You Enjoy Myself...How to play YEM

I've been listening to Phish for way too long and playing guitar for even longer.  So it was just a matter of time until I decided to sit down and actually learn what was going on in YEM.  This song is pretty demanding and I personally think it takes a certain amount of courage for them to bust this out live because of how difficult the first section can be.  I could practice this for an hour before a gig and probably still screw it up.  They usually do it as the last tune in a set and somehow still pull it off like it's nothing.  I don't plan to have a band together any time soon that can play this (or wants to...hard to find people to play with who like this kind of stuff, sadly).  I transcribed and learned this simply because I love playing guitar and I love the music of Phish.

Trey is an absolutely ridiculous guitarist. Period.  There's no way this can possibly be disputed.  A song like this just goes to further justify that.  I don't claim to play this well at this point, but I feel like there are a lot of people who would like a glimpse into what's going on here. So, I've put together an in depth TAB that can get you on your way to playing YEM yourself, along with a video walkthrough.  So that's the goal here - to get you a little more comfortable playing this tune.

So, if you are feeling ambitious, the video runs just under an hour long but does go into detail about each section of the song.  If you follow the TAB and the video, there's no reason that you won't be playing YEM in the very near future!

As always, comments are always welcome.  Thanks for checking it out!

If you are wondering about equipment, I'm simply playing an Ibanez Artstar 120 into two Ibanez TS-9s.  One is set to very low overdrive, the next to a much heavier overdrive.  From there, right into the amp which is a SMS Classic Tube Preamp -> Carvin 100w Tube Power Amp -> Avitar 212 speaker cab with Celestian Vintage 30's.  This is my main rig.  I do have other pedals that I use regularly but for this video I just ran what's listed above.

Here are my TS9's if you are wondering how I have them set up.   (Sorry, the picture is sideways, but you get the idea)...

Here is the TAB.  I used Transcribe! software to slow down a few sections.  I'm sure that there are some mistakes but overall I think this is about the most thorough version of this song that I've seen TABed.  You can change your fingerings accordingly.  There are a few sections where I have included two fingerings at the same time.  You can use either one or find another that you like better or come up with other alternatives which I cover in the video.  Overall, I'd say the notes are well over 90% accurate here.  I would recommend printing out the TAB and using it with the video.  You Enjoy Yourself...

To download a PDF of this, Click here.

Before you attempt this you should know that this video is just under an hour long.  Why?  Well, the song is already pretty long and I have chopped each section into bits for you!  I recommend downloading and printing out a copy of the TAB before you do this and use it along with the video.

So without further delay...the video:

If the video below doesn't play, try clicking here...