29
votes
Accepted
Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
"However, this feels not at all comfortable to me"
Beneath it all this statement appears to be the underlying issue behind you not being able to 'just do it.' Lets face the facts, it is uncomfortable!...
- 1,974
18
votes
Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
I want to add a few things that apply more when you're actually going to your first band practice or jam session. First, I want to point out that many times, at least one of the other musicians at a ...
- 57.7k
11
votes
Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
Unlike the other answers here, I think the advice to "just do it" is misguided. Playing music with other people is an entire skill unto itself. To be able to play well with others, you need to ...
- 3,143
7
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How to efficiently jam as a guitarist with a drummer
There is no "best possible way" -
Sometimes you might want your drummer to lay down the intro beat (this is pretty common)
You might have some bars of intro on the guitar, usually the drummer will ...
- 37k
7
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Improvisation and Jamming - the Similarities and Differences
It would be pointless to cite Wikipedia, so I'll write this from the top of my head.
Musical improvisation means creating some aspects of music, whatever that is - chords, melodies, rhythms, lyrics, ...
- 28.6k
5
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Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
I started a jam with some pretty clear guidelines of how/what we were doing.
We use songs from the Real Book so the melody and chord changes (and general form) are known ahead of time.
We keep a ...
- 483
5
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Teaching others how to swing
Assuming these are informal jams, you just don't have the authority to fire incompetents. I think the only possibility is to endure the fact that the material will not be played correctly.
But do at ...
- 2,165
5
votes
Accepted
How does the songwriting "jam session" work?
Maybe that's why a 'Songwriting jam session' is not encountered very often! 'Jam session' more typically means a group of players extemporizing on an agreed song or chord sequence. There HAVE been ...
- 94.8k
4
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Teaching others how to swing
Honestly you should bring in some tennis balls and make a game out of it. I've taught this with eurhythmics before. Basically have people walk to a beat and start bouncing the ball on the 8th note, ...
- 237
4
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Teaching others how to swing
If you're playing straight and switch to playing swing, the 'and's move but the strong beats don't.
It might be that the players who are trying to play swung are pushing the strong beats around too, ...
- 11.8k
4
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Accepted
Teaching others how to swing
The only way I am aware of improving (or practicing) swing feel is to play with a metronome but set it so the click is on the 2 and 4. Emily Remler goes through it in her tutorial videos.
I have no ...
4
votes
Accepted
Learning to Jam in piano
You can jam with other people or compose on your own in an improvisational way.
In the former case, you either have to agree on a chord pattern to use (say the simple classic C-Am-F-G in key of C, ...
- 774
4
votes
Accepted
Effective ways of muting saxophone
First of all, there are sax mutes which are basically small plush pillows to jam into the horn.
However, the proper answer is, you guessed it: practice, practice, practice. It does take a lot ...
- 15k
3
votes
Accepted
Jamming as a piano beginner, accompanying a song
As someone who plays both guitar and keyboard, I agree that it can be more difficult for a beginner keyboardist to accompany. But it really depends on the style of music. For example, if you have ...
- 311
3
votes
Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
The first time I played with other people was with 3 other relative newbies like myself. If you listened to any one of us playing by our-self then it was blatantly obvious that we SUCKED individually. ...
- 181
3
votes
Accepted
Which Pentatonic scale to play over which chord in a major key chord progression?
When you compare all the diatonic chords I ii iii IV V vi viio with the pentatonic scale on the tonic C D E G A you will notice that most of the various chords don't have all their tones available in ...
- 58.7k
3
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Why do jamming musicians "trade fours" (rather than any other number)?
There are great answers already here, but perhaps the most important consideration is making sure no one gets cut short when the trading is over.
Consider a 12-bar blues. It wouldn't really work for ...
- 11.3k
2
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Is there a device that would be a mixer with multiple outputs to jam with headphones?
Since the JamHub seems to be dead as a company at this moment, the only viable product with separate submixes seems to be Zoom LiveTrak L-12 (or L-20).
2
votes
Is there a device that would be a mixer with multiple outputs to jam with headphones?
Have you tried simply splitter cables? For example, I had bought a curious-looking thing-- a regular 3.5mm headphone (male) plug to THREE headphones jack (female) cable for $1 at a thrift store. (It'...
2
votes
How to conduct rehearsals in a small band?
When I first started out, I took rehearsals very seriously. I thought you just couldn't go out and perform until things were solid. It was a different time when people took professionalism very ...
- 21
2
votes
need help to figure out equipment needed for a silent rehearsal room
The setup you describe is pretty much the standard way to do "silent" rehearsing. It may not give you as much flexibility and easy control (specifically for rehearsing) as devices like the jamhub, but ...
- 4,264
2
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How to efficiently jam as a guitarist with a drummer
It can't hurt to lay down a "sketch" of a rhythm track you are thinking about and then let him play around with ideas on his own. This way, when you get together to "actually work on" the material, ...
- 986
2
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Which Pentatonic scale to play over which chord in a major key chord progression?
What makes a Pentatonic scale so "useful" is that you can play it on any scale degree, not just on I chords. The Pentatonic scale has at least one note in each of the chords you listed, so ...
- 146
2
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Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
Really, the only advise anyone can give is to just do it. Of course, you will feel uncomfortable, because you are perfoming in front of others and showing your skillset to others ALWAYS will make you ...
2
votes
Playing with other people. What should I know to do?
A couple tips, listen to others, figure out the song order (if it is applicable), make sure you aren't overpowering with volume, if you just want to solo along first figure out the key and scale of ...
- 695
2
votes
Accepted
Designing the home audio setup with musical instruments in mind
All you need, apart from what you already plan, is a small mixer - say 6 channel for future growth - that will plug directly into the AV amp. The sound quality and volume may be lacking slightly, but ...
- 196k
2
votes
Improvisation and Jamming - the Similarities and Differences
Improvisation could be defined many ways, and I don't think the point of this question is to find some kind of complete, authoritative definition. Improvisation means some elements of music are not ...
- 58.7k
1
vote
Jamming as a piano beginner, accompanying a song
"Basically I just play the bass-note on my left hand and hit the chords with my right hand"
Try expanding that basic idea.
When hitting the chord in the right hand try different combinations of on ...
- 58.7k
1
vote
How to efficiently jam as a guitarist with a drummer
As others have stated, the drummer is usually the one that marks the time by counting in. However, this becomes somewhat difficult if the drummer does not know the riffs you have on the guitar.
I ...
- 1,244
1
vote
How to efficiently jam as a guitarist with a drummer
The drummer or percussionist job is to provide a rhythmic accompaniment for the song.
This instrumentalist should listen to the song and add a rhythmic feel that compliments the atmosphere of the ...
- 21
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