Unless you are playing with a bunch of jerks, musicians tend to be pretty understanding on this stuff. If it was a bunch of people of a much higher skill level than you, it COULD be an issue, but you should look for band mates who are around your ability level (an awesome lead guitarist is still fine though). I’ve been the one to mess up and have everyone have to start over, but so has everyone else in the band. We laugh it off, or at worse talk a little friendly crap. 
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Yeah I listened to those above. Seeing all the participation made me give it a go. This is such a cool exercise.
Nice Job by the way! You played to it very tastefully and were locked in with the backing track, which I find difficult.
Haha, yeah, that’s the one… I felt kinda proud that you would put that on YT 
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a few advices :
- play in a band where the songs are not too difficult for you / I don’t mean “very easy”, just not too far from your level
- find your own landmarks in the song
- count, even if you think you don’t need to
- practice the song to build some confidence
and everything should be fine 
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I think you do a lot of cool stuff here (technically), and melodically totally fitting, but - I have to be honest with you - in my ears, the slap clashes wildly with the drums… something there that doesn’t quite work for me here. Not sure, maybe it is because the drums have this “lazy”, slightly late feeling to them…
But, that is just how we would interpret these tasks differently, I guess 
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Yeah it is a mellow jam. I went counter to that, when a softer and prettier approach would be more fitting. A part of it is definitely mixing too, I have no idea what I’m doing in that realm, just slapped plugins on stuff and turned up some volume!
Bass turned out louder than It should be in the mix.
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Not sure why this thread doesn’t get more attention… I have several of these jam tracks saved and use them often to warm up with. No two warm ups are the same, and I enjoy the fact that my improvised bass lines sort of take on a reflection of my mood at the time… Such a great way to not only warm up, but also a great way to create/develop some of those creative bass line grooves that may be buried beneath ones fingers and soul…
The cool thing about these improv tracks is that they can be played at any experience level. As simple or as complex as you feel at the time. For me, I used these tracks often when I started jamming with different musicians… Never failed - there was always someone (typically a drummer) who would yell out, “Play it as you feel it!”… So much fun!! Thing is, “level of experience” was never a factor at those jams that overtrumped ones desire or passion to play music…
Thanks to @Gio for starting this thread - hopefully, more folks (other than myself) can find the benefit Jam/Improv tracks can contribute in ones growth… However, might be good to have a few more new improve tracks to play to though… Think I’ve kinda wore out the ones I used… (Hint, Hint) 
Keep On Thumpin’!
Lanny
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Thanks for the walk down memory lane here, @Lanny!
I’ve had a great time finding drummers playing live drums on YouTube that have killer videos to jam to.
I imagine there would be similar things for whatever key / genre you wanted to play.
I have the playalongs I created a decade ago for my students when I was doing high school band instruction. But I really think people could go find better stuff on the 'ol YT these days.
Love me some jam tracks!
I cut my jazz teeth (as did most of my college friends) on those Jamey Aebersold books that came with CDs. Jam tracks for days!!
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Funny that you still use those jam tracks, @Lanny. Funny… and awesome!
I quickly ran through the thread and it is a bit of a pity that a lot of the contributed links are no longer there or working.
I think if we did this again (and I liked it a lot), we need to find a way to make it fun for less experienced players as well, and not have it dominated by the more experienced ones. Another challenge for @eric.kiser !?!
That said, I think it could be fun to revisit some of them myself and see whether I could do it better now 
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My thoughts exactly @joergkutter…. Funny thing about jam tracks is that the sky’s the limit when it comes to playing bass to them…. The biggest thing I work on when I use them is simple timing…. It also allows a person to create their own sound - hell, if the improvised don’t make sense when played, it could just be referred to as “jazz”…
.
All I know is that without playing to jam tracks and being able to allow myself to improvise my own bass lone riffs, playing bass (for me) is boring…. Hell, in an effort to combat those sessions of boredom, I’ve even taken up playing my acoustic and classical guitars……
Keep On Thumpin’!
Lanny
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I totally hear you. I am fortunate in that I play in a trio where the guitar player composes all the music, and I get to develop the bass lines there - great fun!
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