I hate to jam. . .

ByF · #1 10-29-2009, 12:13 AM

I just got in from a friend's house--we had a three hour jam. I think we produced about 10 minutes of really tasty music, surrounded by hours of endless noodling.

I like playing with a band with good arrangements. I think a song should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the middle part should not be twenty minutes of guitar wanking on three chords, interspersed with the same lyrics repeated about four times.

I admire people who can improvise and do it well, but it's not that much fun for me to play along while they do it. Just not my cup of tea.

Anybody else hate jamming?

Ed

fearceol · #2 10-29-2009, 04:36 AM

I agree. I hate that kind of jamming. I find that my time would be better spent alone at home practicing something I'm not good at. Now, if I'm going to jam with people, I try to get them to name a few songs that we will play. That way, everyone knows in advance, and will be familiar with the material. It's obviously different if you are writing your own material.

phxlbrmpf · #3 10-29-2009, 05:59 AM

Personally, I love jamming, I think it's fun. I too used to dislike it when everyone got stuck repeating three chords over and over but recently, I've taken to changing things up when the harmonies get too boring and rely on the others to catch it. It takes a while but it indeed works (provided that the people you're playing with are good at playing by ear). And presto, no more boring jams!

Rocker949 · #4 10-29-2009, 07:10 AM

I have thoroughly hated jamming for years now. I wouldn't do it at all--and rarely do--but sometimes it is rude to refuse.

Sartori · #5 10-29-2009, 07:11 AM

I used to like it but have grown to hate it. Now it's nothing more than a distraction to me at rehearsals, when we should be going through the songs we've already written or half written.

Phalex · #6 10-29-2009, 07:25 AM

The people you jam with make all the difference. One of my friends has a kid that just grinds away at seemingly random chords with seemingly random changes, and won't (or can't) follow along with what anyone else is doing. I hate it when he jumps in and starts doing that crap!

The kids uncle on the other hand, is the guy that got me into playing music in the first place some 30 years ago. We jam together just fine.

Nightlyraider · #7 10-29-2009, 07:41 AM

My favorite "Jam" ever, the best of Fleetwood Mac during the Madge sessions. I just wish I could play like McVie here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd5yutbtAao

Good things can come out when noodling around, but I too hate when my drummer and guitarist will just start playing ONE endless riff and look at me weird five minutes in as I keep trying to change it.

SteveC · #8 10-29-2009, 07:44 AM

It depends on the jam and the other people. I tend to not like it. I think more often than not it is a waste of time. It's like I'm a backing track for the "soloists" to wank over. If it has more of a purpose than that, I may tolerate it for a while - certainly not 3 hours.

two fingers · #9 10-29-2009, 07:53 AM

Not only do I find it useless to do myself, but I would rather pull my eyes out with coat hangers than watch somebody else do it live. I let The Allman Bros. get away with it a little bit, but even they do it too much. But for any other famous or local band to think that I (and the rest of the audience) would just love to sit and watch them wank around for 15 minutes on the same 3 chords is rediculous.

Din Of Win · #10 10-29-2009, 07:56 AM

I use to hate jamming. But i've slowly come arround.

It has really helped me become more confident as well as it's my go-to way to test pedal configurations for live use. It also gets me to be more well rounded. Up untill a year or so ago, all i played was heavy dark punk/post-rock type of stuff. But since i have started to jam more, i have learned more jazz and funk stuff, and thanks to jamming i have discovered and now love dub.

I can sepperate jamming and being in a band. I don't think i would ever want to be in a jam band. I like structured songs too much. But it IS fun and i would say try going in with an open mind and just be more self confident and try stuff out.

If it's new people i usually do the standard root playing to show them that "i can be a standard bass player", then when i feel comfortable i open up and start clicking pedals and try my hand at noodling some.

iamlowsound · #11 10-29-2009, 11:56 AM

I love jamming. Me and a bunch of friends used to do it every Friday night for hours. I wish that I still lived around those guys so we could still jam like that.

lowsound

Hoover · #12 10-29-2009, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fearceol

I hate that kind of jamming.

If by "that kind" we mean aimless noodling, stagnant vamping, and uninspired directionless rote wankery, then sure, I definitely agree.

But there's an awful lot of gray area between that, and exquisitely brilliant visionary spontaneous extemporization. Though in fairness, the latter more often gets referred to as "magic" rather than "jamming".

