dime a dozen, JRAD is light-years ahead of most tribute bands.  If JRAD did a whole album of original material and started working these songs into their shows, and/or bringing in content from their other projects, I doubt anyone would complain so long as these arrangements retained the JRAD thumbprint.

Guitarist Vic DeRobertis on Playing Like Jerry Garcia

Left-handed guitarist Vic DeRobertis of the New England based Grateful Dead tribute band "Playing Dead" shares some tips for playing like Jerry Garcia in this Guestlisted Guitar Lesson with Jeff Gottlieb.

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Irish Trad - Does It Help To Read Music?

Have you ever seen the lyrics to a favorite song and realized that you were mishearing some of the words? Did you benefit from learning what the correct lyrics were? One example that comes to mind is the Grateful Dead song Franklin’s Tower. I used to think that the words “If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind” were “If you play nice you’re gonna always win”. What I heard in my head was inferior to the actual poetic lyrics penned by Robert Hunter. Finding this out didn’t in any way take away from my enjoyment of this song that I already loved. It enriched it!

I think the same can be done with caution with Irish tunes. When people say that Irish traditional music is an aural tradition and you should learn by ear and not by notation that is true. You should strive to train your ear to learn this music via osmosis and resist the urge to “cheat” and look at the music too early in the process of learning an individual tune. However, glancing at transcriptions of the music can help clarify some muddy areas and help you grasp and remember the tune better, much in the same way that seeing the lyrics to Franklin’s Tower helped correct the faulty words that my mind’s ear was hearing.

I am trying to learn basic tourist French right now prior to a trip to Quebec this summer. I have some audio instruction “tapes” that I got from the library. Since I am a visual learner (and a fairly good speller) it really helps me comprehend the language better if I can pair the audio with the written. So for me, pairing a written phrasebook with the audio helps give me a more complete picture of the expression. The same holds for music: audio + notation vs. audio only.

Jerry Garcia said, “With records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. Nobody has to fool around with musty old scores, weird notation and scholarship bullshit. You can just go into a record store and pick a century, pick a country, pick anything, and dig it, make it a part of you, add it to the stuff you carry around and see that it’s all music.”

This is definitely the approach I want to take as I continue to learn Irish music and tunes. By listening to the likes of Angelina Carberry, John Carty, Kevin Griffin, Daithi Kearney and Mick O’Connor (slowed down and pitch-corrected as needed) I hope to intuitively get the feel of this music as played on tenor banjo. Ideally, in my case, the years of listening to Jerry Garcia prior to ever playing an instrument can also come through the background of my unconscious when I am attempting to interpret tunes. No harm in that!

Jerry Garica also said “If you’re wondering why in an old-timey band you can’t understand the words very well, it’s because we don’t know them, and we can’t figure them out off the records, so we make up our own as we go along.”

When you can’t understand the exact words you replace them with words of your own choosing based on what fits or what you think it might be. The same is done as a player with your choice of musical notes. You may not like what you see when an Irish tune is written out and may prefer your own way of hearing it. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as your aural version is driven by purity of intent and not held back by your ignorance or skill limitations. You get to choose how “enlightening” you find someone else’s idea of what the notation should be. Use it as an aid, not as a crux.

Five Great Guitar Players: A List

Earlier this month I posted a reference to Paul Murin’s excellent essay on Memorizing Music.  Paul is the curator of the guitar instruction site High Country Guitar.  Among the info on that site is Paul's list of Great Guitar Players.  Being a sucker for lists, I checked out his favorites and was happy to see that 3 of my 5 favorite guitar players were represented!

Trey Anastasio

Here’s how Paul describes Trey Anastasio, the guitarist for Phish.

Trey is known for long, extended improvisations as well as avant-garde instrumental compositions.  Trey is a technical and creative master of the instrument. 

The key element of Trey’s sound is overdrive followed by compression.  You crank up that overdrive, and then you get a grip on it by running it through a compressor.  It creates a warm, soaring sound with seemingly (and sometimes literally) endless sustain.  A key element of his picking style has to do with palm muting - when you play with a lot of overdrive, palm-muting becomes essential to keep things under control.  By making constant (and, at this point, presumably unconscious) adjustments to how the palm of his hand sits near the bridge, Trey is able to coax a lot of different sounds out of his guitar.  

