Witness magic of improv

I know many people hate on Phish around here.. but I just came across this and this is truley something to behold for anyone who likes improvised music.

Listen to how the bass completely guides the jam and how good their chemistry is. This is an absolutely gorgeous moment. I love these kinds of jams because they have all of the epic feel of a composed piece, but they're fleeting and in the moment which makes them all more amazing to witness.

Let it get going.. especially at around 6:30 on>> Just give it a chance before you knock it. They aren't about flash.. their goal is to more or less compose songs on the fly. This one is a beauty and probably best sums up what the appeal was.

90,000 people were at this show all the way up in Maine in the middle of nowhere just to take off with these kinds of jams.

Give it a chance... I think you'll dig it.

To add.. listen to how the bass completely changes and guides the jam starting at 1:45. I love this kind of stuff because not even the band knows where it's going to end up and listen to how it goes from stagnant and wandering to an absolutely lovely melody. Magic on the spot.

Phish and Jay Z

Hotness.

Sorry.. I'm on a Phish kick right now. Can't wait til the shows coming up.

Here's another hilarity showing the band's sense of humor. The drummer sings "Gettin Jiggy Wit It" after the band plays "Hold Your Head Up"

I'm either missing something or this is one of those "shreds" videos. Did I really just listen to nine minutes of one chord?

Right there with you... I listened to the same nine minutes of the same chord. Actually, there are a couple of others in there too, but the guitar player really got stuck hovering around the same note for a while there.

Look, it's always great to see people playing their instruments, and an audience of 90,000 is a major plus. I mean, these Phish guys accomplished a helluva lot, and I respect that. They sold tons of tickets and gobs of records. But it's just not my thing.

I've heard of phish, sort of, but never actually heard them. And dude, with the amount you push them around here, I think I'm going to avoid them like the frickin plague, you've made me dread them. Sorry, but these phish threads of yours are having the opposite effect on me.

You wanna hear some good improv go listen to Charlie Parker or somethin eh.

I wasn't able to see any real improvisation in the video.

The music just stuck at a particular point and there was no movement, no development, no creation of anything new (which is the main point of improvisation IMO). There was no distinctive "motif" or "key element" or direction towards which music would progress, just an array of notes in non-dissonant harmonic relation which sounded with no real purpose. Basically, there was no elements that define a musical composition.

No surprise that it was boring, too.

If there isn't a South Park episide ridiculing Phish, there should be.

i dig it for 1 minute, then it makes me itch all over like some sort of hippie witchcraft.

in order to dig the entirety of that video i would need half a gram of mdma, lots of weed and beer, and a hot 18 year old with a comparable concoction in her brain as well.

do you slap your knee when you listen to phish or what? i feel as if i need a corn cob pipe along with some suspenders while listening to that video.

in all reality though, they are much better musicians than myself.

That's too funny. You need to post more.

simply awful.

Wow everyone truly does think they're meh if not worse. I just can't bring myself to click on any of the links, your insistent enthusiasm is just making me want to rebel, but I was really curious a couple of weeks ago. Don't really know anyone else's taste here so who knows I might actually like them just to rebel against the consensus results

What are they? I'm imagining some nu-metal-jazz-rock-fusion type thing. (I know, I should just click on the link but theres been too many "look how awesome Phish are" posts, they scare me now...)

Why would you not just click the video already? It's important to listen to all kinds of music, and as much of it as you can, if you have any desire to improve.

I didn't really see much to like in it - it was a little bit Allman-brothers-ish in terms of a similar improv sound, but without the rhythm, soul, and brilliant riffs and harmonies. It didn't communicate anything...

Oh wow, Out of the doubtless hundreds of thousands of bands I will never get to hear in my lifetime, I'd doubt not hearing this one is going to make me that much worse/ignorant as a musician. Also I'm almost positive I'll have heard the majority of the stuff they are influenced by.

And like I said, I'm just scared of the link, alright?

i used to live in Santa Cruz,and i thought i would never hate a band as much as i hate the Grateful Dead

how wrong i was...

Neil: "Oh Wow, Steve Hillage"

NEIL (from The Young Ones) RULES!! If he's a Phish Phan I'm going to give that {censored} a listen!

edited: I would have more fun jammin with snaggle-tooth drunk rednecks in the Freebird Trailor Park but keyboard player is good.

AW...with all due respect I think your kinda wasting your time in this particular forum...phish is a more guitar oriented group and the keyboard synth guys here arnt going to dig it anymore than any other jam band...plus your pushing it like you work for the band...and that appears to be a turn off to some....one guy wants to comment but wont even look at the video - and then asks what kind of music it is...

personally I think the guys in phish are fantastic musicians but personally I never got into thier songwriting the way i did with the grateful dead...but your enthusiasm is cool...its always cool to see someones passion about music...in the end everyone has their own tastes...some of the electronic music that people hold dear in here ie tangerine dream, kraftwerk, jarre etc is is as much of a snoozefest that they are claiming phish to be.

It must be magic.

It worked better on me than Stupefy and Petrificus Totalus, together.

Now I need to Obliviate myself.

Phish = jam band. Not nu-metal-jazz-rock-fusion at all.

Just some laid back alternative rock.

Unlike the Grateful Dead (which I mostly don't dig, sorry Deadheads), I actually like a few of their songs ("Sample In A Jar" comes to mind) provided its in the studio, sans noodling.

I do not dig jam band noodling, personally. In other bands I've been in, jam band noodling is what happens when we've run out of songs to play, there's about 10 minutes to go until the set ends, and we need something to do. So the back layer plays something ridiculously simple ("Everyone! Blues jam in E!"), the keys and guitars get to noodle and impress people with their MAD SK1LLZ, the audience has music of sorts to get drunk on, and everyone is happy. Nice, I suppose, but the point is jam band noodling should be filler when you've run out of songs to play, not an entire {censored}ing concept.

Jam bands seem to attract the more post-hippie crowd looking for something to do ever since Jerry Garcia died. Whether its Dave Matthews Band, Phish, or Gov't Mule (all three are very different sounding bands, mind you). I don't know why. The same crowd is also attracted to the modern bluegrass movement, called "newgrass" for some reason. I don't know why, either.

Thanks for dropping the science. I'm not really aware of a jam band scene down here, never really heard of it before. Is that what Grateful dead do? They are the one seminal 60s/70s band I have still never really heard, should correct that at some point.

I'm struggling to understand the idea of "jam band". All musicians jam, that's what we do, we get together and we jam...so these guys just get together for a fun random jam, but it happens to be on stage and people have payed to see it. Do they get random muso friends in on the jam too, like whoever is around and wants to bash some {censored} out at the time? Is it like a strict "we only jam, man, structure is for squares" ethos? I like a lot of older improvisational jazz, but it's pretty masturbatory at times and those guys are fantastic musicians. You know, 20 minute jams where each member of a quintet gets four minutes to solo while everyone else goes into backing mode sort of. So i'm guessing the jam band thing has some of it's roots in jazz too, except in a rock format.

I'll check out all of these jam bands to get knowledged up on it all, gotta keep up with the scenage.