What makes a good jammer?

[bearfoot]

This doesn't always apply, but one of my main tricks is knowing what guitar "cowboy" chords look like. This is a real advantage having come from guitar. I can see if its a G or D, Am, etc. If it's a barre chord, I can usually see where that's at also.

That's my non-auditory answer.

As far as listening is concerned, finding the beat, etc. Knowing "standard" progressions can help a lot. But with classic rock, particularly Beatles, that doesn't mean much.
It really is IME standard and normal for the rhythm guitar to blurt out the main chord progression in a jam.
It's also fairly expected to not play songs with a lot of chromatic changes that are pretty much impossible to jam to.

I think you will find that, even after a short time, you probably already know "E", "A" "D", "G", probably C and F also, by heart, stone cold. If not, you are probably very close.

Even if you don't know the shapes, when a guitar player strums a standard G chord, it really announces itself.

 

[bassliner50]

If "jammimg" means the same as planned improvisation on melody, chord cadence and rhythm, then you should know the tune intimately, know enough music theory to keep you within constraints of chord cadence, tempo and tune structure. To me, if someone said, "lets jam" I'd fear unrestrained overindulgence and "blues" ad-nauseum. Be tasteful, keep it controlled, *know what to leave out*, and still be musical and creative.

 

[Spacecase]

I would like to try and prioritize and focus on the areas that are most important. What other skills are valuable to players to allow them to be good jammers? And, what are the more valuable skills? Where does theory fit in the ranking of important skills to have?

There's a lot of good advice here. Certainly having a good ear, vocabulary, and some theory is helpful. One skill that I think is important is the ability to hear intervals--that's relative pitch. You should also train yourself to hear the modality of the chords (major, minor, augmented, diminished) or progressions others are playing, so you can play complimentary notes. The other is to eventually develop the vocabulary to allow you to hear in your mind something that will work in the moment, and to be able to play it without much thought. When learning songs, I would encourage you to try alternate bass lines to see what works. You'll eventually get to the point where you'll be able to play lines that can fit the tune almost instinctively.

 

[Mushroo]

Ah, yes, good point. There is a distinction to be made between jamming and improvising, I think.

I think of jamming as getting up and faking it on a song I haven't heard before (or playing a song I know with people I have never played with before), and improvising is making up stuff on the fly within a song that you already know.

EDIT:
So, it would be possible to improvise in a song I am familiar with while jamming with people I haven't played with before.... lol

Is that how others see it?

Probably everybody has a slightly different definition. I don't claim any kind of universal truth; just my own personal opinion/experience:

When my friends and I use the term "jamming" what we usually mean is "casual, informal music-making, as opposed to paid gigs or structured rehearsal."

"Jamming" often features an element of "improvisation," but not necessarily. For example, if a bunch of us are gathered together to read tunes from a Beatles songbook, I would still consider that "jamming" even if we stick to what's written on the page.

"Noodling" is the term I typically use to describe a free-form, no-structure, never-heard-the-song-before type of improvisation.

 

[red_rhino]

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.

Blues and country are pretty structured too. Play long enough, and you'll recognize the patterns in many different musical genres.

But the real key is actively listening to what's going on around you, whether you're playing a piece of music everyone knows in common or just engaging in more of a free-form groove oriented jam.

I went to an open mic jam over the weekend that sounded like a wall of p00p. Everyone was trying to play above and out-wank everyone else trying to be heard. I left almost immediately. I knew that no matter how much I listened, i wouldn't have been able to hear anything, and nobody on stage was listening to anyone else.

 

[PluckyThump]

Practice at home with songs you don't know on bass. What I do is shuffle the .mp3 collection on my computer and try to play along with whatever comes up. I've learned a ton of songs this way and over time learned how to quickly recognize chord patterns and riffs. You need to know your fretboard. If someone calls out a song and tells you the chords are G, A, D, you need to know where those notes are. Practice songs in both open and closed position, knowing both will help you find the best fingering patterns. Know the major, minor and blues scales and train your ear to recognize them. You should know basic song structure: intro, verse, chorus, bridge, break, outro. "Speak the language" and you'll be able to communicate with other musicians.

