Permalink for Comment #1376243278 by MikeHamad

, comment by MikeHamad
MikeHamad @sixwatergrog said:
Love this. I wish there were more like it. Could you talk a bit about what happens to the structure of the music after they modulate? Presumably, most of these songs start off with a form - the song itself - that contains a certain chord structure that might be repeated through the verse/chorus/bridge etc. Traditionally - as in jazz and bluegrass - improvisation consists of jamming over these chord changes, right? At a certain point, maybe even prior to modulation, Phish must depart from this structure to do there so-called Type II jamming. So what is happening structurally during these jams, especially after modulating? Are they still playing over chord changes, albeit spontaneous assembled ones, or is the jamming based on a different method?

It is this type of jamming that separates Phish from other bands and other styles of music, IMO. I don't think of it as being similar to free jazz, for example, because free jazz seems to have a "when in doubt revert to chaos, freakout and noise" mentality, but Phish' "free improv" jams seem to always retain forward motion and some type of structure, even as it's being created on the spot. Like in the Magnaball soundcheck jam and Drive In jams, for example.
Yeah, I think most of the time after moving to a new key they're just trying to establish something different, in a new key and mode (eg. C major of Caspian jam), over the same groove or a new one. And then sometimes they invent a new chord progression spontaneously (the C major part of MB Tweezer, or the end part of Dick's Disease). Sometimes it depends on the type of modulation too, as the next post on Monday will address.


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