Row Jimmy

[glocke]

According to the "official" Dead Anthology Estimated is alternating bars of 3/4  and 4/4. I always think of it as 7. But since the main phrases are 14 beats long the easiest way to count it is three bars of four followed by one bar of two... It doesn't really matter how you count since it is all about getting a feel for the length of the cycle. Fun tune to play as is Row Jimmy!

I always counted it as seven, I've heard other people call it repeating bars of 3/4 or 4/4 which never made sense to me as that adds up to 7.  Edwins comment about breaking it up like that makes it swing different is interesting but Im not sure how that works, I'll have to go back and listen to that one and count it as 4/4 and 3/4.

It took me a shorter period of time to "get" Estimated than it did Row Jimmy.  With Estimated, it just clicked after awhile..Row Jimmy not so much, at least not yet.  What helped me a lot with EP was to just play it with a metronome, no music. 

I really need to find people outside of my band to play these tunes with..We probably gig twice a month on average, but we never rehearse and we never really work these tunes out the way they should be worked out.  We more or less just plow through them like a bull in a china shop unfortunately.

[edwardofhuncote]

If I ever get able to go out and play again, I'd like to find some local guys (and girls?) that wanted to do a Grateful Dead music thing. I've been getting a little bit of it with my newgrass gig the past few years, but even those guys won't tackle some of the more challenging time sigs. (in fairness, they probably wouldn't work too well in our format) But I have believed for a while now, I could do it if someone on drums pushed me. Usually once something is in my head, I can play it. I've found GD music to be very improvisational, and open to interpretation, much like the bluegrass and oldtyme music I grew up playing. Obviously that wouldn't be true if one were trying to replicate exactly a show from this or that date. Still, there is room to breathe.


Lofty goal for 2019... or maybe 2020 is more realistic.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Estimated is in 7. I don't think they played in different time signatures (my old band, Shockra, used to do that, with my favorite being 11 against 13) but they did play with various combinations of 3 and 4 to make the tune swing in different ways. It took a long time for me to really get the bass part because I kept trying to play 3-4, when it's really 4-3 for the verses. I'm sure the drummers played 4/4 through most of it more than once.

Looking back at my post, I see it was unclear; the multiple-times-equaling-4/4 was not in reference to "EP"; I seem to recall it being in reference to jamming in general.
Sorry for the confusion.

Peter (who is currently being told he should step away from the keyboard and be sociable - and the grandkids are pretty darn cute, so....later, folks)

[Mark 63]

In his book, Bill Kreutzman describes the Row Jimmy beat:

"Jerry brought 'Row Jimmy' into us one day, and it was really difficult to get a grip on it at first. It has a slow tempo, which makes it seem like it would be easy, but it calls for a slight reggae groove layered over a ballad. Rhythmically, the lengths aren't traditional. They're not just twos and fours. It's deceiving. Basically, you have to play the song in half-time with a double-time bounce on top. It's trickier than it sounds. But once I locked into it, 'Row Jimmy' became one of the best songs in our repertoire."

That excerpt is on wikipedia, but i think there was more detail in the book (Deal).

[glocke]

In his book, Bill Kreutzman describes the Row Jimmy beat:

"Jerry brought 'Row Jimmy' into us one day, and it was really difficult to get a grip on it at first. It has a slow tempo, which makes it seem like it would be easy, but it calls for a slight reggae groove layered over a ballad. Rhythmically, the lengths aren't traditional. They're not just twos and fours. It's deceiving. Basically, you have to play the song in half-time with a double-time bounce on top. It's trickier than it sounds. But once I locked into it, 'Row Jimmy' became one of the best songs in our repertoire."

That excerpt is on wikipedia, but i think there was more detail in the book (Deal).

Interesting...admittedly Im not really sure what he means when he says "Rhythmically, the lengths aren't traditional. They're not just twos and fours"...is he  talking about measures of 2 and measures 4 here?

We tried running through this in rehearsal last night in anticipation of playing it on NYE.  Thats probably not going to happen..6 different people in the room with six different ideas of how the goes.  The lead guitar player and I were on the same page thankfully though so hopefully in the future it will be thrown into rotation

[lbpesq]

I've run into similar issues with Wharf Rat.  The beats between lines change..  Some lines have an extra measure before the next vocal line starts, some don't.  Until everyone is confidant about the timing, it's easy for that one to derail.  Anther one I've found to have subtle timing issues is Uncle John's Band.

