What makes a good jammer?

1. Learn the songs
2. Have a good ear

 

It's okay to say "I don't know that song" and give another bass player a turn. Then go home and learn it for next time.

 

If your goal is to jam in a classic rock setting, I would make this a long term goal, not a short term goal. It's likely going to take years to learn enough theory and more importantly how to apply it on the fly to be useful.

Useful, but again, long term. No reason you can't get started right away.

Very important. The more songs you know, the better off you are.

This is the most important thing, AFTER you learn the notes. You'll never be a good jammer if you can't hear and even anticipate chord changes.

This is bass playing 101. You HAVE to know where the notes on your instrument are. If you don't, here's where I'd get started. It doesn't matter if you know the chords or can hear them if you can't find the notes on your bass.

I'd be careful. There are two things to think about - first, you won't get better without playing with other people; second, if you play with other people and stink up the stage, that reputation will follow you.

Most important - figure out where the notes on your instrument are. It doesn't matter what else you know if you don't know that.

 

See #2...


Jamming, to me, may mean something a little different.
When I first opened this thread, I was thinking of the stuff that goes on after the verse/chorus, etc...and then somehow comes back together so everyone can end the song at the same time.
This was expected from many a Classic Rock band (Santana, Allman Brothers Band, Deep Purple, etc). More recent example would be the DMB.

 

This points to one of the key skills: being an efficient, analytic listener even while you're playing.

Here's a strategy that might help with that: open up Pandora and ask for a playlist based on a song or artist that's similar to the kind of music you often encounter at jams. You'll likely get a mix of songs you know and songs you don't know, just like at a jam. Practice playing to all of them. With the songs you don't know, you'll be a little lost at first, but you'll gradually pick up the structure and feel of the song. Every time you do this it'll get easier--and nobody will be eye-rolling at you in the meantime.

If it's distracting to hear what the real bass player is doing, you could ameliorate this somewhat by cutting the lows drastically on your playback system.

 

IMHO most of what I hear from classic rock is pretty structured.
When I think jam music I typically think blues or country. Something without hooks/riffs in the instrumental parts.
If I were going to go and sit in on a jam I would first want an idea of the kind of songs being played. There’s a big difference between trying to jam on a 3 chord rock/country song like Mary Janes last dance and trying to figure out how to play riff based song like good times bad times.
So if you need to know riffs then you need to learn those riffs, but if it’s a simpler song then knowing some good diatonic theory can go a long way to creatively get you through the music and help you adjust to chord/key changes on the fly more easily.
Then it’s just a whole bunch of practice.

 

In my experience, the thing that gets grossly overlooked is musical vocabulary.
Over and over again, I'm with musicians that think they've got an expansive vocabulary because they listen to "everything from Iron Maiden to Depeche Mode." And I think, "so everything from one type of rock to another type of rock?"
Rock is only one universe in a reality of many other universes. Latin, for example, is just as varied as rock. Same with baroque. I hear both having an influence on rock music, yet too few rock fans find music beyond the last 50 years engaging.

 

Keep jamming, it's the best way to get better at it.

 

If it’s a blues jam, whoever calls the tune should be able to give you a quick rundown on the form. If it’s got strange things happening, I would expect some hand signals. You should know your chord numbers, so you can react.

Otherwise, you have an ear training exercise, and everybody suffers if the bass player is fishing for roots. If you don’t know the tune, just layout for a while and see if you can get it figured out.

You can watch the rhythm guitar for bar chords and open shapes, or the keyboard player’s left hand, if you are piano savvy. Look for the structure of the parts, verse, chorus, and bridge.


If it’s a jazz jam, charts are available for most tunes, and with today’s tech, something like ireal B can give the the chart in any key.

Sometimes your just vamping over a chord, or two or three chords.

Nothin beats knowing the tune. A long night of trying to grapple with unfamiliar tunes whilst in front of an audience is fatiguing.

 

Learning chords will help when you're jamming with guitarists who only know cowboy chords and Santana/Vaughn licks and expect the bassist to just know that, contrary to sticking the chord changes to 1s for the previous three minutes, they're gonna randomly jump to a Bb on 2-n-and by the way that they wiggle their right knee.

 

3. (Should be 1): Don't give up the one.

 

How do you learn songs normally? Note for note or do you learn the changes and come up with your own parts? Do you always have written reference materials, or do you learn by ear at least part of the time?

I ask because, if you know 200 songs you should be seeing commonalities and patterns within them that answer most of your "need to work on" issues. Things like keys, common changes, how arpeggios relate to chords, etc, unless the songs you know are in a very different genre from the ones being called at the jam.

The first thing I would do is look at those songs and try to apply the things you're asking about to what you already know. Connect the dots between theory and the songs you're comfortable playing.

 

Exactly; great point!

When the top "jam bands" perform, they aren't just making it up as they go along. Rather, they are playing familiar songs they have played hundreds of times. The best "jamming" is rehearsed and has a structure.

It's great to have the skill set to "fake it" on a song you've never heard before. But in my opinion, that is not the core skill that "makes a good jammer." Rather, I would say a good jammer is someone who can bring a fresh, improvisational sound to rehearsed songs that they know well. Being able to also do this with unfamiliar songs is icing on the cake.