This post takes a look at "Movement and Location", the opening track from the album "Who's Feeling Young Now?". You can find the transcription (all 13 pages!) at the bottom of the post. More than most Punch Brothers songs, "Movement and Location" clearly establishes specific roles for each of the instrument members and retains those roles for the length of the song. The roles are: The bass plays a steady quarter note pulse while the acoustic guitar doubles the rhythm with a p

Here is the third and final installment on "Familiarity" from "The Phosphorescent Blues." This post will look at Part III and also include some observations on the entire work. A link to the transcription can be found at the bottom of the page. The form is primarily strophic with each stanza consisting of 14 measures (6+8): Instrumental introduction (6+8) Verse 1 (6+8) Instrumental (8 - second half of stanza) Verse 2 and tag (6+8+4) This final section (which happens around 6'

Here is the second part of a three-part post on "Familiarity", the ten-minute opening track from "The Phosphorescent Blues." The transcription for this section (between 1'15" and 6'00" of the track) can be found at the bottom of the post. First off, the overall form is very straightforward. The sections and their lengths in measures can be seen below. The numbers in parenthesis show smaller phrase groupings within a section. Intro: 12 (4+4+4) Verse 1: 12 (4+4+4) Transition 1:

This is the first of three posts on "Familiarity", the epic first track from Phosphorescent Blues. As always, the transcription can be found at the bottom of the page. The song has a clear three part structure and this post will deal with the first part (up to 1'14" on the track). The musical texture of the first part primarily consists of rapid arpeggios played by Chris Thile on the mandolin. The other members of the band eventually join in but it is the perpetual motion of

For a bluegrass purist, Punch Brothers must be a frustrating band. While most of PB's songs don't fit within a traditional bluegrass style, whenever they do decide to play a straight-up bluegrass folk tune, they totally knock it out of the park. This is the case with "Boll Weevil", the one truly bluegrass track from their album "The Phosphorescent Blues". The track adds to the eclecticism of an album that also includes transcriptions of Debussy and Scriabin and gives bluegras

As has become increasingly obvious from analyzing a handful of Punch Brothers songs, nothing Chris Thile and "the boys" do in their songs is by chance. There always seems to be an underlying logic and awareness of larger formal structures for every surprising surface detail. In this entry, I take a look at the underlying cohesiveness and musical foreshadowing found in "My Oh My" from the album "Phosphorescent Blues." The transcription can be found at the bottom of the page. A

In this entry of “What the Punch?!?”, I take a look at the novelty song “Omahallelujah.” This song was recorded live from the Feb. 7, 2015 taping of "A Prairie Home Companion" and joining the Punch Brothers (minus Noam Pikelny on banjo) on the song were Sarah Jarocz, Richard Dworsky, and Ted Poor. The transcription can be found at the bottom of the page. The song is a humorous tribute to Peyton Manning and his upcoming Super Bowl 50 (or L?) appearance. While Chris Thile and t

This entry takes a look at Punch Brothers' "Don't Get Married Without Me" from their "Who's Feeling Young Now?" album. The transcription can be found at the bottom of the page. Overall, this song follows a very straight-forward form of Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus. But since we're dealing with a Punch Brothers song, what happens within that simple form is anything but vanilla. First the verse. The first verse is 16 measures long (4+4+4+4) but what makes th

I have long been a fan of Chris Thile and his numerous projects and collaborations but recently realized that while much has been written about him and his most recent band Punch Brothers, there hasn't been much written about how his music works on a theoretical and analytical level. As a theory nerd who enjoys transcribing things, I thought I'd take a deeper look into some of Punch Brother's tunes to see what kinds of interesting nuggets I might dig up...and this will be whe