![]() ![]() ![]() The psychological impact of harmony is amazingly different at long time scales. I enjoy experimenting with Paulstretch, using it on music that’s familiar to me. It would be an interesting empirical study to see how long it takes different listeners to feel that Necker-cube-like transition from V7 in G major to I7 in D Mixolydian. But it’s really the last solo that reaffirms that D7 is the key center once and for all, because the chord never resolves. In each of the solos in “China Cat,” there’s a V7 chord that sustains long enough that it weakens your sense of it being the V7 chord and makes it start feeling like I7 in Mixolydian. Harmonically speaking, the most interesting aspect of “China>Rider” is how the band creates ambiguity by repeating a chord long enough to overwhelm your short-term memory. Yet again, the metrical emphasis and repetition overrides the expectation set by the cadence. ![]() At the end of this section, there’s an A to B7 cadence that would seem to reinforce the key of E major, but this resolves back to G. However, it unexpectedly resolves to E, not G, and the Dead sit on that E chord long enough to make sure you hear it as a new home base. In the second guitar solo, there’s the same C to D7 cadence you heard in the first solo. (The lack of resolution to C helps too.) There are a few places in “China Cat” where the information you get from a cadence conflicts with the metrical emphasis and repetition. This repetition tells you that you’re supposed to be hearing G7 as the I7 chord in G Mixolydian, not V7 in C major. Their main technique is metrical placement and emphasis.įor example, “China Cat” begins with a repeated riff on G7. Most of “China>Rider” is modal, not functional, and the Dead use other techniques to establish the key/mode. The Dead use a cadence going into the second verse of “China Cat Sunflower.” The first guitar solo section ends with a IV-V-I cadence, C to D7 to G, which establishes firmly that G is “home base”. In Western tonal theory, you establish key centers using cadences. At first, it feels like the V7 chord in G major, but after a certain span of time, I start hearing it as the I chord in D Mixolydian instead. The band is playing a drawn-out groove on D7. I was listening to this recording recently, and I noticed that during the transitional jam, there’s a peculiar moment at about 3:34 where I sense the key center changing, even though there’s no change in chord or mode. Here’s a pair of Dead tunes, an original called “China Cat Sunflower” and an arrangement of a folk song, “ I Know You Rider.” The Dead performed them together, seamlessly joined by a modal jam, so they’re known as a single unit, “China>Rider.” Here’s my favorite version. Now that I’m teaching music theory, I’m finding a new angle for Dead appreciation: as a source of pedagogical examples. In my 40s, I’ve come to feel about the Dead the way I feel about my extended family: we’ve had our ups and downs, but they’ve always been there, they’ll always be there, we’re inseparably entangled. ![]() My emotions about the Grateful Dead have gone from intense obsession as a teenager, to embarrassment about my former intense obsession in my 20s, to nostalgic re-embracing of my fandom in my 30s. ![]()
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