👉 Take the FREE Jerry Garcia 5-Day Challenge www.jeffwilliamsguitar.com/Jerry-Garcia-5-Day-Challenge 👉 Grateful Dead Guitar Lessons (Playlist) ruclips.net/p/PLWbyLS1VMRzgY0trdO_nWrKn1n2pLuezw
In reference to what you said about Jerry's 70's vs 90's playing...I think of it as pre and post coma. Pre come, he had a fiery, bluesy, quality that, at it's best (think Caution from 72 @Wembly, or Hard to Handle from Phil Zone) surpassed everyone. POst coma....that was gone. Like...utterly. His string bends were pretty much all awkward sounding, often flat, stiff, etc. But...he had an otherworldy, angelic quality that was far beyond anything from his precoma years. It's like when Gandalf the Grey was killed by the demon, and came back as Gandalf the White.
@ no, I mean pre and post coma. He was clean, except lsd and shrooms in 89 and 90, which was the peak of his latwr ethereal style. And, he was on heroin in 77, a peak year
This is so kind of you to share this kind of top quality analysis thank you man, this is priceless for anyone wishing to improvise better I hope you reach the hearts of many ❤
Step 1 was the guitar scholarship of analyzing the solos and digesting it into 10 things to think about, but then next your personal style of discussing it and demonstrating it is so pleasant to listen to. Very cool video, thanks.
Thanks for sharing what you have discovered from your journey. From what you explained, it seems like Jerry is not rigidly stuck with the scale. Instead, he used it as skeleton but he used many notes adjacent to the notes on the scale. Cheers from Indonesia.
This is a fantastic video, but I think how it really works is... Jerry is a fantastic songwriter, and he could make his guitar sing his songs for him. I think it's that simple.
I like the format of your video here. You are well paced with the information and it seems very thoughtfully approached and presented. As for Jerry, I was never a big fan. I appreciated some of the Dead but it became laborious after a few songs to even listen to. For some reason, however, every single time I heard his lead work I thought of a merry go round, the kind with actual wooden horses and mirrors, all painted white with pretty lights all over it. I know that seems strange, at first, but think about the music that's played on those rides, it's very piano roll or pinwheel-ish, think old late 1800s / early 1900s carnival music. There must be something to that because his playing always brings up that imagery in my head. That music, to me, is mostly happy, upbeat, whimsical, playful, all the things that Jerry encapsulated as a musician. I will say I have always held him in high regard, even though I wasn't a big fan, because he has a solid and identifiable style and sound, maybe not as unique as BB King but it's relative to that. He's one of the top 10 most identifiable players ever. For that and that alone, yeah, Jerry was super cool and his style and techniques are well worth taking a closer look at. Also, thinking of the Dead, every true hippy I've ever met was just as needful of psych meds as the people locked up in rubber rooms, they were just on the happy end of that same spectrum and it never dawned upon anyone that flipping between bummed, ADHD and euphoria could be dangerous... unless you offered it your couch.
The carnival ride description is very apt. That’s what thousands of deadheads including myself loved, especially at a show. You have to imagine how intense and loud the music at a show would be, with Phil’s bass blasting you in the chest and the two drummers creating a cacophony of sound then to hear Jerry’s notes come swirling in like rain drops or falling leaves or the eternal carnival ride you described. Find the transcript for the 7/4/89 “Deal” solo and give it a try. I Guarantee it gives you a new appreciation for Jerry’s talent even if you’re not the biggest fan.
Im so glad you mentioned 80's, 90's and JGB. I was lucky to be emblazened from the sounds he made from that time. Decades of me playing helps but when someone like yourself so accuratetly puts words to these skillsets he (Jerry) would use helps a bunch for someone like me who knows hardly anything about the theory of it. Of course I want to jump right in and sign up. Thank you for sharing your discoveries and having the challenge available to us.
if u know/learn only one thing about music theory and guitar, learn INTERVALS. intervals literally form the entire basis of western music and they are just numbers. so you can then understand, think of, describe, or analyze any music as the intervals that it is composed of be they chords, scales, or anything. progressions. It's all linked back to intervals. 8 notes per octave...start at A for example. A B C D E F G A...so if A is your Root note, B is the major 2nd interval, C the major third. D major 4th interval and so on. each whole step away from your root is an interval until you get back to the octave or 8th. The root is also called unison or first.
