The death of jamming

[btmpancake]

Some (like me) wouldn't think so when you get a phone call from some of your old retired semi pro geezer buddies asking you to jam at someone's social gathering. These guys still got it, they just don't want to do the bar scene anymore, and I am the youngest among them too so... maybe that's not what you're referring too.

 

[JIO]

Some (like me) wouldn't think so when you get a phone from some of your old retired semi pro geezer buddies asking you to jam at someone's social gathering. These guys still got it, they just don't want to do the bar scene anymore, and I am the youngest among them too so... maybe that's not what you're referring too.

I'm needing clarification - wouldn't think what so?

 

[btmpancake]

I'm needing clarification - wouldn't think what so?

That the death of jamming isn't dead in my circles. Maybe that's not what's mean't here.

 

[JIO]

That the death of jamming isn't dead in my circles. Maybe that's not what's mean't here.

Good to hear

 

[Bass is base]

@Bass is base maybe it was just in the way you wrote it. I guess if you're hosting a jam and someone is beating the hell out of the kit or doesn't otherwise listen, somehow they don't get asked up into the next jam. I have seen that happen. I've seen folks walk off stage or otherwise wont play with certain folks either.


But to you last point: "Wouldn't it be arrogant for anyone to think they deserve the privilege of stage time without having developed sufficient skills?" The whole thread is predicated on people not jamming. So, then, with that point...how does one demonstrate sufficient skills worthy of getting on stage the first time? The whole "play with folks better than you" concept?

I played with some folks at a blues jam last week. It was tough since the bass player couldn't follow me and the drummer was erratic. I'm nothing special, so I grinned and beared it and showed them a couple of new tunes and worked on comping when the other guy was singing. But the jam organizer didn't feel they didn't have sufficient skills worthy of getting on stage.

I agree we should show tolerance and play with people of varying abilities. I am aware I am always on one or the other side of the median abilities of the people I am playing with. Every virtue, including tolerance, has a limit beyond which it degenerates into a vice. The person running the jam, and people participating, need to determine that point so the jam is tolerant enough to invite players but not tolerant past the point where some of the players are so bad, or so unaccommodating, they undermine the jam.

I like the posts by JIO. His posts are an expression of reasonable limits. Environmental activism and animal rights activism are both virtuous causes. They are also the causes behind our two worst forms of domestic terrorism. An exaggerated example I use to emphasize my point. It is important to be aware where reasonable limits of tolerating lack of skill exist to run an inviting and enjoyable jam.

 

[Bass is base]

The last time I did posting stuff was about 20 years ago....on news groups. So if this isn't right....

My comment about playing music vs. playing songs seems to have offended some people.
So let me clarify, or at least try to. To me a song is a framework within which I get to play music.
If I have to play the same notes the same way every time then I don't really feel like I am playing music.
I used to play this way. Now I play my line a little different every time. What I am doing is looking for a better line.

Don't worry about offending me. I like having my beliefs challenged. I also enjoy reading other points of view. I have learned the difference between 'open mike' and 'jam' from this thread. It must be a common misunderstanding. The jam I go to has been more of an open mike for about forty years. I have never heard anyone say it should be called an open mike.
One thing the jam at Grossman's does is allow players from different local bands play with each other. Not something mentioned yet.

 

[krysh]

thanks a lot for this interesting thread and all the great contributions. It shows that the same problems occure here in europe too. I love jamming since I grabbed a guitar some 30+ years ago. In the beginning I always felt covering note for note wasn't creative and I always wanted to find my own voice, so in the first years I sat daily for hours in my room and jammed to records on my own and was playing with friends trying to write original music. a bit later I tried the cover thing, learned something from it, too of course. but I always felt that the more I played covers, I lost my originality on my instrument with originals. so I didn't play covers for many years.
when I moved from the countryside to the city in the mid 90s I started to join open mics with the usual cover songs, subbed a lot of gigs on bass and guitar and played on open jamsessions a lot and was also hosting open jams for some years. the jam session scene was great from around 2005-2014 here in hamburg, but then it slowly started to fade, and now the number of great open jams is reduced to max. 1 a month.
I'm not talking about jazz sessions which mostly are realbook jams over here and I experienced them to be a bit snobby to non studied musicians, which even became worse since all the "music" schools popped up.
My experience is that for a great jam where you can experience magic and songs developing from scratch, it is not nessecary to have highly skilled musicians, but to have sensible players who listen to what is happening on stage.
feel and an open ear are the most important things for great music.
Unfortunately I'm afraid the "death of true jamming" is a reflection of a development happening in our society. the lack of empathy and lack of the wish to truly connect to others result in bigger egos and lack of self reflection. and since "artists" usually show the essence of the state of humanity we can see this problem occuring on jam sessions a bit earlier than most other people.
but, from time to time I see young people who still "have" it, and this always gives me a smile. there is hope.

