My thanks to Kathy Tuinhoff, better known on this forum as Pickin’ Chick, for posting a comment/question to my post titled “spring is here”. Let’s see if I can shed any light on the subject.
These are great questions and it gives me the chance to reiterate some advice that I pass out on a regular basis in my workshops and in private lessons. The short answer is that it’s never too early to start jumping into the jam sessions at the festivals. I always tell my students that they’ll get more out of an evening jamming with live bodies at a festival or other event than in a month of my classes. There’s just nothing like the interaction with live bodies to help cement good rhythm and timing and train the ear to hear chords.
In a perfect world, every jam session you walk up to will be open and inviting. However…this ain’t a perfect world. You will find some jam sessions that turn their nose up at beginners and snub them. I find this to be more the exception than the rule. What happens most often is that the beginning picker tries to jump in and hang on with a group of hotshots, and even if they are warm and inviting, the newbie soon gives up because the pickers are way above the newbie’s ability level. So what’s a newbie to do?
First, learn how to hold basic rhythm on your instrument. This is such a valuable skill, and beginners who do this right are few and far between. Learning how to hold tasteful, polite rhythm and to accompany other pickers is not easy, but this is the number one area that gives banjo players a bad name. Now, almost anyone can pick up a sheet of tablature and mimic what’s on the page. You can jump into a jam session and whip off Cripple Creek, but when your lead is over, then what? Standing there demonstrating that the campground is level because the drool is running out of both sides of your mouth is not enough. You need to be able to fire on all cylinders.
Some beginning banjo players (well, o.k., most beginning banjo players) seem to feel that they are going to “get good” first, then get out and jam. This is backwards thinking, and if you follow this plan, we may never see you out in the jam sessions. YOU WILL NOT FIGURE THIS THING OUT ON YOUR OWN. Part of “getting good” is the live give and take, tug and pull with other pickers. I give my students a piece of advice that may sound strange, but it’s true: allow yourself the luxury of making mistakes, in front of other pickers. A trial by fire like that will cement a few things home with your knowledge base, and illustrate some weaknesses that you may or may not know you had. It gives you ideas on what to practice.
Remember that as you walk up to a jam session at a bluegrass festival, not all groups of pickers are open jamming. Some groups you might encounter are a band warming up for their stage show or taking some time to rehearse while they are all gathered at the festival. Most experienced pickers know enough to walk up to the edge of the jam with their banjo IN THEIR CASE or slung over their back. (Or dragging in the dirt, whichever describes you. Or me.) We simply observe the jam session for a bit. Doing this gives us an inkling as to whether it’s safe to get the banjo out of the case and join in. Most times the pickers in the jam will encourage you to “get that thing out and join us!” This is your chance!
Remember beginners: there is nothing wrong with playing rhythm quietly in the background, on the outskirts of the jamming circle. If you are bold enough to join in the circle, there is also nothing wrong with turning down a chance to play a song when it’s offered to you. Heck, turn down every song. BUT…when asked “so whadda ya know?”, that’s your chance to bring out that piece you’ve been working on so diligently. Play it as best as you can. When you completely blow it, every member of that jam session will smile quietly to themselves and remember their beginning days on their instrument. And then they’ll insist you try it five more times.
So whadda ya need to know to make an appearance at the jams? Here’s a list of suggestions:
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Learn the role of your instrument and how it’s supposd to function in a group setting ahead of time.
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Be sure and get a good handle on chords. Try and “know your neck well”.
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Learn a few basic beginner level songs that you can stumble through if given the chance.
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Learn to be able to visually identify guitar chords, then watch the guitar picker’s hands to see if you are on the right chord.
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Take a few minutes to just observe any jam session you may encounter. You’ll get a sense of whether or not to join.
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Play tasteful, low-key rhythm UNDERNEATH the singer or lead picker.
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Don’t avoid jamming just because you don’t know many songs yet. Practicing rhythm with other live bodies is INVALUABLE!
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It’s perfectly alright, and very useful, to stay on the outskirts, almost unobserved, while trying your hand at jamming along with the group.
I’d love to get some feedback from you experienced pickers out there. Let me know if you feel I am off base or if I missed something. And beginners, remember: IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO GET OUT AND JAM!! You’ll learn a ton. Come on in…the water’s fine….
What are some of the “old standard” songs that you hear at nearly every jam session? Do people mostly stick to bluegrass, or are there some jams that are mostly country?
As far as the old standards, at least for instrumentals, you’ll want to learn songs like Foggy Mtn. Breakdown, Salt Creek, Gold Rush, Soldier’s Joy, Lonesome Road Blues, John Hardy, Clinch Mt. Backstep, Old Joe Clark, Cripple Creek, Blackberry Blossom. For vocal pieces (and you’ll want to learn the banjo leads for vocal pieces even if you aren’t going to sing) you’ll want to tackle Love Please Come, Old Home Place, any of the “cabin” songs (Little Cabin Home On The Hill, etc.), Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Fireball Mail…I’m drawing a bit of a blank right now, and many of the area pickers who read this will be screaming at their computer screens when they read this: “You idiot!! What about (insert song here) or what about (insert song here) or how about (insert song here) etc. etc. The best advice would be to frenquent some jams sessions and see what the pickers are picking, then get that set of songs learned!
It’s interesting to note that you find regional differences when it comes to the song titles you are likely to encounter in the jams. If you go to a different region of this country and attend some jams there, you’ll find they play some of the same songs as we do in Michigan, but perhaps a whole new set of songs that you hadn’t considered and that we normally don’t do too much around here.
A last thought about country music: leave it at home. Or, maybe more appropriately, treat anything you do that isn’t traditionally bluegrass as “crossover” music. In one of my groups we do Cheap Trick and Johny Cash and the beatles, but we do it with bluegrass instrumentation and bluegrass style touches to the music. However, I wouldn’t bring any of that to the jam sessions. There’s nothing worse than being at a bluegrass jam session and have someone try to do half a dozen or more country songs. The two styles are very different and it’s not very much fun for bluegrassers to attend a country jam.