totally free jamming...afraid to?

Hear hear. There is an ill-defined line between opening yourself to possibilities and completely missing out. Drugs can put you on either side of that line. I tend to make it a guideline that if I'm playing for people who put out money for the music, I'm clean (not to mention well practiced). It's only fair; they paid for music, not drool.

Free - I know what it is, but I don't get it. How can every player just go off and do what they want? It could be bliss, but then again, it could be that someone is noodling on a blues riff while someone is fleshing out minor chords in 7 while someone else is power chording at 120 bpm while someone else is... Doesn't there HAVE to be some common ground, some continuity? Otherwise, turn up the amps to eleven and start massive feedback while the drummer indulges a gong fantasy.

 

I really need people to jam with....

 

i have been jamming with this few guys the past while, but they dont really know the name of notes or anything, so its hard to tell them to play a certain chord or scale.i have to show them instead of them knowing with their ears.

 

Everybody does.
Hopes you finds a gig soon. The whole really is more than the sum of the parts.

 

i love to jam...just go off into my own world where i have an imaginative audience and go at it!!

 

Common harmonic/melodic ground isn't necessary; it really boils down to listening to what other people are doing and playing off of that spontaneously. If everyone is doing their own thing and not listening to what the other players are doing, there's a good chance of the piece sounding like ass...

In most of the free groups I've been a part of, the tendency leans towards quiet dynamics (usually hovering around p, with big contrasts ranging from pppp < fff) and wide textual variety; ambient music that isn't exactly ambient. In my present improv group we'll usually center around a drone or group of drones (modulated sine/square waves, white noise, sampled loops, etc.) and then draw complementary textures out of our respective instruments, leaving lots of space for new sonic colors to emerge. There have been some gong fantasies and some real freakouts, but it always returns to the center at some point... Free is whatever you make of it man!

 

it's about the play between harmony/melody and timing...you can play some crazy far out shit in terms of harmony, but if you got the ear to find the right rhythm for it, it can sound good. MMW anyone?

 

Ah! But see? I hear a ONE hidden in there!! So there is some form of continuity - an agreement, if you will, not complete anarchy that the words totally free bring to my mind. Okay, we're doing the same thing - we just call it jammin'.

 

Or Miles Davis?

 

I really don't have anywhere to gig around these parts of VA... I mean, there's open mic at an opryhouse that does country shows and all, but I play blues, jazz, and folk...

 

By 'gig' I meant having a group of players/friends to make music with on a regular basis. I'm guessing there is a dearth of folks meeting those requirements where you live.

 

word

 

Free jamming is fun to play but in most cases no fun to listen to.
I'd rather do it in the rehearsal space than on stage.
It's an interesting way of playing music, though, very creative.

 

My band sucks at completly "free" jamming. But we still jam a whole lot. It's great fun.

 

My band mostly does free jamming when we jam, but i find that it it hard for us to actually write and compose songs, because we just end up turning the whole thing in to a huge jam, and i think other people do not enjoy hearing it as much as we do. Like i think it has to get boring to hear a 20 minute song. But when we are playing, it doesnt feel anywhere near 20 minutes, it is just pure bliss. I feel like it will be hard to "market" our music (for lack of a better word) to people and audiences. Sorry to ramble on like this, but im kind of torn.

 

try to get as many excited young people to come to your shows as possible, and tell them to get high and dance a lot. . . oh and use lots of feedback and climb chromatically into tension-land, then release like trey. ooops did i just let out a big secret?

 

Nothing wrong with a little anarchy, it's all in how that anarchy sounds to the listener right? It can be wild and angular, subdued and ambient, or anything in between.
Perhaps there are some "ones" that do appear, but what if there are no twos, threes, fours, etc.? If no shared rhythmic cycle emerges, it's still free in my book...

 

Free music requires the listener to approach listening from a different perspective, mainly because the music sheds so many conventions-- no beat to dance/nod to, recognizable song structure, easily identifiable melodies, etc. I'm not necessarily saying that it's "exclusive", it's just not something that most people have experience listening to-- kind of a bummer really, as it translates to greater difficulty in booking gigs!

 

yeah, exactly

 

see the problem is, like you stated, when you're trying to book gigs, people are usually looking for bands for atmosphere, bands that people don't have to stop and listen to. seeing as though the majority of people that buy music nowadays aren't buying it to listen to it, i would say that this fits the american demographic perfectly.