 

[QORC]

Jamming has as much potential of being mindless self-indulgence as playing covers. It's just another aspect of playing, and it's relevant if you're trying to write original music because it is a good tool for coming up with new ideas, or just building chemistry between musicians - I think the latter is important for cover bands. Anybody who was offended by the idea that somebody who can't jam not being a musician ought to take a moment for self-reflection and personal growth.

Most jamming, unless you are an exceptional musician, truly IS mindless, self-indulgent junk. save it for the basement. The last thing I want to hear in a bar is someone playing a 25 minute version of Stranglehold because they think they are the 2nd coming of Randy Rhoads. Almost nobody is

 

[3Liter]

Don't worry about offending me. I like having my beliefs challenged. I also enjoy reading other points of view. I have learned the difference between 'open mike' and 'jam' from this thread. It must be a common misunderstanding. The jam I go to has been more of an open mike for about forty years. I have never heard anyone say it should be called an open mike.

Very much so.....like when I moved down south for a while. I stopped putting my groceries into a cart (metal thing with wheels) and started putting them into a buggy (metal thing with wheels). Opening a conversation to a national audience certainly has found that a term is used for many different but similar things. Aloha!

A local jam around here. The kind that the thread dictates...pick a key and go, had to post something that said "this is not an open mic, or an opportunity for your band to come play..." I'm still gauging whether I've got the skills to hang...meanwhile, I'll be at the blues jam across the street.

 

[Paulabass]

Preface- I am not one of those that says there is no good music anymore, and I strongly disagree with old farts who say that...but...
There is a lot of bands these days that have NO CLUE how to play live. They did not cut their teeth with a thousand dive bar gigs, and take twelve years to write their first album. They went into the studio, and comped their songs together in Pro-Tools. After the fact, their album is released, and they have never played the recorded version live from beginning to end. They have to learn their own material!!!!
What do you get? Lame live versions they are parroting, maybe adding a guitar solo or two, IF their guitarist can fumble his way thru something that was not pieced together in the studio.

 

[JIO]

My experience is that for a great jam where you can experience magic and songs developing from scratch, it is not nessecary to have highly skilled musicians, but to have sensible players who listen to what is happening on stage.
feel and an open ear are the most important things for great music.
Unfortunately I'm afraid the "death of true jamming" is a reflection of a development happening in our society. the lack of empathy and lack of the wish to truly connect to others result in bigger egos and lack of self reflection. and since "artists" usually show the essence of the state of humanity we can see this problem occuring on jam sessions a bit earlier than most other people.
but, from time to time I see young people who still "have" it, and this always gives me a smile. there is hope.

Wow - every word spot-on! Especially what I highlighted and your summery rings all too true. So here it is fellow musicians - all that being true, we need to do our best to try and keep that flame alive. I don't necessarily mean carve time most of us don't have out of our schedules to host a jam per say, (but if you can, by all means do!) but don't give up on staying positive and supportive of the concept of jam sessions/jamming whenever it comes up, especially to young musicians. How will they know/learn if they don't have examples of reference to interface with? As in, yes - there are relative recordings to consider/listen to, but to have a one-on-one experience with players who understand and can relate the concept is where their discovery will happen. I listened to Bitches Brew countless times before I ever attempted to emulate what I understood about that seminal recording and it was jamming with others for better or worse that finally lead me to new territories and a deeper understanding of what Miles had pioneered.

Encourage those young players who "have it" - music only stays vital by being passed on.

 

[JIO]

Consider a comedian who is among the bravest of entertainers ... they stand on stage naked and if they 'have it' they win over their audience. Many times they are 'winging it' - responding intuitively to the tenor of that nights audience, a different one every performance. The core of what they do is highly interactive - they are essentially jamming with their audience. Poetry slams can be like that too. In their case, 'winging it' is tapping from their life experiences and they mine deeply to find something not only that will set them apart, but also something that will encourage an intimate dialog with their audience. As a musician/player, if you can do what they do for an audience (even if it's only the fellow musicians in your jam session) then you will know if you "have it" ... or not. And if you want to find the key to that door - you have to be willing to 'bomb', like a comedian and afterwards brush yourself off and work like hell to eventually "have it". (and that means being really critical/honest assessing your skills/level) Some people are naturals - but they also work hard to hone their gifts.

