to all you jammers.........

[windsurf83]

hey,
to all who are involved in "jam band" or "jam music"

I am interested in what others think are good exercises to work on with other musicians to become better at jamming, or exercises just for fun.

Here is one that I have done before:

*one person come up with lick or groove, and then one person come in at a time with their own addition. THen once everyone is in, the first person changes licks or grooves and you go around hte circle.


Let me know if anyone has some input or other ideas.


peace

[dmb6743]

usually what i do, is i'll play some chords and my friend will play a lick or something over it, then come in w/ a little harmonica. then after a whill he'll play a few chords w/ some harmonica then i'll throw over a little slide guitar or licks. just back and forth mostly, or play some familiar songs and add licks over that (ex: Satelite w/ Tim's guitar parts or Volcano by Jimmy Buffett w/ the funky piano or whatever guitar over the other guitar part)

[Dancing Ants]

when i do jam with people, which isn't often, we usually do this:

Set down a chord progression or lick (we'll call it 'lick A'), play this...modify it a little, then go to something else, ie, progression B...then to C, and so on...then fall back into A.

[justinandimcool]

man i wish my friends were talented enough to jam with me

[bigeyedharper]

man i wish my friends were talented enough to jam with me

you dont really have to be that good to jam. really, simple jams are just very simple chord progressions with slight variations in it.

[crazy_easy41]

Well here is my tip, I play in a band with upright bass, acoustic/piano (me), alto sax, set, electric guitar, and sometimes we have some other creeps join in....

HAVE FUN! Above all, it really doesn't matter how bad it sounds (well if you are in front of an audience don't take this advice). I can't tell you about the times when me and my friends would sit around singing songs about very immature things (but did we have fun? yes)

But if everyone in your band doesn't suck, you'll hopefully get better.
Because at first i'm guessing we sounded like shit in a blender, now we play gigs :cool

[timmyt23]

With the band I'm with, when they have practice or soundcheck, usually the bassist will play a riff, then the drummer will lay down a track with it, and the guitarist and percussionist find their ways from there. But sometimes it's the guitar player who starts the circle. They'll just play with that for about 15 minutes as a warm up. Sometimes songs come out of it, sometimes not.

[mcflymcflymcfly]

pick a key and roll with it:P