What do you play when you jam?

[Da LadY In Red]

I'm in a jam band playing a mix of funk and classic rock and I'm just wondering, how to do play when you jam?

The band consists of a guitar, drums, keys, and bass. I've tried a couple of approaches and I'm wondering what sounds the best to others? Here's the main approaches I've tried.

1) play the same bassline with minimal fills and reinvent the bassline about every 8/16 bars.

2) hit the one with the root and then follow a similiar rhythm scheme while playing different notes

3) solo the bass the whole time mainly playing pentatonics

So what do you in the midst of a thick jam? Lay it down and let the guitar take control, constantly mix it up, or solo the whole time?

[j-bass-kreep]

option number 1 and if The g****r player lets me I'll do option 3

[bassbmx]

Play what you hear in your head bro. That's what jamming is to me; purely improvised and fun. More often than not we don't even pick a key to start in. By doing it that way I find that I don't resort to familiar shapes/progressions/scales the way I would if I was playing in a particular key. I use my ears far more that way. If you're having fun though, it doesn't matter.

If you're having fun then just carry on doing what you're doing!!

[Matt Till]

Do what feels right. There is no consistant way to jam, I've done all of the above and sometimes it sounds amazing, sometimes it sucks. Try to have as many jam tricks as possible.

The number 3 option can be done tastefully... Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath did it all the time, and I rip him off quite a bit.

Just keep an open mind and do whatever fits best.

[markjazzbassist]

i usually pick a chord or chord progression with the keys & guitar player and then tell the drummer to start it off. Once the drummer starts a beat, i hope in and compliment in the Key/key progression. We jam out in that key/key progression till it gets old. We may hop to another key or progression in the middle of the jam (someone yells it out, or we just follow someone who's already there) or we end the jam.


+1 on the play what feels right. I always try to match/compliment my drummer.

[bassman275]

I stick with 1,4,5, for the most part.

[breckscratcher]

hold it down. it's good to work on one idea for a while. so play a groove that comes to mind, and fingers, and go with it. it will lead you elsewhere. yes yes.

[lemur821]

I play a countermelody and try to come together with the guitar (and usually gulcimer and noise swash) at important points. So it's a bit like #3, except not pentatonic, and usually not so busy that it makes a lousy bassline.

[All_¥our_Bass]

At least to start out a jam my guitarist and I decide on a scale(I don't say mode because we like to use some ethnic/non-diatonic scales too) and a tonic/root. We share the groove/solo 50/50. If I get a good groove going he'll solo over it for a bit and then he'll return the favor, but he will play a different riff for me to play over. It definantly leads to some interesting ideas to refine later on.

[steveb98]

Even in a Jam band job one is holding down the groove. How to jam depends on who you are jamming within the band. You might be working with the drummer on one Jam and playing off each other. In other situations the guitar or keyboard play may be throwing out different chord changes or subsitions and you need to follow that. If none of that is going on then just building on the bassline rhythmically or with note variations is all you get, because you are still having to hold down the rest of the band. Then sometime you will get a solo, but if your soloing the groove is disappearing. Check out guys like Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten when they solo they will continue to drop down and throw some of the groove in, and jump back up to solo notes. Playing bass in a jam band is a lot of work for the bass because you can lay back or lay out like the other instruments can do.

[cowsgomoo]

your first priority should probably be to listen and use what others are playing as inspiration for your own lines... there are few things worse than jamming with a musician who doesn't listen & respond...

with most guitarists it's real easy to follow what they're doing anyway because it's usually pentatonic minor all day long... and most of em only have 4 or 5 licks anyway so take the material they're churning out and add to it, turn it upside down, play counterpoint to it, harmonize it, parody it

your objective should be to make everyone sound better than they really are... a really good bass player can make the other drones in his band sound almost psychic

and try to impose an interesting sense of dynamics on the jam... 10 minutes of everyone playing full-on can be tedious... if you try and improvise a minimalist jam you'll be amazed at how much harder it is than having everyone bashing away as intensely as possible... when you take it down, every note has to count and you can't really get away with pentatonic finger wiggling

[tZer]

It really sounds like you have a good concept based on what you said. All 3 of your comments apply to how I approach jamming.

In the jam project I was playing with recently, we found after a few months of playing together that the most important thing was knowing when NOT to play (or when to be rather minimal) - for us, a really great jam was when everyone who had "something to say/play" was able to do it and the rest of us were able to get out of the way and support them.

Also being able to pick up on a theme that someone is tossing down. If someone really lays out a great idea that is more structural then "solo-like" and others can find their way into it with complimentary stuff, that was pure euphoria. At times that meant laying out a really repetitious pattern - others it meant accenting an off-beat - still other times it meant simply ensuring 1 could be found each time around (if the meter went complex).

But based on how you asked your question, it seems a good answer would be to trust your instincts - they seem right on - and don't over-think it.

[JoshC]

When I jam most of the time I just mess around until I find something I like. Then I will play it in as many different places on the fretboard as I can (I only have a 4 string so this doesn't take very long). Then I work at perfecting whatever riff I just made up.

[iplaybassguitar]

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead said he never understood bassist Phil Lesh's bass playing until the day he heard a tape of the bassline sped up. Jerry then realized that Phil's technique was the same as Jerry's soloing, except it was slower and a couple octaves lower.

[pin_head_47]

What you do will ultimitely be determined by what is going on around you. Use your ears and pay attention, and it should ultimately come naturally.