Jam Bands - How to keep one key interesting?

[mlbarlow]

If you've listened to many jam bands, you'll have found that some groups can stay in Am forever and never run out of ideas, and some groups can barely manage to hold the attention more than a minute or two.

My question is this ... how do you keep Am interesting for ages? I know it can be done; I've both heard it from other groups, and performed it with my group. Sometimes, though, my drummer and I just look at each other with the "okay, time to end the tune" look.

Perhaps another thing to ponder is how do you drive your bandmates to explore uncharted harmonic territory? How do you make your guitarist, for example, feel a little uncomfortable playing and playing, but ultimately not getting anywhere?

Cheers,
Matt

[SmittyG]

I have been involved with hosting blues jams for many years and the one-chord vamp is a staple. The 'trick' to making it work is to realize that it still has to have a sense of "motion". You can achieve this by using varying dynamics and changing up your rhythmic patterns and accents. And, you are right, it takes some serious skill to keep one of these going for more than two minutes without it getting "old".

As for the guitar player, I see a lot of that at the jams as well. Basically, they are zoning out. They realize that they are safe in minor pentatonic heaven and then just quit listening to the rest of the musicians in the band and go on a noodle-fest. That is usually when the jam gets old. Sit down the guitar player and explain to him that the jam needs more teamwork from all the musicians to keep it fresh. Once he starts asking what you have in mind, then you guys and experiment with different approaches to see what works for you.

I will warn you up front, however: Some folks just don't get it. They think the only thing that should happen is that the rhythm players should shut up and enjoy being nothing more than a live backing track to their absolutely brilliant guitar work. In that case, you have a find a guitar player who is mature enough to actually work with to solve the problem.

[Marcury]

First thing: Listen to each other, second Listen to each other, third listen to each other.

Fourth; play together as much as possible.

In My experience it is the rhythm sections responsibility to drive things in a jam band situation, but if you listen to the other players and they are really listening to you then the smallest shift in one players rhythm or melody can generate new directions.

BTW jams don't have to be 100% spontaneous you can find ideas in the rehearsal studio and work out cues that everybody agrees upon that will take you from one idea to the next. I know to some this may sound oxymoronic, but I've seen, heard and done it myself and it really helps keep things focused and happening. The Dead did that kind of stuff all the time. The only problem is you really have to trust each other and get any ego issues out of the way, so that someone isn't cueing a change simply because they are bored with or pissed at someone else.. For better or worse drummers usually have the most power in those situations and it can be frustrating when a drummer decides it's time to end when everyone else thinks it's cooking. If it happens too often it's a good idea to find another drummer IMO.

But you also have to know when it isn't happening and be willing to get back into the tune if that's the case. Every jam doesn't have to be 20 minutes or longer.

Don't forget dynamics; changing volume, tempo, rhythm or the layering of instruments can add drama and pacing that will make even the same old thing more interesting and satisfying for you and the audience.

And to state the above in a slightly different way arrangement is your friend, it can be subtle and unnoticeable to anyone but the band, but when handled well it really can help things work. Even something as simple as planning a point when everyone is trading lines at a particular point. the lines don't need to be planned out just the idea that it's going to happen.

And again, Listen to each other.

If your really listening and communicating

[MaxZolt]

Originally Posted by Marcury

First thing: Listen to each other, second Listen to each other, third listen to each other.

Fourth; play together as much as possible.

+ A billion.

I'm lucky enough to play in a band made up entirely of really close college friends (a couple of us live together), and I think this really helps our communication. When we jam, we all change the "feel" of the jam (dynamics, etc.) simultaneously. It was actually a little creepy the first time it happened.

I'm not saying you have to have some sort of eerie telepathic bond with your bandmates, but if you really listen to everyone else in the group, you'll find that you can move the jam along without saying a word.

[HaVIC5]

Yeah, everything that's been said is great stuff. Listening to what other people are doing and complimenting what's being done is absolutely essential to creating an interesting, harmonically-static jam. Just to add on to it, not only is listening important, but playing with people who listen is equally, if not far more important. You could be giving everybody in the band unique and interesting ideas to play with, but if nobody jumps on board and runs with them, it will be for naught. Jamming like this is a supremely team-based art form, and if there are people who doesn't listen involved, it doesn't matter how good your ideas and contributions are, if they just keep on chugging on their own thing, your listening won't matter. The music will suffer.