If you watch Trey's right hand, you'll notice that it doesn't actually move much when he is soloing.  His palm tends to hover just over the strings, near the bridge.  This allows him to make those constant, minute adjustments so that some notes come out as more staccato, while others ring out fully.  It also helps create a tight, focused sound.  

Many of Phish's big jams are primarily modal.  Mixolydian tends to be the most common for major key jams, and for minor keys, Dorian seems to be the go-to mode.  In most of these situations, the mode is mixed with a healthy dose of pentatonic/blues licks.

Trey commonly uses chromatic licks approaching chord tones.  Perhaps because of his compositional skills, Trey tends to build solos using motives - little melodies and/or rhythmic patterns that get repeated, moved around the neck, displaced, etc.  These motives give his solos a sense of coherence.  Personally I think Trey is better than just about anyone (in rock and roll) at this kind of thing.  His solos almost always feel very deliberate, and rarely sound like he's just "noodling" in search of an idea.

Many of Trey's more complex compositions feature a "theme and variation" approach, where he takes a lick or melody and moves it around through different keys, sometimes extending it, other times truncating it.  Most of Trey's complex compositions, regardless of how complex they are, are oriented around a groove.  They keep the crowd dancing as they wind through all kinds of weird musical places.  

Jerry Garcia

Next on my list would have to be Jerry Garcia.  Here’s what Paul has to say about ol’ Jerry:

Founding member of the Grateful Dead.  Known for long, extended improvisations.  Strong foundation in American roots styles - blues, country, and jazz. An incredibly passionate and creative musician, and a virtual walking encyclopedia of American music. 

Here are some descriptions of Garcia’s playing by others:

The essence of Garcia's sound came in the way he attacked the notes with his pick.

Jerry could weave colorful passing tones into his lines like no other rocker. 

He had a clear, “well-spoken” tone and a strong and precise connection to the string.

Garcia picked almost every note and seldom used hammer-ons or pull-offs. 

Bill Frisell

Thirdly is Bill Frisell.  I’m so glad that Paul included him on his list.  About Frisell, Paul says:

Bill Frisell is a great player who is difficult to categorize.  Usually categorized as a jazz player, he really blends a strong helping of country/folk/bluegrass in his music.  Known for his restraint and use of space.  I once heard someone say that he plays guitar the way Miles Davis played the trumpet.  One of my favorite players, period.

In a recent article for No Depression, Jake Schepps described Frisell like this:

Frisell is so distinctly American, creating music that is at once jazz, country, blues, and noise.  His music is unique, yet incredibly familiar, and at times sweetly dissonant (like no one else can be).  It has me questioning so many musical preconceptions about how music can work, what makes something compelling, what can be a song, what is soloing, and more. 

With Frisell’s approach to music, when playing folk tunes, Bob Dylan songs, original country twang ditties, and old swing standards the beauty is so pronounced, so touching, melodic, at times so directionless yet with such inevitable and perfect forward movement.  It is jazz, and so “not jazz” (which is actually very jazz).

Norman Blake

Surprisingly absent from Paul Murin’s list is Norman Blake, although to his credit Paul didn’t entirely omit all flatpickers, but chose to list David Grier, Tony Rice and Doc Watson among his favorites in that style.  However, I’d put Norman Blake up there as well.

Others have described Norman Blake like this:  His melodic lines are direct and elegant, without the pyrotechnics often associated other flatpickers.  Blake’s music has an air of authenticity and basic honesty few can achieve.  Blake’s music is of an elemental sort that transcends technological change and the tides of pop culture.  Blake’s music takes you back home to the porch and the living room, where, symbolically and literally, it was born.

Norman is not the fastest flatpicker in the world - but he brings the wood of the acoustic guitar to life. He doesn't play very much beyond the first five frets of the instrument, but that is why he makes one acoustic guitar sound like an ensemble!  The drone of the open strings picked here and there provides an anchor for the tune he picks, so that one acoustic guitar, without any backup, is complete in and of itself.  His crosspicking techniques add to the fullness as well.  (The Flatpick Post)

Grant Green

Lastly, but also missing from Paul’s list is Grant Green, a perpetually underrated jazz guitarist who recorded prolifically for the Blue Note Label throughout the 60’s and early 70’s. 

Grant Green had a "dark-blue", instantly recognizable sound that was influenced by horn players.  He rarely comped, choosing to drop out when trading off with other soloists rather than doing any backing.  When asked why he didn’t play chords Green is said to have responded “Charlie Parker didn’t play chords”.

