Friday 03/20/2015 by Lemuria

JAM CHART PROPORTIONS... CHARTED

The next few entries in our charts series summarize some of the information and scrutiny available through Phish.net. First up, a quantitative summary of the site's extensive Jamming Charts, which identify 3,343 recommended performances of 193 songs (an average of 17.3 each) as well as 919 highly recommend versions (an average of 4.8 each).

For the 41 of those songs which were performed 150 or more times, the chart to the right illustrates the total performances (to end of grey), proportion recommended (end of green), and proportion highly-recommended (yellow).

Those 41 songs account for 1,549 recommended versions and 541 highly recommended versions, or about half of all those in the Jamming Charts. But those charts recommend a wide range - from only 2 of the 438 Caverns, to 43% of the 366 Tweezers (of which 63, or 17%, are highly recommended.)

We encourage you to explore the charts, more guidance in your exploration of Phish.

Methodology

For purposes of readability, I limited the chart to songs performed 150 or more times. That leaves out classic jam vehicles such as Simple (150 versions, 46 charted and 13 highlighted), Ghost (134, 48 and 15), and Birds (97, 24 and 7).

I did not weed out songs such as HYHU (524, 1 and 1) or Cavern (438, 2 and 0) - that is, I did not define "jamming vehicles" and limit the chart to those - since it's interesting to see both that not all songs would qualify and that our recommendations vary even among those that do.

Where one song appear twice in a setlist and was charted or highlighted both of those times, I included both. Though some might consider that an exaggeration, the difference is a fraction of a percent, imperceptible in this chart's long thin lines without values.

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Comments

, comment by EsthersDoll
EsthersDoll A Phish geek's delight!!! Thanks for the chart!! I'm looking forward to seeing more charts and graphs in the series! :D

I must add that I expected more from some of the songs, especially Cavern, Coil and Suzy!!
, comment by turbidite
turbidite Being a 3.0 phan, I had no idea they played HYHU that many times. Pretty crazy considering it's Fish's least favorite song to perform. I wonder if he had a bunch of pent-up rage throughout the 90s when they played it all the time?
, comment by DollarBill
DollarBill I love it! Great work my friends.
, comment by GratefulPhan
GratefulPhan Off topic, does anyone know if charts like these exist for the dead?
, comment by QuadrophonicPhrolic
QuadrophonicPhrolic I love this for multiple reasons, namely for the simple fact these charts and stats exist. Phish is truly a cultural gem, a beacon of light. Phish has shown me how it feels to transcend our divisions and commune with others who understand that IT is real, IT is plausible, IT is feasible, IT is not anomalous, contrived, accidental. IT is the inspiration, the highest achievement. IT is hard to put into words, but is the reason we work so hard to find the right ones.
, comment by SymphonicDelight
SymphonicDelight The primary_key is... dank.
, comment by BetweenTheEars
BetweenTheEars This is another great post for all us stat nerds out there!

Would it be possible to create the same chart, but normalize everything to number of times played? Similar to the comment in the post about 17% of tweezers being on the chart vs. <1% of Caverns making the chart, it would be neat to be able to compare all the songs against each other in this way.
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