SmittyG hit on something very important, the concept of motion. The music should always be going somewhere, and you as a bass player can control a lot of where its headed. It should have distinct climaxes as well as points of rest, and there should be very intense thought put into moving it forward.

[Frankjohnson]

Originally Posted by Marcury

Don't forget dynamics; changing volume, tempo, rhythm or the layering of instruments can add drama and pacing that will make even the same old thing more interesting and satisfying for you and the audience.

probably one of THE most important parts of the equation......

[mlbarlow]

I really appreciate these thoughtful responses. Keep it coming with anything else folks can think of!

[Kael]

The two absolute worst insults I can possibly think of to direct toward a musician are: A) they sound ok live, but you have GOT to hear their album!, and B) they don't listen.

If someone isn't listening and responding to other people's input on stage, then they have just got to go if you are playing in a "jam" band.

PS: To SmittyG. I beleive that we may have met in the past when I was playing though Texarkana back when I was working with Hannah Wolff. Is that you man?

[jollygiantchris]

change the time signature or change what part of the beat youre accenting say if youre playing 4/4 play it like its 2 bars of 4/8 instead or 3/4 and a 1/4 just mix up the rhythms and play with dynamics =x

[HiFi]

Originally Posted by Frankjohnson

probably one of THE most important parts of the equation......

+1

Dynamics are crucial!

[SoComSurfing]

Everyone's offered up all the advice I would give. When I first saw the thread title, the very first thought that popped into my mind is "Woman Across the River" by the Allman Bros. Band on Hittin' the Note.

[edwinhurwitz]

Listening is crucial. When I play behind a soloist who isn't listening, I feel like a blow up doll.

Back in 1989 or so, one of the guys in Phish told me about an exercise they used to do. They would start a groove and hold it static. Then one person (predetermined) would change his part. Everyone else would change their parts slightly until the original changer was satisfied. He'd then give the nod to the next person who would take his role and so on around the circle. This way, they learned to hear the subtleties of each other and understand how they each felt about their reactions to those subtleties. My band, at the time, Shockra, did some work with this and it did help a lot. What really helped a lot is that we practiced every day. We practiced songs, we practiced vocals and we practiced improvisation. Most of us lived together as well.

There is a myth out there that improvisation doesn't need to be practiced. I've never heard a bigger pile of BS in my life. All the good jazz bands were good because they practiced. I hate this modern scenario of jazz bands being essentially pick up bands, where everyone can strut their stuff, but they don't play as a unit. The real bands, including big bands, as anyone who ever saw the Sun Ra Arkestra in full flight can attest, could improvise as a unit and make it sound like it was all worked out in advance.

Another good example is the Grateful Dead. When they started, they rehearsed as if it were their 9-5 job (someone asked Jerry how he liked being in the middle of the scene in the 60s and he replied that he didn't really know, since he was working so hard for most of it). This went on until the early 70s and you can really hear their level of improvisation suffer as they quit practicing improvisation.

As far as keeping it interesting in a one chord jam, go back and listen to the modal jazz players (as all the seminal jam bands did). What Miles and Trane did, as bop players, is to take a static harmony and continue to play changes over it. If you think of the one chord as just having a scale, you are pretty much sunk from the get go. If you think of it as a chord and that each note within the mode that goes with it is a chordal implication, then all of a sudden you have a huge catalog of tension and release at your fingertips. This idea of seeing each note as a chord tone rather than a scale tone opens huge possibilities not only in modal playing, it also gives chord change playing a much stronger foundation.

Play chords, don't play scales!

Edwin

[JimmyM]

I'm surprised nobody's brought up the storytelling aspect of jam bands. My first bass teacher told me that when you solo, you are in essence telling a story with music, and you should use your solo to convey a sense of drama and excitement.

When you hear a good storyteller talk, he can tell a half hour long story about going to the store for tomatoes and you will think it was the greatest experience to happen to anyone ever. When you hear a bad storyteller talk, that tomato story will be interminable and it will sound to you like pointless rambling with no real objective.

It's no different with jamming. A good jam musician taking an extended solo will bring you through peaks and valleys emotionally, keep your interest up the entire time, and leave you feeling exhilarated, whereas a bad jam musician will bore you to tears. This is why I believe short stories are generally the best, and short solos are the best. Say what you need to say, don't embellish with pointless crap, then shut up. But if you absolutely have to have 15-minute solos on one chord, then you better learn how to tell a story, otherwise it's all just pointless rambling.

