The New York Times ran a spotlight feature on Mike Hamad, founder of the blog Setlist Schematics. When Hamad listens to intricate Phish jams (or any other complex music), he visualizes various connections and key changes, tone shifts and musical moods. He started drawing his schematics last year, specifically during the infamous Tahoeezer.
When Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro encouraged him, Hamad knew he was onto something. The doctorate in musicology continued drawing his schematics, finding success by selling the diagrams to music enthusiasts everywhere. He’s expanded his collection to include bands like The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Umphrey’s McGee, and more.
While the schematics may seem scientific, they’re actually more of an artistic expression. As Hamad describes it, “the way they’re meant to work is documenting key changes as they’re happening, but also to use a mixture of music-theoretical terms, things you’d find in a theory discussion — roman numerals, for instance — and blending that with terms that laypeople use to describe certain environments: ‘bliss,’ or ‘build. All they represent, in my mind, is one guy listening to this music at whatever time of night or day and writing down what he hears. It’s purely interpretation: it might be different on a different day.”
You can watch as Hamad listens to that Tahoe “Tweezer” and recreates his famous schematic below:
Seeing Phish in the coming days? Be sure to check out our pre- and post- Phish parties guide!
-David Melamed (@DMelamz)