Had my first (sort of) jam today!

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I was in my local music store today trying out some basses. It’s a tiny store, basically just one room. There was this other guy there trying out some guitars. We’re noodling away in our respective corners for a bit, when guitar guy turns to me and asks “Hey, since we’re trying out different instruments at the same time, want to play together? Do you know blues?”

I stammer something along the lines of “Oh, uh sure, but I’m very new, I’m not sure I’ll be up to it-…”. For context, up until this point, guitar guy had been improvising beautiful bluesy flamenco-y classical guitar stuff. I’m currently on Bassbuzz Module 9.

Guitar guy is very nice though, and says “I’m sure you can!”. He counts us in, and we’re off!

Of course, the minute my fingers touch the strings, whoosh! My mind goes blank. Our beloved leader Josh’s faithful blues box? Blues shapes? Gone! Vanished!

I persevere, and stick to dutifully hitting the root note on one. Guitar guy must have sensed me floundering, because he very nicely starts calling out the chord changes for me. Suddenly, somehow, I’m doing it! I followed his time, returned to the root on one, tried playing I-IV-V, and left space free for his guitar fills. It was amazing!

It felt like years, but we only played for a few minutes. When we finished, I kid you not, the two cashiers in the store applauded us! :smile: When he left, guitar guy thanked me, and told me “Keep up the good work!”

Just had to share with you all - I’m on cloud 9 :smiling_face:

(Hysterically enough, about half an hour later, I ran into him again in a nearby cafe. We said hi briefly, and then he had to run off. What are the chances!)

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That’s what it’s all about. You’ve just discovered it. It doesn’t matter how much or how little you know it’s about can you feel. Keep having fun and just know that you have it in you and remember that feeling. In time you’ll hone in all the knowledge but it’s worthless without feeling the music. You’ve done that now so you just crossed a huge threshold here. Enjoy it!

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Fantastic. Congratulations. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
That feeling does not fade but gets more intensive as your confidence grows…

Now you just need to find other jam sessions in your area.
Did you ask him, or the music store employees, about jam sessions in the area?

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:slight_smile: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Thank you!

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I was so excited it completely slipped my mind! Good excuse to go back again :stuck_out_tongue:

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Amazing!! I’m still very new (mod 2) and can’t wait to get there!

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At cricket with my son, it turns out one of the dads has a bit of a dad band going where he doubles on bass, not sure if they have an actual bassist but they have drums, guitars, keyboards and a guy who comes to drink beer (Straya!).
Anyway he said I am welcome to join in.
He normally has it on Saturdays and leaves after the first innings, I will probably go when we have a home game of wait until school holidays

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Great story!

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One take-away from this great story is that we should try to let go of being intimidated by better players. Every musician was a beginner once, and most musicians are very encouraging to new players.

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When I (stupidly) played (wasted countless hours) golf, I did find that when I went out with better players I did better, and for the most part they were helpful and generous with tips etc.

Then I realized 5 1/2 hours doing that on a weekend was not my jam.

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And if/when you run into people that are obnoxious to you - JUST IGNORE THEM AND MOVE ON. Some musicians are legends in there own mind :slightly_smiling_face: :upside_down_face: :slightly_smiling_face:

I play open jam session(s) every week and the only issues I’ve seen for beginners were with dedicated bluegrass jams. Most do not allow lead sheets and most only want acoustic instruments so no bass, unless it is acoustic and, without amplification, it gets overwhelmed by the other instruments volume wise. Not very conducive to attracting new players. :slightly_smiling_face:

Fortunately in my area there are more, what I would call, regular type open jam sessions where all instruments are included. Hell one time I saw bagpipes play at a jam. Was interesting because as the reed got wetter they kept going out of tune. :rofl:

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That is fricking awesome!
:sunglasses::+1:

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I wondered if you were just playing 1 note per bar (whole notes), 2 notes per bar (half notes), 4 notes per bar (quarter notes) or 8 notes per bar (1/8 notes).

I do not know how much you know about the Blues so I thought you may be interested in this little nugget.

Songs in the Blues format follow a set pattern so all you need to know is the pattern and the key and just plug in the chords and you are good to go.

If he was playing 12 bar blues, which he probably was, here is a common pattern.
There are a few others but the thing is you are only dealing with 3 Root notes and the pattern just repeats over and over and over and over - you get the idea :slightly_smiling_face:.

Pattern 1:
I IV I I Bars 1 - 4)
IV IV I I Bars 5-8)
V IV I V (Bars 8-12) - and back to the beginning and just repeat for the length of the song

Note: Bars 11 and 12 are called the Turnaround and a lot of the time bar 12 on the last go round is the I (Root) chord.

So In the key of G it would look like this:
G C G G (Bars 1 - 4)
C C G G (Bars 5-8)
D C G D (Bars 8-12) last time around the 12th bar would be a G instead if a D.

There are a ton of play alongs on YouTube. Just do a search for slow blues in G or A, or whatever key you want to play in.

Just thought you may be interested.
Have fun :+1:

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This is really cool! Would make me nervous for sure! I’m not even brave enough to play in a shop in front of strangers yet! I’m in the 8th module. :joy:

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Oooh thank you, that’s very good advice! I can’t remember exactly what I did now, it went by in such a blur haha, but this is great :smiley:

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Fantastic story and very inspirational.
Every now and then I get easily distracted and the Billie Jean module kind of steered me off course somewhat. Thank you for giving me a push back in the right direction!

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You’re welcome! :smiling_face: I’m so glad I could be an inspiration for you!

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Outstanding @hannah.ws98 ,

It Is Those Little Moments In Time That Make The Difference

Well Done,
Cheers

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@hannah.ws98 Not sure why I did not mention it, or if you are aware, that the three chords in a blues song are typically all Dominant 7 chords so the previous chord progression should have been like this:

So In the key of G it would look like this:

G7 C7 G7 G7 (Bars 1 - 4)
C7 C7 G7 G7 (Bars 5-8)
D7 C7 G7 D7 (Bars 8-12) last time around the 12th bar would be a G7 instead if a D7.

Just thought I would clear up that fact for you. :+1: :+1:

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Amazing, thank you! Very helpful :slight_smile: :smiling_face:

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