@@Sim-q9t appreciate that. Well said. It seems some do well with visual(shaping on fretboard) and others take to the other way. I need to find what works for me. I'm trying hard to know the WWHalf thing but it's hard. I've always been uncomfortable on ascending or desc. scales when I get to the B string. From G to B or B to G. Everything's smooth until I get to that area and seems that's when there's some jump or leap of faith place where I'm not confident. I'm always rewarded when I finish on the root note because it's what I wanted and sounds good for my purposes but it doesn't always happen. I sometimes finish on a root note rather than the root note and it sounds good to me if there's any validity to that. I wish I could discern the difference. These examples are where your interval advice is so appeciated.The other thing is habits. Been playing for so long and like golf if you're not practicing the right or most efficient way I'm limited. ie. For the life of me my basic G chord is not done w the pinkie. This is limiting because getting to the 7th requires a lot more effort. Another example of my defects is say A chord on 5th fret. I cannot or haven't been comfortable doing it any other way than the bar method w the E shape. If you follow me I'm not wanting to use index and 2nd finger on high E and B strings. This has to be the result of always barring my chords to the point I'm wondering if it's a problem other than muscle memory. I do appreciate your reply. FYI, or for what it's worth I've strictly played acoustic guitar and what I'm using today. I'm aweful on electric because it's so much easier or rather I'm not used to the micro movements comparitively.
@@Sim-q9t I would like to add that when learning intervals, really concentrate on an internalize the emotional feelings of these intervals. That way instead of thinking what note fits here, think what feeling fits here. Hope that makes sense. It really opened up my playing when I started looking at it that way.
No. 10 came the closes to one that I would add- play rhythmically, almost percussively, make it funky. It’s not smooth and creamy, it’s bouncy and playful.
I think a big influence on JGs soloing was that early on, besides being an average blues-based player, he used semi-acoustic guitars like Gibson ES335, which have a mushy warm sound, thanks to its humbucking pickups. Later he started playing the Alembic guitar with active single-coil pickups, like your strat, which had a much more responsive tone, and enabled Garcia to bring out many nuances of his playing which were lost on the semis. His artistic choices also developed in combination with his improving technique and the band becoming more adept at improvising long structures and following Garcia, who was the only soloist (if you don’t count the drum solos).
Yeah, if you know the scale-tones really well, you have access to all 12 notes in any key, over any chord. It’s just a matter of placing chord and scale tones on the rhythmically strong points and surrounding those notes with chromatically on the weak points. The whole “Barry Harris chromatic scale” thing which I call bumblebeeing.
appreciate all the work you, and your team, put into producing your teaching content. can we take the hint that dire wolf and other tunes will soon be available in your catalog of offerings?
Yup. I tried to mostly pick songs that I either hadn't made a track for yet or wanted to redo. So I'm leveraging my time and can now make them better and faster since doing this 30 solo challenge.
@ As someone who has learned many Jerry solos, I couldn’t agree more. Some aspects were knew to me which was cool. I have seen many a Jerry guy in Dead bands who have hardly absorbed any of these aspects. Cheers bro!
Awesome vid Jeff been watching you for years. I’m in music school and my professors say the same thing. Transcribing is the most valuable thing you can do. Are you in a dead band? Just wondering, would be a shame if not!
Hey thanks. Yeah, I wish they had transcribing software when I was in school. I had special CD player that would slow things down but definitely wasn't as useful. The first band I played guitar in was a Dead cover band but I only played one gig with them. Currently I don't gig. I got burned out from it and am focused on spending time with my kids. But I'll probably get the itch to get back out there at some point.
Jerry basically used a drug addiction based formula. The constant chromaticism, and the equivalent rythymic dynamism, the constant tension and release, gets the ear “strung out.” It’s almost like adding heaps of sugar to a dessert or a soda. Not taking anything away from him, but it was, in my opinion, a calculated formula that was deliberately engineered to get people addicted to the Grateful Dead. His mo was basically to play every passing tone at every opportunity, and the above is why. (As I was typing this you started talking about Garcia ending on the root. Worse, he would often start phrases on the root of the change; a mortal sin…except that Phil often didn’t play the root on the changes, like literally every other bass player.)
dude wasnt he mising part of his fingeer/s? no one will ever sound like him. sorry. u sound great though. great. idk........i can't play that stuff. props
Was ready to rip you apart for your music taste but saw you were listening to Charlie Parker etc. Grateful Dead is the least steeped in traditional music of all Jerry's projects. If you listened to Jerry Garcia Band, Jerry with Merl Saunders, Howard Wales or almost any other project he did im sure you would appreciate it.