 

[Keger Jupit]

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.

This is great advice. It only covers one aspect of all the things that make a good jammer, but is one of the quickest ways to get your ears up to speed. It is also one you can work on every day.

I am self-taught, & would throw on whatever tape (it's a thing that was before CD's) (crap...CD's were a thing before MP3's) (crap...music was played back on these things, before computers), anyway, I'd grab an album & play along till I got it down. Not note for note every time, but you get the gist.

I do the same thing with TV & commercials too, to this day. Noodle along as I kill my brain...helps me stay sharp

 

[JimK]

I concur with "speaking the language"...not that would expect this kinda stuff at most bar jams...every blue moon, I have been with friends that would call out a "12-Bar Blues-shuffle" or a "Latin Blues in 5", etc.
Be familiar with playing in the idiom, I guess.

 

[TheLowDown33]

Most popular genres of music are fairly predictable. There are certain places that a chord wants to go to to resolve/create tension. ii-v-i, i-iv-v, etc. Become familiar with common chord progressions and youd be surprised how fast you can pick songs up. This is how pros learn 40 songs in a very short amount of time.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

Hey all, looking for some guidance on the skill set needed to be good at quickly picking up songs when playing at a jam.

I first got the itch to pick up a bass when I was photographing bands as a sideline. I would go to jams and take photos, building up my clientele by giving them free samples of my work from jams they played at. Listening to the players on stage gave me a real appreciation for the skills it took to be able to get up there and lock into an unfamiliar song after just a few bars.

After I got a bass and knew enough to be dangerous (15 months after starting to play), I managed to get into a band. A year after that, I was in two bands, both doing classic rock covers. But, four years after starting with the first band, I still have a desire to go to jams and improvise my way through a set of songs I don't know.

I have been going to a jam recently, to try and ease into the scene as a player, and my shortcomings are really apparent. Some songs I can lock into almost immediately and play with confidence, but others are just painful. I can't get the groove, I don't know the right note choices... then, I get some eye-rolls from the guys on stage and I start feeling like I shouldn't even be up there. Here are some of the skills I think I am lacking:

• I need to have a better understanding of theory, in order to know what note choices are appropriate in a given key.
• I need to have immediate recall of the arpeggios for various chord types. If you have to think about it, it's already too late.
• I need to have more songs under my belt, so that I can draw from them to improvise with unfamiliar songs that are similar to ones I know. Between picking up songs on my own and playing with the two bands, I have probably 200 or so songs I am familiar with.
• My ear needs improving, so I can know the key changes as they come, since some folks expect you to keep up without them calling out the changes.
• I need to have a better understanding of where to play the same notes on the fretboard. I am not bad at this, but too slow to be able to react and improvise real-time to a song I'm not familiar with.

So, for me, it boils down to more time in the shed and more time studying/learning...

I would like to try and prioritize and focus on the areas that are most important. What other skills are valuable to players to allow them to be good jammers? And, what are the more valuable skills? Where does theory fit in the ranking of important skills to have?

Or, should I just suck it up and throw myself on the stage, knowing that I am going to be 'that guy' for a while until I get my poop together?

My experience........worth exactly what you paid for it.

"Jamming" needs to have ALL participants listening to each other not concentrating on just themselves.

 

[jefkritz]

Keep it simple. Find the root notes of each chord, and jam on just the root notes until you're good on the song structure. Then throw in a fifth or two. When that's feeling good, try a third and quickly note if the chord is major or minor (knowing this beforehand is even better).

Basically, start dirt simple, and build from there. In a jam setting it's very easy to overplay. Most do.

Also, if this is blues rock, it's likely using blues progressions. Learn the many variations, and understand how they sound and feel.