Jazz Times described Green like this: 

Grant Green was among the most disciplined yet imaginative soloists of his generation.  His single-line statements were rhythmically brilliant, and his use of staccato notes equally intriguing.  Green’s earthy melodies were clean and fluid, his voicings impeccable and he was especially captivating on ballads.  Though his initial fame came through his participation in soul-jazz and organ-combo sessions, Green eschewed blazing speed and notey forays for deft harmonic response, funky rhythmic dexterity and nimble melodic interpretation.

Paul Murin of The DeadPhish Orchestra on Memorizing Music

Paul Murin

Paul Murin, the lefty guitarist for the help > slip > tweezing Colorado band the DeadPhishOrchestra, has a website designed for the intermediate to advanced guitarist called High Country Guitar.  On this site Paul covers practical music theory, improvisation, composition, the Caged system and more.  Much of the info he teaches is universal - beyond just guitar - if you know how to interpret it.

Being the leader of a tribute band that effortlessly merges the disparate music of Phish and the Grateful Dead, Paul knows a thing or two about the playing of two of my favorite guitarists – Trey Anastasio and Jerry Garcia (and Bill Frisell!).  One thing I'd love to some day study is the music of Phish, especially their improvisations like the unbelievable music they are making on the spot each night on this remarkable summer 2014 tour, if my abilities and comprehension will even allow for this.  Since Paul gives Skype lessons, he might be one of the best sources for this knowledge and understanding.  

But for now, I thought I’d share several excerpts from a blog entry on High Country Guitar about Memorizing Music.  For the full original post click here.

Memorizing Music

"I found that playing jazz standards and trying to learn them from memory improved my overall memorization skills because it forced me to learn to use my ears above all."

"You have to make an effort to memorize music.  It does not just happen. You could play a song a thousand times with the sheet music in front of you, but if you haven’t made a conscious effort to memorize it, you’re very likely to forget it on the 1,001st time if you put the sheet music away."

"You’re probably making plenty of mistakes anyway, even with the sheet music in front of you, and you’ll play whatever it is much better and more consistently if you just memorize it."  

"I find it a lot of work to read sheet music while I’m playing anyway…it’s much easier to put in the work memorizing a tune for a little while; then you can put away the sheet music for good and just play the tune. But to do this, you have to consciously say to yourself, 'I’m going to memorize this thing,' and really make an effort to do it."

"Another thing I notice is that I can think I have something memorized after spending some time working on it, but then if I put it down for a day or two, when I go back to it, I’ve forgotten it all over again. So when you think you’re done memorizing something, keep in mind that you might not be as done as you think."

"As I see it, the memorization of music happens on three different levels: Aural (how it sounds), Intellectual (the theory behind it) and Physical (the fingerings and movements required to play it)."

Aural

"When musicians refer to being able to hear something, they are really talking about the ability to recognize what they are hearing, musically. If I had to rank the three aspects of memorization, I would say that this is the most important, and in fact as I write this piece, I realize that all three of these methods really point back, in some way, to your aural skills, a.k.a. your ears.”

"The best musicians have amazing ears. A great jazz improviser can hear a melody and instantly play it back to you, as well as instantly recognize a chord (or chord progression) and come up with melodies to fit it on the spot."

"So, yes, you should be able to learn to hear a G chord change to a C chord. And, yes, it’s possible to be stone deaf and still have good ears."

"Once in a while somebody will try to tell me that they are tone deaf.  I doubt this condition even exists; if it does, I have never seen it, and I’ve taught a LOT of different people. Some people might have a little more ablility than others in this area; some are just good at it while others have to work at it. But I’m fairly certain that ANYONE can learn it."

"In general, good ears, combined with a solid knowledge of how the sounds are laid out on the fretboard, makes it much easier to remember a piece of music."

"One of the best ways I have found to practice my ear training is to try to play melodies that I hear…TV, radio, Christmas songs, anything.  Phish fans may have already noted that Trey Anastasio has often spoken of this as being a valuable practice tool. It helps you learn to recognize intervals, and it also helps you be more creative with your own melodic ideas because it breaks you out of the usual guitaristic patterns."

"All in all, I think it is important to be able to sing any melody that you play, and play any melody that you sing. It follows, too, that if you can’t sing a melody that you are planning on playing, you probably can’t play it very well either. Practicing this helps you make a much quicker connection between what you hear in your head, and what you actually play on your guitar. It follows, then, that if you can really memorize what a song sounds like down to the minute details, you can memorize how to play it."

