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. 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.
Now that I’m teaching music theory, I’m finding a new angle for Dead appreciation: as a source of pedagogical examples. 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.
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. The band is playing a drawn-out groove on D7. 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. It’s like a musical Necker cube.
Continue reading “Key centers in the Grateful Dead’s China>Rider”
