Auditioning for a band for the 1st time..

[ninthwondernj]

on the 8th a band wants me to come "jam" with them. Now Ive never jammed with anyone before, what should i do? how should i prepare? What should i expect??

[FreeSpirit]

If it is a band that already has original tunes written, and this is like an audition time, this is what i normally do before an audition. I'll e,ail them and ask for a copy of a couple of the songs, and the basic chord structure for the song. Also ask if they want to hear the same bass or if you can be a little creative on it. If it is just like a jam where they yell out chords on the fly, practise diffrent chords and scales, and aloso know the fretboard, or atleast try as hard as you can to learn it. I hope this helps a little.

[theshadow2001]

Give us some more information first. What experience do you have and how much do you know how long have you been playing? What about the band that your auditioning for what type of musicians are they? Are they experienced or just starting off? what kind of music do they play. Is there keys, brass, guitars? Did they tell you any songs they play?

From my experiences with jamming is that someone starts playing something off the top of their head and everyone else follows. Then we mix it up change the feel the tempo the rythm the mood and so forth and then it sort of reaches a natural conclusion. Thats the way its generally been for me.

Other times we would take a chord progression from a song we know and just play around with it. Again mix it up a bit.

Other people would choose a key before they start some don't. Some people would also consider just playing covers of songs jamming. It helps to be able to pick up what key your playing in quickly and to know some basic scales like major minor and the pentatonics for starters.

With jamming you dont really know what to expect thats the beauty of it really. You just go with the flow

Your mileage may vary.