Intellectual

"When I refer to the intellectual aspect of memorizing, I am referring to the math behind the music, i.e. the theory behind it. What are the chords? What is the chord progression? If the part you are memorizing is melodic, are there chords implied in the melody? What are the interval leaps within the melody? What scale(s) does the melody come from? This is all information you can use to help you memorize a complex piece of music."

"In music school, one thing I had to do frequently was to memorize jazz standards. As an additional tool to help us memorize the songs, they would have us transpose them into different keys from memory, without sheet music. In a 32-bar song where the chords change every measure, or even half a measure, this can get pretty complicated. It would be virtually impossible to do this on sheer memorization alone. Instead, you begin to look at the chords in terms of Roman numerals (the I chord, the V chord, etc.). You also begin to think in terms of intervals, rather than just chord names. And finally, when you start to get good at it, you just start to hear the chord change in your head – and when you get to this point you often don’t even have to really think about what key you’re in, or even what chord you’re playing, you just hear the chord and play it."

"It can still be incredibly useful to think in these mathematical, intervallic terms. Just don’t ever forget to pay attention to what these chords and chord changes sound like while you practice them."

"Take songs that you think you know well, and play the chords in a different key (without writing them down!). Start simple, with I-IV-V progressions and that kind of thing, then go to more complex songs. Again, you might be surprised how difficult it is if you haven’t done it much before, but the more you do it the better you get at it."

Physical

"The physical aspect of memorization has to do with the fingerings, fretboard positions, and hand movements required to play a given part."

"One thing to pay attention to when you are praciticing a difficult passage: Make absolutely sure that you are practicing it the exact same way every time. If you’re paying attention, you might catch yourself using a slightly different fingering on consectutive passes through the same part (and I’ll bet that those are often the EXACT spots where you are making mistakes). This will certainly impede your muscle memory progress."

"Also, when you find yourself consistently stumbling over a certain part, make sure you practice that part from a measure or two earlier; very often when we have problems with fingerings, the problems are starting during the approach to that point in the music, and not just at that point itself."

All quotes above are from Paul Murin.  Any bolded text is my doing.

Jerry Garcia Was Always At The Root Of It All

I'll be turning 40 next month.  I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but over the last few weeks I've been reflecting on the significant role music has played in my life for the last 20+ years.  Although I didn't start playing an instrument until I was in my early 30's, I've been a music obsessed listener going all the way back to my freshman year of college when I first heard the Grateful Dead's Reckoning.  That live acoustic album was soon to be followed by the discovery of Jerry's bluegrass side project Old and In the Way, and then the Jerry Garcia Band and other partnerships such as Garcia/Grisman, Garcia/Wales, and more.

Jerry Garcia

The Grateful Dead - or maybe just Jerry Garcia himself - was the "Big Bang" from which all my other musical interests spiraled out of control.  As I look back on my timeline I've once again come to realize that this remains the overarching nucleus to my musical tastes.  The early 90's were a time of MTV unplugged and although I hadn't been "turned on" yet, I remember liking Eric Clapton's Unplugged, which caused me to look for something similar.  Hence, the purchasing of Reckoning which was The Grateful Dead's 1980 "unplugged" album which predated the MTV brand by a decade.  From the acoustic sounds of Reckoning and the bluegrass twang of Old and In the Way, the path quickly led to the string-based Americana of Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Hot Rize, and John Hartford years before O' Brother would make this music cool.

Simultaneously, the out there groove of the Garcia/Wales jamming - as captured on the Side Trips Vol. I CD - plus the open-ended Dark Stars and other like-minded explorations, primed me with open ears to absorb the late 60's/early 70's electric Bitches Brew style jazz of Miles Davis.  As you probably know, a discovery of Miles Davis can be a home base of its own leading in all kinds of interesting directions, the most rewarding of which may be a step back in time to explore the history and roots of jazz, or a leap forward to check out more modern practitioners such as Medeski Martin and Wood or Bill Frisell.

The song-writing of Garcia's lyricist Robert Hunter combined with Jerry's arrangements puts you at a tuneful peak where peers are few.  As you look out from there you may see the likes of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bob Marley, John Prine, Townes Van Zandt and Gillian Welch.  Perhaps also Neil Young, Ween and Jeff Tweedy.  Certainly Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes.  There really aren't that many in that category in my opinion.  It's kind of hard to come down from there.