Are there people listening to the Dead still? Never cared for their music…to me they have always sound like a band who couldn’t decide if they play country, blues, rockabilly or rock while not being good in any of those genres.
@ Who knows? You might be right, I feel the exact same way about Yankees. And by the way, I ain’t your son…the only son you might have is the one you had with your sister.
👉 Take the FREE Jerry Garcia 5-Day Challenge
www.jeffwilliamsguitar.com/Jerry-Garcia-5-Day-Challenge
👉 Grateful Dead Guitar Lessons (Playlist)
ruclips.net/p/PLWbyLS1VMRzgY0trdO_nWrKn1n2pLuezw
In reference to what you said about Jerry's 70's vs 90's playing...I think of it as pre and post coma. Pre come, he had a fiery, bluesy, quality that, at it's best (think Caution from 72 @Wembly, or Hard to Handle from Phil Zone) surpassed everyone. POst coma....that was gone. Like...utterly. His string bends were pretty much all awkward sounding, often flat, stiff, etc. But...he had an otherworldy, angelic quality that was far beyond anything from his precoma years. It's like when Gandalf the Grey was killed by the demon, and came back as Gandalf the White.
You mean not on heroin vs on heroin
@ no, I mean pre and post coma. He was clean, except lsd and shrooms in 89 and 90, which was the peak of his latwr ethereal style. And, he was on heroin in 77, a peak year
As he progressed, he played triads more and more, the normal progression of learning the fretboard.
This is so kind of you to share this kind of top quality analysis thank you man, this is priceless for anyone wishing to improvise better I hope you reach the hearts of many ❤
My pleasure!
Jeff? Remember when you had 200 subscribers? And I was one of them? Look at ya now! Great vid buddy.
Hey thanks! Yeah, I know. It seems like yesterday I was just trying to figure out where the record button was on my camera!
bro thats wild i was here at around 5-10k and i thought it was crazy he only had that amount of subs
This video was playing in the background and I could sworn it was Saul Goodman talking about the Grateful Dead. You've got Odenkirk's voice!
I've never heard that one before, but I like it. I'm a huge Odenkirk fan!
Step 1 was the guitar scholarship of analyzing the solos and digesting it into 10 things to think about, but then next your personal style of discussing it and demonstrating it is so pleasant to listen to. Very cool video, thanks.
Thanks for sharing what you have discovered from your journey. From what you explained, it seems like Jerry is not rigidly stuck with the scale. Instead, he used it as skeleton but he used many notes adjacent to the notes on the scale.
Cheers from Indonesia.
This is a fantastic video, but I think how it really works is... Jerry is a fantastic songwriter, and he could make his guitar sing his songs for him. I think it's that simple.
Great video, Jeff! I really appreciate you taking the time to break down Jerry's soloing.
Hey thanks!
I like the format of your video here. You are well paced with the information and it seems very thoughtfully approached and presented. As for Jerry, I was never a big fan. I appreciated some of the Dead but it became laborious after a few songs to even listen to. For some reason, however, every single time I heard his lead work I thought of a merry go round, the kind with actual wooden horses and mirrors, all painted white with pretty lights all over it. I know that seems strange, at first, but think about the music that's played on those rides, it's very piano roll or pinwheel-ish, think old late 1800s / early 1900s carnival music. There must be something to that because his playing always brings up that imagery in my head. That music, to me, is mostly happy, upbeat, whimsical, playful, all the things that Jerry encapsulated as a musician. I will say I have always held him in high regard, even though I wasn't a big fan, because he has a solid and identifiable style and sound, maybe not as unique as BB King but it's relative to that. He's one of the top 10 most identifiable players ever. For that and that alone, yeah, Jerry was super cool and his style and techniques are well worth taking a closer look at. Also, thinking of the Dead, every true hippy I've ever met was just as needful of psych meds as the people locked up in rubber rooms, they were just on the happy end of that same spectrum and it never dawned upon anyone that flipping between bummed, ADHD and euphoria could be dangerous... unless you offered it your couch.
