Interesting academic analysis of Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead's music

[wideopenears]

http://www.popular-musicology-online...4/wood-01.htmlAn interesting read, I thought...

[ItalProgRules]

That's shore a lot of fancy musical-talkin' there for a buncha hippies who pentatonically noodled endlessly.

[Facelift]

Thanks for that! It seems overly academic in its language, but I guess maybe that was the audience? Anyway, it's nice to see some light shed on how progressive of a band the Grateful Dead were. Not "prog," as that was a UK phenomena (especially at the time) but one of the pioneers of progressive/experimental rock music.

[N_Singh]

Check out pianist Dave Frank's 93 minute master class on Dark Star. 93 minutes explaining A mixo mode. Pretty wild, actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs_4TQLycQI

[wideopenears]

I've watched that before, it's very cool. I was going to correct ItalProgFan--"it ain't pentatonic noodling, it's mixolydian noodling, largely!"--but now I see I don't hafta....

[Dana5140]

And then there is this on Kate Bush: http://www.popular-musicology-online...02/moy-01.html

[GuitarGeek]

Oh, and anyone who thinks the Dead merely "noodled endlessly" wasn't paying attention. I find especially ironic that someone on a progressive rock forum would make such a comment. Yeah, because the likes of Emerson, Holdsworth, etc have never "noodled", huh?

Interesting article. I kinda skimmed through it. I see the guy apparently makes the same mistake every Grateful Dead seems to make regarding the nature of MIDI (he refers to Jerry's "MIDI-flute solo" in one song, when it should be "guitar synth flute solo" or even just "synth flute solo").

[Dana5140]

I think he missed the boat. Any discussion of early creative bassists would need to include Lesh, who came from avante-garde classical and electronic music; Jack Casady, who basically built incredibly on blues progressions; and Jim Fielder (of BST), who came straight from jazz.

[JKL2000]

What are the philosophical ramifications of "spinning webs?"

[N_Singh]

I've always felt that Lesh was the most interesting musical guy in the band, a serious student of music in general--particularly avant-guarde composition-- who generated highly melodic lines that were fluid, in the foreground, rhythmically-challenging and dynamic and really drove the band, from the bass chair. I know his live band these days (Phil and Friends? the Phil Zone? I forgot the exact name) occasionally features Scofield on guitar. I'm curious to hear how Sco sounds in this context.

[Dana5140]

Further is his band name now.

[italprogfan]

I've watched that before, it's very cool. I was going to correct ItalProgFan--"it ain't pentatonic noodling, it's mixolydian noodling, largely!"--but now I see I don't hafta....

that's not me. i love the dead.

[wideopenears]

Oops, sorry...ItalProgRules was what I meant....and he, too, may love the Dead. My irony sensor was damaged in the last meteor shower.

[Prog Lives]

One upon a time, before online midi files in the ancient times of manual transcriptions that were sent around via snail mail...

There was a master transcriptionist by the name of Brent Wood who tackled ELP more complex work, including Emerson's solos ...

Never met or knew him, just grew up amazed at the subtlety he was able to decipher

Apparently, he's the author of the Dead analysis