It was the Jerry Garcia Band that I would see first, at the Richmond Coliseum in 1993, completely naive to the scene.  Then, in the summers of 1994 and 1995, I got to see the Grateful Dead a handful of times before Garcia's passing. From that fleeting glimpse, I was made hip to the power of live music, which segwayed symbiotically into the peak of the jamband movement, coinciding with many crazy nights enjoying the likes of Phish, moe., Leftover Salmon, Yonder Mountain Stringband, and - dare I say - String Cheese Incident.

For me, the late 90's were like the roaring 20's and the trippy 60's all jelly rolled into one.  I continue to love Phish and appreciate how they have taken this compositional and improvisational model and expanded upon it in astounding ways, but when it comes down to it, a deceptively simple and pure Garcia solo on a song like Catfish John wins every time.  As I continue to think of bands that are or have been favorites over the years - My Morning Jacket, the Meat Puppets, Gillian Welch, Dawes, The Stray Birds - there's a very Jerry-like quality or strain running through it all.

When I finally started to play music with a focus on the melodic instrumental tunes of Ireland and Appalachia, it wasn't clear to me if this interest stemmed from something I had listened to previously or from some other motivating factor.  This music was just far enough removed to lessen the intimidation factor and allowed me to learn to "pick" without having to be in the direct shadow of any known musical heroes.  A song of my own, in other words.  But what at first seemed unrelated may have a connection after all.  There's a melodic continuity in Jerry's improvisations and a link to old-timey music that you can really hang your hat on.

As a subscriber to music magazines such as Relix, No Depression and Dirty Linen, my twenties were spent listening to a wide variety of what I'll call "good" music.  A couple years into my thirties I began nurturing a newfound and unexpected devotion to trying to play tunes on tenor banjo.  As I get ready to enter my 40's I'm prepared to put in the work to do what it takes to see music in a more advanced way.  I hope to use the underlying spirit of Jerry Garcia to really motivate and propel this next stage of music learning. The enjoyment will only increase as the mysterious language of notes opens up in strange, new ways.

The Jerry Garcia songbook is basically the American songbook, and it's definitely worth looking into from the perspective of a player as well as a listener.

My First Taste of Jamming

For someone who grew up listening to improvisational music (Grateful Dead, Phish, Medeski Martin and Wood, and several 90's jambands not worth mentioning), my music playing thus far has been surprisingly devoid of improv.  I've been content to play basic tunebook notation versions of Irish and oldtime tunes.

Any forays into the realm of "soloing over chord changes" have felt extremely un-fun and uncomfortable so I've completely avoided it.  Even though I host a trad/roots music "jam", there's no real improvisation required on Irish jigs and oldtime fiddle tunes which is what drew me to those types of melodies in the first place.

However, over Christmas I had the opportunity to play with a Deadhead guitar strummer who expected me to pick up the chords and take solos to songs like Bertha, Dead Flowers and a Dylan song I've forgotten the name of.  (All songs I had heard before but never tried to play).  It was a very low pressure, hanging out kind of environment, and instead of hating it I actually kind of relished it.

I'm sure what I was doing sounded pretty bad.  I still have a hard time hearing chord changes and it's hard to solo over the chord changes if you can't even figure out the chord structure.  The fact that I'm used to flat-picking tunes and thinking melodically helped a little even if I didn't always pick up on what the chords were.

Anyway...this kind of has me wanting to play more music in this style.  I like the idea of taking a folk song with a simple chord structure and using it as a foundation for practicing improvisation.  The two best practitioners of of this I can think of are Jerry Garcia and Bill Frisell.

Consider Garcia's interpretations of songs such as Catfish John, Peggy-O, I've Been All Around This World and Last Train from Poor Valley, as well as some of the Garcia/Hunter originals like Loser, Candyman and It Must Have Been the Roses. Bill Frisell's experiments with folk and country standards have included Cluck Old Hen, Goodnight Irene, Shenandoah, Lost Highway and Sitting On Top of the World on his The Willies, East/West and Further East/Further West albums.

Trey Anastasio has said in interviews that he believes that musicians are channels - stewards of the music for a brief period of time.  You can see evidence of this everywhere - from a symphony orchestra to the timeless sounds of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.  I feel like I'm just now starting to see the potential for joy one can get from playing music.  It's like a river that pulls you along.  I don't want to be tied to a genre or style or restricted in any way with music...I just want to play it.