phil lesh?!!

[jpark369]

phil lesh is an exceptional bass player who is always being shorted on recognition. he plays some real great lines and melodies, and is basically a lead bassist along with weir and jerry. he never thought of him self in the bass sense, he was just another guitarist. respect to phil and the vast amount of quality music hes been a part of.

also, anyon know where to get dead bass sheet music/ tabs? he has some real great lines, mostly improved im guessing, which explains the lack of tab. any ideas?

[PSPookie]

Yup, Phil is awesome, but he doesn't seem to get much love around here. Part of his awesomeness comes from the fact that he improvises so well and so much. Listen to a few different GD or Phil & Friends shows -- I swear he doesn't play the same song the same way twice. He just bumps along in the pocket and his lines just always seem to fit.

Anyhow, because of that it is really hard to find bass tab for GD songs. My advice is to find a recording of a song you like and the chords for that song and just start trying to figure out what he's doing.

Good luck

[iplaybassguitar]

phil is probably my favorite bassist. you probably wont find tabs for many of their songs, i know ive seen songbooks at like GC that have tabs or sheet music(not sure which) of entire albums.

probably the best way to learn from phil lesh though would be to sit down and learn some of his improvised parts, or maybe even to play your own improvised lines over grateful dead songs.

phil plays every single song different every time, so these books or tabs would only allow you to learn the original studio version of the songs. the dead were never very proud of their studio efforts though, and that is why they have built such a meaty reputation as a live band.

download some live dead shows or phil and friends shows and learn some of those parts, very educational, and also very fun, especially considering its practice.

[GM60466]

Phil is on my top 10 list. 40+ years of great playing.

GM

[rjs6700]

I've always been a big fan of Phil Lesh. His playing is great and it also seems like he appreciates the technology end of basses.

He's inspired a lot of great jam band bassists.

[lomo]

+100 for Pil. I was also amazed when I bought the boxed Dead CD set that has a raft of bonus material-this includes Phil playing 12 string guitar (solo) as he teaches the rest of the band the song Unbroken Chain, which he'd written; it's worth the prie of the whole set!

[southforkk]

Phil was originally a Classical Trumpet player before Garcia asked him to pick up the bass.
He has a jazz/ improv style in Rock, I often try to emulate his playing, with varying degrees of success.

He also was instumental in bring the technology forward in the 60's to meet his demand for sound and tone on the bass.
He worked directly w/ Ron Wickersham who formed Alembic to design and create on board preamps, etc. on his Guild 4 string.

[iplaybassguitar]

Originally Posted by southforkk

Phil was originally a Classical Trumpet player before Garcia asked him to pick up the bass.
He has a jazz/ improv style in Rock, I often try to emulate his playing, with varying degrees of success.

He also was instumental in bring the technology forward in the 60's to meet his demand for sound and tone on the bass.
He worked directly w/ Ron Wickersham who formed Alembic to design and create on board preamps, etc. on his Guild 4 string.

whats kinda cool about phil is that he just took his intuition and knowledge of music from trumpet and picked up bass. he never took any lessons, and he didnt have tabs to learn from, he pretty much started playing bass right when he joined the grateful dead. who knew that this guy who joined a band and picked up a new instrument on the same day would inspire a whole genre of music?

[Lazylion]

In the 70s, I used to have a small picture of Phil taped to the peghead of my bass. Phil is the only guy I have ever honored in this way.
I love the story about how he met his wife.