To take my mind off the horror-show that is America in 2025, I’ve thrown together a transcription over at Soundslice of the outro guitar solo from probably my favorite Phish song, “Wading in the Velvet Sea,” and written up a brief analysis here for a fledgling guitar student. As with all transcription, view the notation as an approximation to the performance; follow your ear. (I might do a bunch more of these, as the need for distraction is immense these days).
The solo is played over the progression in G major that makes up almost the whole song: G x 2 – D x 2 – Em x 2 – C – D, and repeat. The solo has a completely “inside” sound; you won’t find a single accidental in the transcription. It’s all diatonic to G major, and Anastasio hews very closely to the chord tones of the moment, with many of his phrases literally outlining the triad in question.
That’s not to take away from the piece at all; to the contrary, the simplicity of the note choices is a big part of the appeal, I think, and instructive too. Anastasio cooks up a lot of beauty from just a small handful of ingredients over the 8 choruses his solo spans. We can see the heart of the overall approach in the solo’s first pass through the progression:
The first measure of G (measure 7) is–after a pick-up from the fifth (D)–a long, sustained third (B), and then in the second measure he strolls down toward a D triad with a scalar triplet; the first measure of D descends the D triad before sustaining the fifth (A) for the second measure; he outlines the Em triad next, landing on a sustained E, and then anticipates the chord change by playing a C triad during the second Em measure, a good bit ahead of the bar line, before playing through another C triad and targeting the fifth (A) when landing on the D chord in measure 14.
While the solo builds and gets a little busier as it progresses, these elements recur throughout the performance:
- Lots of space. Anastasio’s tone on this recording (and throughout The Story of the Ghost) is one of my favorite guitar tones ever, and he juices it for all its worth by letting a lot of notes just keep sustaining, including getting to some nice controlled feedback at points.
- Laying on the chord tones. You might be surprised (or you might not) just how much of what gets played is comprised of chord tones from the progression.
- Anticipation. About half of the time when approaching the C chord, Anastasio anticipates the changes by playing a C triad a beat or two ahead of the band (measures 12, 28, 36, 44), as well as a couple of times coming to the Em (measure 10, 18). This is a common technique to propel things forward.
- Little articulation touches. Given the simplicity of the note choices, most of the interest comes from the phrasing and dynamic touches, like a standout artificial harmonic in measure 50.
In addition to playing through Anastasio’s solo itself, a lot can be gleaned by following along a couple times just hitting the triad shapes indicated in the score, which Anastasio can be seen as playing around and out of. It really drives home how the solo naturally emerges from them, and is a good starter to improvising one’s own variants, making use of the ingredients called out above. Enjoy!