 

[TreySonagras]

Bands follow the bass player (at least they should be able to). I learned this the hard way when I was a young piano player in a country band full of old guys. The bass player was rock solid and knew every tune in the book and he was leading me through every tune without me realizing what was happening. I was a jazz guy and this three-chord stuff was simple. Then I filled in on bass one night and realized.....I DON'T KNOW THE SONGS. I had just been following the bass player and now everyone was following me. A complete disaster.

The point is, even at a jam session the bass player better know the tunes.

 

[bearfoot]

Also, if you haven't already, listen to some Phil:
(some nice footage of the legendary Alembicized Guild Starfire also)

 

[honeyiscool]

When you wanna be able to play to a song as you’re learning it, you have to have a tremendous amount of applicable musical knowledge. Not just theory, but an understanding of how songs are formed. Can you follow along to a song and know what will happen next? I don’t mean with a bass, I mean just as a listener. If you can’t hum the root note that you think will happen next, then you’re not going to be able to play it, either.

At a minimum, you need to know your pentatonic and minor and major scales. You also have to be able to hear when the scale has changed and you’re in another one. The most important thing is to become really familiar with the customs of rock and pop music. You have to know that if the first two chords are E major and F# minor, your next chord is probably an A major, and that if a B7 happens next, you’re going back to an E. And if the song doesn’t do that, you have to be able to make a mental note for the next time the progression happens again. You have to know when a chorus sounds like it’s about to happen, when a solo is on the chorus or verse progression, things like that.

And the only way to become familiar with the customs of rock and pop music is to learn a crapload of songs from different genres and eras and also learn them in more than one key so you can apply what you learned in another position. Once you get used to what the most common patterns of music are, that’s where theory will become actually usable for you.

 

[arbiterusa]

• I need to have a better understanding of theory, in order to know what note choices are appropriate in a given key.
• I need to have immediate recall of the arpeggios for various chord types. If you have to think about it, it's already too late.
• I need to have more songs under my belt, so that I can draw from them to improvise with unfamiliar songs that are similar to ones I know. Between picking up songs on my own and playing with the two bands, I have probably 200 or so songs I am familiar with.
• My ear needs improving, so I can know the key changes as they come, since some folks expect you to keep up without them calling out the changes.
• I need to have a better understanding of where to play the same notes on the fretboard. I am not bad at this, but too slow to be able to react and improvise real-time to a song I'm not familiar with.

You missed a biggie and what for me is the most important one; a command of the basic signatures of various musical styles and the ability to at least deploy the basic elements of those styles when "jamming" with a group of your compatriots.

For example:
reggae: not gonna be doing any slapping, nothing but deep dark bass. Remember, everyone is stoned here.
funk: Energy! You will slap. You probably won't play a bunch of plodding, super bass heavy notes like with reggae. Get the butts out of the chairs. Lotta ghost notes. Always be playing.
blues: 1-4-5 and various turnarounds. Won't hurt to learn the 2-5-1 either. Learn the shuffle.
jazz: gotta learn your scales so you can walk. Walking a chord progression is easy, so long as you have a reasonable idea of what you need to be playing.
metal: downstroke or die. You'll probably use a pick. You for sure will want some angry mids and ganky treble.
country: root/fifth.

So many more. You get the idea. Learn styles. If you want to jam, that is what separates beginners from masters.

AND all that stuff you listed above. Good luck! Jamming is the best if everyone is on top of their game and good. If not, it's usually a miserable slog that has you considering the sale of all your gear and a move to a foreign country.

 

[707GK]

Dairy products make great jammers. Cheese does a real fine job jamming me up.

 

[Guitalia]

Bass players at jams are often treated like second-class citizens or worse. You're expected to be able to navigate unpredictable changes in a song that you haven't learned and maybe have never heard, and the guitar players think they're helping when they tell you, "It's an easy song!" Sure, it's easy for them---they took their time learning it, maybe over the course of a few days, or a few weeks, and have been playing it for years.