Despite being a composer at heart (someone who likes to control if not explicitly dictate what a piece will ultimately sound like) the thing that keeps me involved in improvisation is the fact that a crappy tune will always be a crappy tune no matter how well-played
...whereas as crappy improvisation disappears as soon as it's happened, and the next time around it at least stands a chance of not being a crappy improvisation.

Rattman · #13 10-29-2009, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fearceol

I agree. I hate that kind of jamming. I find that my time would be better spent alone at home practicing something I'm not good at. Now, if I'm going to jam with people, I try to get them to name a few songs that we will play. That way, everyone knows in advance, and will be familiar with the material. It's obviously different if you are writing your own material.

Yeah... kinda feel the same way. I've probably not "jammed" 'per se' since about 1975. Just not a real fruitful use of time IMO. It does tend to favor the guitarists over everyone else. The rest of the participants just end up kinda being "side men" during the process. . .

. . .Wankersville for sure

ByF · #14 10-29-2009, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phalex

The people you jam with make all the difference.

Yeah, and I guess that's why I keep going back. The guys I play with are friends, and it's fun to hang with them, and they're actually all pretty good musicians. But for the most part I'd rather skip the jamming.

Ed

ggunn · #15 10-31-2009, 09:28 AM

I host a Jam Night most Saturdays in my studio, but they aren't like the sessions of my youth where we picked two chords (three if we were really ambitious) and pounded them into the ground until we wore ruts in our brains. In these sessions, we pass out charts (originals and covers), try out new songs, dust off old songs out that everyone remembers, etc. Sure, we jam out on the instrumental breaks, but overall it's very vocally oriented.

I always record these sessions; in a recent Jam Night I captured us doing 44 tunes. Some of them actually sounded pretty good, even listening to them the next day when I hadn't been drinking.

kski94 · #16 10-31-2009, 09:37 AM

Who wants to play a song the same way every time? It gets boring, & thats when jamming gets good. The problem is, it'll sound bad if you have more than say, 3 or 4 musicians. 1 bass 1 guitar 1drum Like cream, then it sounds great.,

Rocker949 · #17 10-31-2009, 12:16 PM

Cream is the only band I've listened to whose jamming I really enjoyed. But even they never achieved perfection at it. In one of his interviews, Tom Hamilton told of watching Cream perform once in Boston, but was disappointed because they jammed on one song for 45 minutes. He was disappointed despite the fact that, like me, Cream was also his favorite band.

**jmattbassplaya** · #18 10-31-2009, 12:39 PM

I actually posted a similar thread to this a while back.

I personally dislike jamming a lot(especially when there`s more than one guitarist). I find that the drummer and I have to take a back seat and repeat the same 3 or 4 chords while the guitarists go about soloing nonstop... it`s just not fun. On occasion, however, some good material has come from jams(that`s why I dislike them only 9 times out of 10 lol), but for every good riff, progression, etc.. that comes from a jam there`s about 20 minutes worth of utter crap we had to go through to get there. It`s just not worth it to me.

Sadly, I think jamming is part of the reason my current band is going to die. Half of the band I`m in wants to be the next Phish(I personally think Phish sucks) and the other half(including me) just wants to write solid material. One half thinks jam bands are amazing, the other half thinks they are boring. To each his own, though.

LiquidMidnight · #19 10-31-2009, 01:10 PM

The issue is that the number of pentatonic wankers greatly outweighs the amount of truly gifted improvisers who can create magic on a regular basis. For that reason, I generally dislike jamming. If the soloists have something important to say, then I'm all ears. However, endless noodling over a form for 16 minutes gets real old. Jazz players have the mindset and have been trained to make improvisation an interesting experience that builds upon itself. I don't know if that really holds true for the rock idiom. Plus, jazz players generally have access to deeper harmonies and melodies within a given song than rock players.

Jamming does serve a good purpose in that it allows players who don't know a collective body of music to get up and play together. Any player who's been around for a while should know what to do when "slow 12 bar shuffle in A" is called.

When I was younger, didn't have much stage experience, and felt I still had to prove myself, I really enjoyed the chance to jam. Now, I almost always decline an offer to jam.

Munjibunga · #20 10-31-2009, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ByF

I just got in from a friend's house--we had a three hour jam. I think we produced about 10 minutes of really tasty music, surrounded by hours of endless noodling.

I like playing with a band with good arrangements. I think a song should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the middle part should not be twenty minutes of guitar wanking on three chords, interspersed with the same lyrics repeated about four times.

I admire people who can improvise and do it well, but it's not that much fun for me to play along while they do it. Just not my cup of tea.

Anybody else hate jamming?

Ed

We are two hearts beating as one.