The carnival ride description is very apt. That’s what thousands of deadheads including myself loved, especially at a show. You have to imagine how intense and loud the music at a show would be, with Phil’s bass blasting you in the chest and the two drummers creating a cacophony of sound then to hear Jerry’s notes come swirling in like rain drops or falling leaves or the eternal carnival ride you described. Find the transcript for the 7/4/89 “Deal” solo and give it a try. I Guarantee it gives you a new appreciation for Jerry’s talent even if you’re not the biggest fan.
Im so glad you mentioned 80's, 90's and JGB. I was lucky to be emblazened from the sounds he made from that time. Decades of me playing helps but when someone like yourself so accuratetly puts words to these skillsets he (Jerry) would use helps a bunch for someone like me who knows hardly anything about the theory of it. Of course I want to jump right in and sign up. Thank you for sharing your discoveries and having the challenge available to us.
Glad it was helpful. And glad I keep the part about the 80s and 90s. I almost cut that out!
if u know/learn only one thing about music theory and guitar, learn INTERVALS. intervals literally form the entire basis of western music and they are just numbers. so you can then understand, think of, describe, or analyze any music as the intervals that it is composed of be they chords, scales, or anything. progressions. It's all linked back to intervals. 8 notes per octave...start at A for example. A B C D E F G A...so if A is your Root note, B is the major 2nd interval, C the major third. D major 4th interval and so on. each whole step away from your root is an interval until you get back to the octave or 8th. The root is also called unison or first.
@@Sim-q9t appreciate that. Well said. It seems some do well with visual(shaping on fretboard) and others take to the other way. I need to find what works for me. I'm trying hard to know the WWHalf thing but it's hard. I've always been uncomfortable on ascending or desc. scales when I get to the B string. From G to B or B to G. Everything's smooth until I get to that area and seems that's when there's some jump or leap of faith place where I'm not confident.
I'm always rewarded when I finish on the root note because it's what I wanted and sounds good for my purposes but it doesn't always happen. I sometimes finish on a root note rather than the root note and it sounds good to me if there's any validity to that. I wish I could discern the difference. These examples are where your interval advice is so appeciated.The other thing is habits. Been playing for so long and like golf if you're not practicing the right or most efficient way I'm limited. ie. For the life of me my basic G chord is not done w the pinkie. This is limiting because getting to the 7th requires a lot more effort. Another example of my defects is say A chord on 5th fret. I cannot or haven't been comfortable doing it any other way than the bar method w the E shape. If you follow me I'm not wanting to use index and 2nd finger on high E and B strings. This has to be the result of always barring my chords to the point I'm wondering if it's a problem other than muscle memory. I do appreciate your reply. FYI, or for what it's worth I've strictly played acoustic guitar and what I'm using today. I'm aweful on electric because it's so much easier or rather I'm not used to the micro movements comparitively.
@@Sim-q9t I would like to add that when learning intervals, really concentrate on an internalize the emotional feelings of these intervals. That way instead of thinking what note fits here, think what feeling fits here. Hope that makes sense. It really opened up my playing when I started looking at it that way.
Signed up! Can’t wait
Damn Jeff this was a heater! Great video thanks man!
Hey thanks and no prob!
So cool to know I'm not the only one who gets so much from Jerry's work.
If I remember Jerry was in a coma in 86? And had to relearn the guitar
what an amazing video Jeff. Well done!!!!
Hey thanks!
great video
No. 10 came the closes to one that I would add- play rhythmically, almost percussively, make it funky. It’s not smooth and creamy, it’s bouncy and playful.
Thank you for your service🙌😎
Great stuff! Sounds good, buddy.
I really dig that strat.
Thanks! I just got that strat.
I think a big influence on JGs soloing was that early on, besides being an average blues-based player, he used semi-acoustic guitars like Gibson ES335, which have a mushy warm sound, thanks to its humbucking pickups. Later he started playing the Alembic guitar with active single-coil pickups, like your strat, which had a much more responsive tone, and enabled Garcia to bring out many nuances of his playing which were lost on the semis. His artistic choices also developed in combination with his improving technique and the band becoming more adept at improvising long structures and following Garcia, who was the only soloist (if you don’t count the drum solos).
This really illustrates the discovery of JG’s light for one who’s trying to look at it right 🙂
I really like that strat!
