jamming?

[theavondon]

It's stupid to be intimidated.

Yup. And, when you're not intimidated at all, it's intimidating.

[inthesilverseas]

It's stupid to be intimidated.

Yup. And, when you're not intimidated at all, it's intimidating.

Oh daaaymn.

Also (and no offense to you geetar players) the thing I always hate about ANY kind of "jam" session is when someone (usually the guitar player) stops in middle of riffing to try and SHOW you what he's playing. "Here, man. It's like this: motions to various frets slowly"...hey guess what, mate? I don't need to SEE what you're playing. I can hear it! Now shut the fuck up and go back to your 3 note powerchord progression so I can plow through this shit and get home in time to watch the Wings game.

[Achtane]

It's stupid to be intimidated.

Yup. And, when you're not intimidated at all, it's intimidating.

Oh daaaymn.

Also (and no offense to you geetar players) the thing I always hate about ANY kind of "jam" session is when someone (usually the guitar player) stops in middle of riffing to try and SHOW you what he's playing. "Here, man. It's like this: motions to various frets slowly"...hey guess what, mate? I don't need to SEE what you're playing. I can hear it! Now shut the fuck up and go back to your 3 note powerchord progression so I can plow through this shit and get home in time to watch the Wings game.

I don't work with the "watch this" at all. I'm much better at finding the toan by ear than watching the fingers. Either way I still take a little time to do whatever "it" is, so trying to copy the finger movements is annoying.

[jfrey]

Also (and no offense to you geetar players) the thing I always hate about ANY kind of "jam" session is when someone (usually the guitar player) stops in middle of riffing to try and SHOW you what he's playing. "Here, man. It's like this: motions to various frets slowly"...hey guess what, mate? I don't need to SEE what you're playing. I can hear it! Now shut the fuck up and go back to your 3 note powerchord progression so I can plow through this shit and get home in time to watch the Wings game.

That may work with simple music, but I don't care how good your ear is, if something has any degree of complexity you'll probably need to see it.

[Mudfuzz]

what does this mean really? i play a cool riff and then play closely related riffs until we get bored or some music happens? i dunno. mostly dudes into punk music wanna play and i don't even fuck with punk but it would be cool to play with more people.

Yes and no. A lot of it is understanding how music works... So from a technical stand point know thine keys and what works under a given chord. See the thing about being a bassist [out side of playing sheet music] is being able to listen and find what works for the given situation and this means having or cultivating a good ear.

So lets take punk... [I love punk!] punk at it's heart is rock'n'roll which is based on blues and country... and a LOT of what you would play on bass for your starting points is the same for all three... which is a three chord pattern... lets say "A" so the changes will be A, D and E, chances are root-V-octave, root-flatted IVth-[IV as a passing note] V and root-IV-V based patterns can be used as a good chunk of what you can play with out even having to think anything up after that you can just stretch you you are doing and see how far you can get with out stepping on other instruments and vocals Or... you can just play root notes [8th notes] to whatever the guitar does..

[D.o.S.]

^And that slides right into an earlier example-Earthless is a great example, I'm sure that 98% of the bassists on this site could fake their way through a take of any of one their cuts, given a heads up on what "song" they were playing.*


*And I say this as a gargantuan Earthless fan.

But I suspect that given/depending on the harmonic & melodic complexity of the people you may be jamming with, you might be in a situation where the "correct" riff is a 9/8 groove in five sections of D minor and one section of A.

(at which point I personally drop the ball, find the lowest note, and simplify 'til it works).

[Rob Fossil]

If your stuck for a starting point with someone, pick a cover song that you both like, but vaguely know how to play. Within 5 minutes, the song will mutate into your own thing and then just ride it out from there.

[unownunown]

Yup. Jamming is basically just kinda...playing. So, just play. Don't overthink it. Play stuff. Lots of stuff. Trust me, the only bad thing you could do is to be too apprehensive to play anything. Even someone that's bad at jamming is not too bad if they just fucking play.

this was probably like the most important thing you could tell me, freal.

there is so much good advice in this thread.

[coldbrightsunlight]

If your stuck for a starting point with someone, pick a cover song that you both like, but vaguely know how to play. Within 5 minutes, the song will mutate into your own thing and then just ride it out from there.

That's probably my favourite advice from this thread, bolded for how much that makes it into your own thing. A few people jamming on a song they KINDA know can turn into all sorts of awesome.

[theavondon]

Yup. Jamming is basically just kinda...playing. So, just play. Don't overthink it. Play stuff. Lots of stuff. Trust me, the only bad thing you could do is to be too apprehensive to play anything. Even someone that's bad at jamming is not too bad if they just fucking play.

this was probably like the most important thing you could tell me, freal.

there is so much good advice in this thread.

I just poked my head into this thread again to see if that jam ever happened. I'm guessing it did.

[MEC]

The jam definitely happened...viewtopic.php?f=42&t=12806&start=5535#p347298

[theavondon]

The jam definitely happened...http://www.ilovefuzz.com/viewtopic.php? ... 35#p347298

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[madmax1012]

this sounds bad, but the best jams i've ever had have been when i'm stoned out of my skull. i just get into this groove where i do things i cant even think of sober. it just lightens the mood up to be not so serious. plus the people i've jammed with high have always been awesome with a collaborative effort as opposed to everyone do their own thing and figure out their own parts

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah, jamming high is a different experience. That collaboration thing is right on, people get more into the sound than showing off, and you feel so in sync.

[snipelfritz]

I'm pretty sure, at this point, you could substitute the word "jamming" in this thread for "fucking."