Anatomy of a Jam

 

Everybody wants to jam, but nobody wants to sound bad. Yep, and that’s where the rubber meets the road for beginners, or even folks who have played for quite a while, but perhaps in classical music or other solo styles that don’t place a big emphasis on jamming. It’s one thing to play Malaguena or Stairway to Heaven perfectly for your cat, it’s another thing entirely to pull off the same performance in a circle of ten other strummers! And as anyone has discovered who has dove into a jam session for the first time, it’s kind of like jumping into a washing machine. You start out OK, but then the next thing you know you’re upside down and backwards, and have a hard time knowing what chord everyone is on, or even if you’re in time with the rest of the group. It’s often chaos, pure and simple.

So how to reduce the amount of trauma for those just starting out, the ones who decided “oh what the heck, I’ll go down to the cafe and see what this jamming thing is all about!”, or brought their banjo to a bluegrass festival and then found themselves surrounded by inebriated strummers who stumbled into their camp and engaged in a full on sing-along. What to do, what to do?

Well, the first thing is to “know your enemy”, so to speak. A jam session is only as intimidating as your level of ignorance of how it works. And, like so many other hobbies or games, there are rules. Yes, actual solid rules, and if you know what these are, you will have a much funner time. Now, that’s not to say that everyone will follow these rules, of course, in particular the soccer-mom with the mandolin who arrived in the RV full of teenagers and boxed wine. Or the guy with the nylon stringed guitar with feathers stuck in the peghead and Grateful Dead stickers on the case. Nope, there will always be those who make our lives more interesting, in any circle. But for the most part, any good jam session will follow at least the primary rules of the road, and these are what we will discuss here in “Jam Anatomy”.

So, if you’ll look at the top of the picture, you’ll see the Intro section. This is very important to understand, because this is the way that the whole song starts! (btw you can download this cool chart on our FREE DOWNLOADS page, feel free to print it out and share with your music pals). The point is, we want to try to avoid the bad habit of just launching into the song, and having people fall in willy nilly. That’s for blues musicians 🙂 What we want to do is pick one of the four trusted ways to start a song:

The Count Off: This is as easy as it sounds, just count to four and away we go. However, one caveat, you need to make sure you count at the same tempo that you will be playing at!! many newbies simply count arbitrarily, and then begin the song at a tempo that has nothing to do with how they counted. Think of your counting as foot-taps, and even play a few notes of the song first to get a tempo check, before beginning the count.

“Potatoes”: This funny sounding phrase is just a Folk colloquialism for an instrument playing a rhythm to start off the song. It comes from the idea that when a fiddle shuffles for a few measures, it sounds like “one potato, two potato, three potato, etc”. But basically you are just counting with your instrument, and each axe has its own unique way of doing that. If you are stumped, order a Custom eLesson on how to do kickoffs for jamming, and you’ll be a master at potato’s in no time!

Intro Riff: This is the art of playing pre-composed licks that are designed to launch a song, and each instrument has it’s own lexicon of Intro Riffs that it sports. We have tons of TAB for such licks, drop us an email and we’ll hook you up.

Refrain: A classic technique where we sing one chorus of the song, acapella, and then everybody jumps in. Great for gospel songs.

Then after the Intro, we head into the body of the song, which consist of Verses and Choruses for singin’ songs, and A and B parts for fiddle tunes. There are a number of songs that just have verses as well (John Hardy) and some that also have “bridges” (most pop music), but in any case what is important to understand is that this is where the Leads begin. As you can see in the chart, after a “cue” someone will take the spotlight, and then give it back to the singer, and round and round until the cows come home. Cues can be as simple as just going in a circle (very common) or being “called out”, or pre-arranged. Good jam leaders will have fun with all of these.

Leads: This is the part that strikes terror into the heart of most beginners, but as you get better at it (and you will) there is nothing more fun that you can do standing up 🙂  This is where the grizzled fiddler fixes a bleary eye on you and growls “take it”, and suddenly you are in the spotlight. Now, here is where your newfound knowledge of Jam Anatomy will save your bacon. Look at the Lead section on the chart; there are three categories of Lead playing: Group, Sectional, or Solo. Here’s what that means…Group Lead is when everybody takes the Lead at once, and although this can be a bit cacophonous it is a great way for beginners to try out lead playing without being put on the spot. Side note: in some forms of music, like traditional Irish jams, this is actually the accepted way of playing lead (although of course everyone plays the melody). Sectional Lead is great for larger jams, and this is when groups of the same instrument play the Lead together, like all the fiddles, or just mandolins, or (shudder) only banjos. Finally the Solo lead is the classic “go around the circle, one person at a time” style, and is the preferred method in most bluegrass jams. A good jam leader will choose the style of Lead that most appropriately fits the jam, generally gauging by skill level and size.

Arrangements: Here is where we get to have some fun with a more savvy jam, and break into acapella sections or add lush harmonies, changing the “texture” of the music.

Ending Cue: Well, the gritty truth is that no matter how great a song is, nobody wants to hear it after 45 minutes. We’ve all heard the “never ending Wagon Wheel”, and that’s why it is important for a good jam leader to be able to cue the song into the ending. A classic move is the old leg lift, where the picker in charge sticks their foot out in the universal sign language for “here we go!”. (please remember, if you’re standing up, only one foot at a time). The refrain repeat is a good bet too, because generally when you repeat the chorus everyone knows the end is near. Finally, if none of the above work, you can always resort to yelling. We give this primitive method the classy name of the call out, and it is often heard in the likes of “here we go boys!” or “last time through!” or, in the case of really raucous jams, “the cops are here!” In any case, this will take you to the most important part of the song, the ending…

Ending: In many jams just the fact that everyone eventually  stops playing is considered a victory, especially in the slow version of El Paso. But for those of us with more dignity than that, it behooves us to learn the 4 primary styles of song endings. First we have the last chord ending, which is as simple as it sounds: we all end on the same chord, at the same time. Amaaaazing. The next step up in intelligence is the BG ending, short for “bluegrass ending”. This is that classic “rest bump rest bump biddly bump boom” rhythm that 80 percent of bluegrass bands land with. If our onomatopoeia was confusing, shoot us an email and we’ll send you the sheet music and mp3 to how it sounds.  Then we have a Tag ending, which is a short instrumental riff that lands the song. An example would be the “shave and a haircut, two bits” tag. Finally we have what we call, for lack of creativity, the rock and roll ending. This is where everyone runs around like headless chickens and engages in a musical epileptic fit, finally ending on a thunderous chord after leaping into the air. Yes, this isn’t the best choice in a tradition Ralph Stanley jam, but it works like a charm in the late nighters.

If you found this dissection of the anatomy of a jam fascinating, well you should. Jamming is an amazing art form, and we here at JamAlong Music are bent on codifying and teaching its mysteries. If you are a beginner just getting started, or a seasoned picker getting ready to start a new jam, ask us about our “how to start your own jam” booklet, and feel free to call us up or email us about any questions you may have. Jam on!