Bill, tgo

[cozmik_cowboy]

I've run into similar issues with Wharf Rat.  The beats between lines change..  Some lines have an extra measure before the next vocal line starts, some don't.  Until everyone is confidant about the timing, it's easy for that one to derail.  Anther one I've found to have subtle timing issues is Uncle John's Band.

Bill, tgo

The immortal Samuel John Hopkins once defended that sort of playing with "Lightnin' change when Lightnin' wanna change!"  J.L. Hooker was known for it, too - but not so many people do it as group thing.

Peter

[lbpesq]

Individually, Bob Dylan and John Prine are shining examples of "I'll sing the next line when I'm good and ready.  Might be now, might be in a measure or two"!

Bill, tgo

[mavnet]

In Tom Lehrer's Folk Song Army (

there's this line:
The tune don't have to be clever
And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line
It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English
And it don't even gotta rhyme... excuse me: rhyne!

[edwardofhuncote]

I've run into similar issues with Wharf Rat.  The beats between lines change..  Some lines have an extra measure before the next vocal line starts, some don't.  Until everyone is confidant about the timing, it's easy for that one to derail.  Anther one I've found to have subtle timing issues is Uncle John's Band.

Bill, tgo

I brought that point up one time with the guys over "Uncle John's Band", that we all needed to agree beforehand on when and where to stretch the measures. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to make my case that the eye-contact thing only works for those up front. (I can't see them from my place in back...) Eventually we just did like a timing auto-correct on the whole tune to keep it workable. Some may disagree, but I don't think it takes that much away from that particular tune. I may feel differently about a different one more dependent upon the extra measures for identitity.

[glocke]

I've run into similar issues with Wharf Rat.  The beats between lines change..  Some lines have an extra measure before the next vocal line starts, some don't.  Until everyone is confidant about the timing, it's easy for that one to derail.  Anther one I've found to have subtle timing issues is Uncle John's Band.

Bill, tgo

I brought that point up one time with the guys over "Uncle John's Band", that we all needed to agree beforehand on when and where to stretch the measures. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to make my case that the eye-contact thing only works for those up front. (I can't see them from my place in back...) Eventually we just did like a timing auto-correct on the whole tune to keep it workable. Some may disagree, but I don't think it takes that much away from that particular tune. I may feel differently about a different one more dependent upon the extra measures for identitity.

I never really noticed the extra measures, but I always thought there was something funny going on in UJB...Any time I ever played it with anyone nothing was ever discussed in terms of the arrangement, but it always ended up sounding a little off compared to what I was hearing on the recording. 

Also, Cold Rain and Snow is another one that has a wonky lead section.  I forget exactly what it is thats going on ( I have charted out somewhere), but the first lead is different than whats happening in both the verses and the lead sections that follow it. 

It's really starting to bum me out that the guys I play with don't work these things out more..

[cozmik_cowboy]

Well, just to stretch things a little, "El Paso" has one half-verse in the middle; not as significant as the other examples, but it still throws my lame "chops" off a little.  On the upside, I pretty much just do the WG² thing, so I'm not messing anybody else up.

Peter

[edwin]

I've run into similar issues with Wharf Rat.  The beats between lines change..  Some lines have an extra measure before the next vocal line starts, some don't.  Until everyone is confidant about the timing, it's easy for that one to derail.  Anther one I've found to have subtle timing issues is Uncle John's Band.

Bill, tgo

I brought that point up one time with the guys over "Uncle John's Band", that we all needed to agree beforehand on when and where to stretch the measures. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to make my case that the eye-contact thing only works for those up front. (I can't see them from my place in back...) Eventually we just did like a timing auto-correct on the whole tune to keep it workable. Some may disagree, but I don't think it takes that much away from that particular tune. I may feel differently about a different one more dependent upon the extra measures for identitity.

That song seems pretty consistent to me. The songbooks I've seen seem to have it right. Once you get it down, no need for eye contact for the beginning of the verses.

[glocke]

So this song is coming up in our setlist for this Friday, and while going over it I remembered this discussion I started about it.

Still such an odd tune.  I just got done listening to a bunch of versions from 1974 as we are doing a show from that year, and it sounds like the GD wasn't even sure how to play it back than as the harmonic movement was different on several of the versions I  listened to, some of them were resolving to the tonic in different spots during the solos.

Edwin, listened to your version again last night..Still sounds great.  Seems like your drummer is emphasizing the 3rd beat to help keep everyone in place.