[HaVIC5]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

I'm surprised nobody's brought up the storytelling aspect of jam bands. My first bass teacher told me that when you solo, you are in essence telling a story with music, and you should use your solo to convey a sense of drama and excitement.

When you hear a good storyteller talk, he can tell a half hour long story about going to the store for tomatoes and you will think it was the greatest experience to happen to anyone ever. When you hear a bad storyteller talk, that tomato story will be interminable and it will sound to you like pointless rambling with no real objective.

It's no different with jamming. A good jam musician taking an extended solo will bring you through peaks and valleys emotionally, keep your interest up the entire time, and leave you feeling exhilarated, whereas a bad jam musician will bore you to tears. This is why I believe short stories are generally the best, and short solos are the best. Say what you need to say, don't embellish with pointless crap, then shut up. But if you absolutely have to have 15-minute solos on one chord, then you better learn how to tell a story, otherwise it's all just pointless rambling.

That's a really, really fine analogy right there.

[bradjonesbass]

I'm lucky to be in a "jam band" that borders on improvisational jazz a lot of nights, and yes there is a difference. It is my favorite genre (if you can really call it a genre) to play in, and either one of my favorite or one of my least favorite to listen to, depending on the band. One of my favorite things to do to get out of ruts when jamming is change up the feel. If you're grooving along in a straight 4/4 rock feel, work out some cues with your drummer and move it into a latin feel - start subtly and gradually move into a hard tumbao. As has been said before, dynamics, dynamics, dynamics. Even tempo changes can be cool if done right, i.e. make it feel intentional, not like a mistake. Finally, make him change keys, or at least start implying chord variations. Go to the root of the ii instead of going to the root of the IV, see if he notices. Take him into the correlating major or minor key to what you're in. Modulate to a new key, walk up the key scale for two bars each, etc... Work out some cues ahead of time, so he knows if he hears you play xxx and hears a particular pattern from the drummer he'll know a modulation is cming up. The main thing is if he's listening, you can direct him into a whole new territory.

[Lobster11]

Originally Posted by edwinhurwitz

If you think of the one chord as just having a scale, you are pretty much sunk from the get go. If you think of it as a chord and that each note within the mode that goes with it is a chordal implication, then all of a sudden you have a huge catalog of tension and release at your fingertips. This idea of seeing each note as a chord tone rather than a scale tone opens huge possibilities not only in modal playing, it also gives chord change playing a much stronger foundation.

Play chords, don't play scales!

Edwin

Edwin, could I persuade you to expand on these ideas a bit more? This is really interesting to me and comes at a time that I think I can maximally benefit from it given my current stage of development as a player. I understand chords, modes, and harmony, but would like to better understand how to tie them together and think in the way you are describing. If you don't mind taking the time, a little more explanation of the concept would be really helpful to me -- and others too, I expect. Thanks!

[Snarf]

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but if you think the keys player and the guitar player have big enough ears to follow your lead, start playing Cmaj7#11, move to Bm7, then E7 (or Em7 to keep the modal flavor), back to Am. Or throw some Gmaj in there. If your players are good enough, you can take those long jams to cool harmonic places. All those chords I mentioned are in the A dorian mode, so even if you start messing around changing bass notes, even if they never become roots they won't sound totally out of place.

[SmittyG]

Originally Posted by Kael

PS: To SmittyG. I beleive that we may have met in the past when I was playing though Texarkana back when I was working with Hannah Wolff. Is that you man?

The one and only. How is it going? And I had no clue you left the HWB.

[Dave Muscato]

Who said you have to stay in one key? We "go modal" sometimes and it takes us all kinds of places.

Another way is quoting stuff. Sometimes we will quote Rush, U2, Rage, even Tool during our funk jams, if it takes us there. We quote this band from Wichita called "Gooding" a lot, actually - we are all just big fans of theirs.

[Snarf]

Originally Posted by Dave Muscato

Who said you have to stay in one key? We "go modal" sometimes and it takes us all kinds of places.

Another way is quoting stuff. Sometimes we will quote Rush, U2, Rage, even Tool during our funk jams, if it takes us there. We quote this band from Wichita called "Gooding" a lot, actually - we are all just big fans of theirs.

If you're playing chords in one mode, then you are staying in one key.