 

[jthisdell]

I learned to be able to follow along with whatever chords are being thrown out there and how to play with and between them. Many young players now learn specific songs and the specific notes to play without really knowing why. You can't jam if you don't have a more fundamental understanding of the why.

 

[Five Six Seven]

I did mean "paragraphing" all the while understanding that it is not a valid word in the English language. One of my pet peeves is adding "ing" to the end of a noun to somehow convert it into a verb. It has become so common that one sees such constructs from writers who should know better (e.g., journalists).

Earlier in the thread there are some truly outstanding posts re: the content of the posts. With that said, some of them were difficult to read since they were constructed with many sentences strung together as a single paragraph.

With that out of the way......

I do believe that "jamming" is alive and well but only in some circles. I have been playing jazz for almost 50 years and have played many times where a "head arrangement" turned into a long jam. When it "clicks", it is great fun. It tends to "click" when playing with others who have a background in jazz or improvisational rock.

Sorry that my earlier post was confusing.

Oh, wow! Have I got a book for you! Aesthetic Theory, by Theodor Adorno! Or just do the last chapter of Joyce's Ulysses My pet peeve is the journalistic elimination of "that" as a relative pronoun, because when you get rid of it you've basically gotten rid of the only signal that a relative clause is coming rather than a phrasal object. I don't really have a problem with the functional shift ("footing the bill"), but yeah, I agree: anything that becomes modish will soon seem overdone and start to feel annoying or showy.

 

[Andrew_Tee]

Are talking about jamming/improving with known songs or straight out jamming/improving on the fly with maybe a key in mind?

 

[JIO]

Are talking about jamming/improving with known songs or straight out jamming/improving on the fly with maybe a key in mind?

Each aspect has been touched on, but the OP started the thread noting a recent dropping-off of interest of musicians who are playing free improve, or as you say 'jamming/improvising on the fly with a key in mind'. A lot has been covered so far so it'd be best to read earlier posts and join in where you find insights to relate to.

 

[brbadg]

Personally, I don't enjoy jamming at all. I noodle enough on my own. I don't need a group of other people doing it at the same time.

If you call it noodling,then you don't know how to jam.

 

[GBBSbassist]

Preface- I am not one of those that says there is no good music anymore, and I strongly disagree with old farts who say that...but...
There is a lot of bands these days that have NO CLUE how to play live. They did not cut their teeth with a thousand dive bar gigs, and take twelve years to write their first album. They went into the studio, and comped their songs together in Pro-Tools. After the fact, their album is released, and they have never played the recorded version live from beginning to end. They have to learn their own material!!!!
What do you get? Lame live versions they are parroting, maybe adding a guitar solo or two, IF their guitarist can fumble his way thru something that was not pieced together in the studio.

So....bad bands? Yeah, I think those have been around forever.

If you call it noodling,then you don't know how to jam.

Noodling was obviously a slight exaggeration. I'm not under the impression that jam sessions are actually several guys noodling. That would sound like Guitar Center on a Saturday afternoon.

I've jammed with other musicians over the years, and I've never had any issues keeping up with others or taking lead. I'm pretty good at improvising for the most part.

The issue I have with jamming is that beyond establishing a connection with someone, or evaluating their ability, it's not very useful to me. And just because someone may have great improv skills doesn't automatically mean they're a good fit for a group. I know if I wrote a song a specific way for a reason and one of the guys playing it in my band is playing whatever the hell he wants, he's going to get the boot.

I've attended jam sessions just to have a few drinks and watch, and yeah, there's some pretty good musicianship happening from time to time, but a lot of it is nonsense and aurally just not pleasing in any way, ESPECIALLY to a non-musician. More often than not, it comes off as a way for a select few musicians in the room to stroke their egos.

If you enjoy jamming, more power to you, but I can get the same amount of entertainment by starting a stamp collection.

 

[Londo Molari]

If you enjoy jamming, more power to you, but I can get the same amount of entertainment by starting a stamp collection.

You're easily amused.

 

[JIO]

If you enjoy jamming, more power to you, but I can get the same amount of entertainment by starting a stamp collection.

Jamming with oneself could be like starting a stamp collection as both are solitary involvements. Sorta defeats the concept of jamming though.