Ship of Fools, taken from the Steal Your Face album-

here is a breakdown of Jerry Garcia's solo, as well as the intro, ending, and chord changes ...

Jerry was a master at bending strings, and this short solo is broken into 4 licks...

and features no less than 23 bends ... using all 4 fingers...

it has 1 bend using the 1st finger.. 1 with the second finger... 2 with the third finger... and 19 with the 4th finger/ pinkie...

this demonstrates perfectly one approach he uses for bends...

if you want to play the 11th fret note, for example, you can go to the 10th fret and bend up 1/2 step ...

this is what he does at the beginning of lick 4... wanting to play 11th and 12th fret notes, he does bends on the 10th and 11th frets... so much more interesting than straight notes ... this also builds up suspense for the next note in line...

also, the song is in the key of Bb.. which is a rarity for them, and it uses 8 different chords altogether... Bb,Cm, D, Dm, Eb, E dim, F, Gm

track listing

1:15 - intro

2:55 - chord changes

5:44 - Gm bridge

8:13 - ending

14:07 - solo - full run-thru showing the 4 licks will learn

15:00 - solo- lick 1

17:47 - solo- lick 2

21:54 - solo- lick 3

25:14 - solo- lick 4

29:10- solo- full solo - acapella / no backing track

CHORD CHANGES

intro and ending- Cm- F- Eb- Bb

verses/solo - Bb- F- Eb- E dim- Bb Bb- D- Eb Dm- Cm - F F- Eb- Bb Dm - Cm Eb- E dim- Bb - F - Eb- Bb chorus- F - Eb - Bb F - Eb - Gm

bridge- Gm- E dim - Cm - F- Eb- Bb (the E dim i am using up on the neck is A string 7th fret D string 8th fret G string 6th fret B string 8th fret)