What does the term vamp mean?

[John K.]

I was looking through my Jamerson book and I looked at the transcript for Going To A Go-Go played by John Entwistle and I saw the sentence "Vamp used on verses & choruses". The word is also used in the My Guy transcription done by James Jamerson Jr. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

And sorry mods if this is in the wrong place. I couldn't decide between GI and Misc.

[Pacman]

From Dictionary.com

Vamp: n

A woman who uses her sex appeal to entrap and exploit men.




Seriously, it's a repeated section, that's "open" to the number of times repeated. The way it's meant there is to keep playing the same thing, over and over again.

[John K.]

Thanks Pacman.

Now back to groovin'...

[Nick Gann]

I was playing in the pit orcehestra for a school musical, and one piece was a steady jazz thing, and the song for me was one line long, 4 measures. And it said "Vamp 40 times". SOOOO hard to keep count. Luckily, I could tell where the end was from the sax parts. Killer groove though...

[Boplicity]

Vamp means to repeat a short one or two bar phrase "until ready." A vamp is played by the accompaniment until the soloist or instrumentalist is ready to begin. A vamp can last quite awhile in some circumstances.

An example would be when a singer is introducing a song to her audience, maybe telling some background about the song or who wrote it or why it is meaningful for the singer. Meanwhile, let's say, the pianist is playing a repeated vamp that sets the mood or tempo and possibly hints at what the song is. Or the vamp could be played by the bass and drums to set the tempo.

When the singer is ready to begin the actual song, she may nod at the musicians and then they start the song.

If you see the movie "Chicago" you will hear many vamps to music in the show. In that movie the background soundtrack vamps serve as a transition from spoken dialogue to a song and dance number. "Cell Block Tango" was a particularly well done vamp as the throbbing tango-like tempo begin very subtly, then built intensity until the song actually began.

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

reminds me of the infamous Britney Spears swearing backstage-that-accidentally-went-out live incident-
"I thought they were gonna f****** vamp!" etc.

[moley]

Originally posted by The Mock Turtle Regulator
"I thought they were gonna ******* vamp!" etc.

Is that what Britney said?

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

check out "Britney Spears- swearing in Rio" on WinMX/Morpheus etc.

[moley]

LOL, I just listened to that... heh, she put her foot in it there. So much for her image