Thanks! I just got it and so far love it. Although, I'm sold on the pickups. I'm probably gonna swap those out.
hey man, cool channel. I love this Jerry analysis. I'm still in awe listening to Garcia !
Glad you enjoy it!
Awesome. Thanks ❤
Thank and no prob
Great video thanks 🙏
It's in my book that you cannot buy but I'll tell you anyway...every note is perfect, it's just how you fit it in.-DCB
Yeah, if you know the scale-tones really well, you have access to all 12 notes in any key, over any chord. It’s just a matter of placing chord and scale tones on the rhythmically strong points and surrounding those notes with chromatically on the weak points. The whole “Barry Harris chromatic scale” thing which I call bumblebeeing.
Did you just quote yourself
Very informative .. thank you !
No prob!
great job
appreciate all the work you, and your team, put into producing your teaching content. can we take the hint that dire wolf and other tunes will soon be available in your catalog of offerings?
Yup. I tried to mostly pick songs that I either hadn't made a track for yet or wanted to redo. So I'm leveraging my time and can now make them better and faster since doing this 30 solo challenge.
Great video.
Thanks
@ As someone who has learned many Jerry solos, I couldn’t agree more. Some aspects were knew to me which was cool. I have seen many a Jerry guy in Dead bands who have hardly absorbed any of these aspects. Cheers bro!
Excellent
He discovered he had no personal life.
In the 2024 video in the beginning are you trying to show us your Jerry inspired playing? Or that you can copy the solo from 5/26/72 note for note?
Jerry looks like a full grown adult in that boyhood picture
Lol, I was thinking the same thing. Jerry popped out self actualized😅
Awesome vid Jeff been watching you for years. I’m in music school and my professors say the same thing. Transcribing is the most valuable thing you can do. Are you in a dead band? Just wondering, would be a shame if not!
Hey thanks. Yeah, I wish they had transcribing software when I was in school. I had special CD player that would slow things down but definitely wasn't as useful. The first band I played guitar in was a Dead cover band but I only played one gig with them. Currently I don't gig. I got burned out from it and am focused on spending time with my kids. But I'll probably get the itch to get back out there at some point.
Sub-scribed 😂🎉👏
Jerry basically used a drug addiction based formula. The constant chromaticism, and the equivalent rythymic dynamism, the constant tension and release, gets the ear “strung out.” It’s almost like adding heaps of sugar to a dessert or a soda. Not taking anything away from him, but it was, in my opinion, a calculated formula that was deliberately engineered to get people addicted to the Grateful Dead. His mo was basically to play every passing tone at every opportunity, and the above is why. (As I was typing this you started talking about Garcia ending on the root. Worse, he would often start phrases on the root of the change; a mortal sin…except that Phil often didn’t play the root on the changes, like literally every other bass player.)
Wow... Can't believe it took him this many hours and notes to realize Garcia sucks.
dude wasnt he mising part of his fingeer/s? no one will ever sound like him. sorry. u sound great though. great. idk........i can't play that stuff. props
eh took a look and I appreciate the effort you put into this but man his sound remains completely uninteresting. their whole catalog is as well.
Was ready to rip you apart for your music taste but saw you were listening to Charlie Parker etc. Grateful Dead is the least steeped in traditional music of all Jerry's projects. If you listened to Jerry Garcia Band, Jerry with Merl Saunders, Howard Wales or almost any other project he did im sure you would appreciate it.
You've listened to the entire catalog of an artist you find completely uninteresting? Why? It's not for you, move along.
@@newusernamehere4772 So you were about to rip apart someone else’s musical taste until you saw they listened to Charlie Parker? 😂
Are there people listening to the Dead still? Never cared for their music…to me they have always sound like a band who couldn’t decide if they play country, blues, rockabilly or rock while not being good in any of those genres.
They may not have been the best at what they did, but they were the only ones that did what they did
Nah son they mastered it all and let it flow from one to another seamlessly. Your mind has been closed too long so at this point you’re a lost cause
@ Who knows? You might be right, I feel the exact same way about Yankees. And by the way, I ain’t your son…the only son you might have is the one you had with your sister.
@@ce5243Dead sounds like a meandering lost soul
@@miraposajehano4309OK - you’ve trolled the Deadheads. You can go back to listening to Led Zeppelin. They appeal to almost everyone