totally free jamming...afraid to?

i play electric guitar, but don't usually play much with others. none of my friends know the same songs and we never take the time to learn each others'....after a couple weak attempts at getting together to play acoustically between 2 guitars, mandolin, and sometimes piano, we quit playing together for a while. we didn't have much fun just playing blues, all along the watchtower or a couple chord progressions because nobody would let loose. it sucked.
BUT HOORAY!!!! the other day, the kid w/ a mandolin and I got together and said, "whatever, we're playing whatever we want," and we had mad fun. we played simple and just moved around near the keys of G and D...if someone stopped playing, the other guy wasn't hurting anyone by playing whatever he wanted, and it was really fun just listening to each other. i'd love to have many more people joining in on this, but it seems like not many people can let loose and forget about playing "songs". how can i get people to add their voice to the mix instead of trying to turn the mix into a single "voice" with a set agenda, pattern, and style?
would you go and see a band that refuses to play songs, say, 80-100% of the time? i would, especially if they freestyled vocals in some way. that's what i really see as my ideal format...4-8 band members jamming and making up "songs" and vocals and harmonizing for an hour or 2. the only thing that would tie one performance to the next would be the repetitive tendencies of the musicians, and i think that's ok. give me any feedback you like. who else jams without a care? i figure its not at all original, but i really think its important for music to be in the moment. what else? ah...i'm blabbing on. peace
brad

 

Drugs and booze, no, seriously. The playing might get worse, but your inhibitions will go away.


Aside from that all I can suggest is to get better at your instruments. Once you guys get really proficient staying in certain keys, flowing with each other, switching tempos/styles/keys will be easy and fun.

 

i second that. as sad as it is, drugs work...

 

well that's what improv is all about man, you just gotta let it flow. and you don't need any substances to let your voice be heard man, it's all natural. we do that kinda stuff all the time here... someone will start up a drum beat and then we just listen to each other the rest of the way. it's almost like a conversation of sorts...

 

I've done it, There were times it was awesome.

There were a lot of train wrecks too.

 

i didn't meant to suggest everyone should play their own thing without listening to others. that would be a mess. haha. i just wanted to vent a little because the guys i know who play are so inhibited.

 

i was interested in that kind of thing for a while. the thing is if you get into that style you should make sure you still have good technique. but of course you can go so far out as to make chords, scales, and timing completely irrelevant. but this music does tend to have an extremely minority interest and not many people would understand it.

a good idea is to come up with a sort of mood of how you want each peice to go, like draw a curve on a peice of paper for where you want it to be high or low or intense or soft etc and each person play along to that.

but yeah listening is really really important!

 

I was going to post about how, if you're doing it right, there really isn't anything called "free" (unless you're playing by yourself), but then I read several posts with that most important and oftentimes forgotten word "listen".

Yeah, brad, it is mad fun, especially when you get a roomful of listeners who know when to say something, who know how to hold "One" while someone else 'takes it', and who know when to let silence (on their part) say it all.

Taking it past what somethingwitty said, the more you play with others, the more you, as a gathering, will learn about each other and where each one might go musically with a certain phrase or thought.

Also keep in mind that there are some truly gifted players out in the world making good money that can't jam or 'go out' worth a damn. So while they're holding on C, the rest of us can go "free".

 

you have to be RFG to pull this one off. Really fucking good, that is.

Hehe, I've done it before, it's a lot of fun!

Although I'm a cover song queen, too.

 

Improv. and jamming is the funniest part about playing an instrument. Playing covers and sing alongs are fine, but if you play your instrument by yourself, or even better with a few buddies, its so much fun.

I play improv. jams outside in the public with my acoustic and make up little chords that can go along with some soloing, climbing from scale to scale.

Jamming is so extrodinary...

 

i'll try to have a recording of one of my jam sessions for you guys soon...

 

hell yeah man. i'll listen.
say...i wonder if there's a way for people to jam together online? there are mad players on the forums

 

that would be a crazy invention, huh? someone should get that together soon...

 

oh man, if there was a way to jam online, i would NEVER stop!

 

*wanders in*

I don't know man... I don't equate jamming with playing free at all. "Free" indicates that there are no restrictions on what you play in terms of meter, tempo, key, etc.; it all boils down to musical communication between players on various levels. As soon as the drummer starts up a steady beat, chances are the other musicians are going to fall into line. As soon as everyone is locked in, it's no longer free. I'm not trying to start a semantic argument here, honest! I love jamming and I love playing free, but I just don't think the two are really interchangeable.

 

gotta agree with ya that you jam "on" something. . . preferably the ONe(starchild, represent!) .. . i just mean "free" in the sense that you're unafraid to let it rip however you can if you think it sounds good. of course, someone might say you suck.

 

jamming like hawkwind on various riffs in the key of e is different to free improv...

 

you know what's the best way to jam (i think)...

just start anywhere and then continually progress. meaning start with anything that pops in your head... the other players, if they're good listeners, will eventually follow. then someone, doesn't matter which instrument, starts playing a song you all may know. it's fun to add a real song into the mix. then you can jam on that for a while and that's where the improv kicks in... because no one likes to jam to the same thing forever, you have to naturally progress.

i did alot of this in the past few days...

 

DRUGS!!!!...ha thats funny...but even Jimmy Page said drugs helped a great deal with LeDZeppelin...thee greatest band in the history of rock n roll!!!!!

 

you know, music can be used as it's own form of a drug... not to say that drugs don't effect the creative processes because they do, but IMO i think everyone should learn to use their brain to the fullest extent when jamming instead of only relying on the drug to take them.