Bass players are often in short supply at jams, but even if they weren't, there's no reason you can't say "I don't know that one" and push them to play something else by the same artist or in the same genre that you do know. See how they like figuring songs out on the fly.

 

[faulknersj]

Hey all, looking for some guidance on the skill set needed to be good at quickly picking up songs when playing at a jam.

I first got the itch to pick up a bass when I was photographing bands as a sideline. I would go to jams and take photos, building up my clientele by giving them free samples of my work from jams they played at. Listening to the players on stage gave me a real appreciation for the skills it took to be able to get up there and lock into an unfamiliar song after just a few bars.

After I got a bass and knew enough to be dangerous (15 months after starting to play), I managed to get into a band. A year after that, I was in two bands, both doing classic rock covers. But, four years after starting with the first band, I still have a desire to go to jams and improvise my way through a set of songs I don't know.

I have been going to a jam recently, to try and ease into the scene as a player, and my shortcomings are really apparent. Some songs I can lock into almost immediately and play with confidence, but others are just painful. I can't get the groove, I don't know the right note choices... then, I get some eye-rolls from the guys on stage and I start feeling like I shouldn't even be up there. Here are some of the skills I think I am lacking:

• I need to have a better understanding of theory, in order to know what note choices are appropriate in a given key.
• I need to have immediate recall of the arpeggios for various chord types. If you have to think about it, it's already too late.
• I need to have more songs under my belt, so that I can draw from them to improvise with unfamiliar songs that are similar to ones I know. Between picking up songs on my own and playing with the two bands, I have probably 200 or so songs I am familiar with.
• My ear needs improving, so I can know the key changes as they come, since some folks expect you to keep up without them calling out the changes.
• I need to have a better understanding of where to play the same notes on the fretboard. I am not bad at this, but too slow to be able to react and improvise real-time to a song I'm not familiar with.

So, for me, it boils down to more time in the shed and more time studying/learning...

I would like to try and prioritize and focus on the areas that are most important. What other skills are valuable to players to allow them to be good jammers? And, what are the more valuable skills? Where does theory fit in the ranking of important skills to have?

Or, should I just suck it up and throw myself on the stage, knowing that I am going to be 'that guy' for a while until I get my poop together?

You are exactly on the right track brother...

Don’t get discouraged...you’re not failing...rather simply recognizing opportunities.

I was you 5 years ago...now I’m the house bass player at a killer open jam...and I get last minute calls because people know I can pull off most anything on the fly.

Be persistent...don’t quit...and don’t give up.

Learn the Nashville number system if you don’t already...

Also..record every jam you participate in with the voice notes on your phone and listen back.

Learn the songs you recorded...like REALLY learn them. chances are they will come up again.

Know the major, minor, mixolydian, Lydian, and Dorian modes inside and out...as they are hands down the most common.

Learn to recognize different progressions...and if you don’t know a progression...practice memorizing the changes as they go by on the fly. If possible...ask who ever is leading the song the key...and progression.

Most of all...keep throwing yourself in that fire...it’s the only way..

 

[lat]

Dairy products make great jammers. Cheese does a real fine job jamming me up.

Good name for a jam band would be The Door Stops.

lol...

 

[bfields]

Sometimes I'll record and then go back to see if I can identify what I screwed up and what I should have done. And catch the song names and go listen to similar stuff and see if I can get some ideas there.

Careful comparing yourselves to others. As musicians many of us love to project the idea that we're just naturally gifted and figuring everything out on the fly, even when it's a song or genre we already happened to know pretty well... Also sometimes we're hyper-focused on our own faults (not necessarily a bad thing in moderation).

But all the stuff your list looks good to me. The only problem is it's a long list, and most of those items could spawn long lists of their own, so it's going to take a while. That's sure a familiar problem. Best of luck!