[Harp-L] playing in a band setting/jamming

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought I'd add a couple of thoughts to this thread.  The local jam I go
to these days is a good example of that you can expect at a jam and why you
shouldn't be too hard on yourself.

At this jam, the host band plays a long set and then the guitarist, who runs
the jam, brings people up who've signed up on the sheet.  The way this
happens depends on the number and variety of musicians who've signed up.  If
there are a lot of guys on the list and include drummers, guitarists
(there's always guitarists), bassists etc., then you may find yourself up
there with a group of guys who've never met and  who've never played
together.  These jams don't often work out very well and how could you
expect them to.  Folks agree on a song, what key to do it in, and off you
go.  If the drummer is no good it throws everything off.  You can have a bad
guitarist or a bad bassist and still pull the thing off but it the guy can't
drum and keep a half decent meter your sunk.

That's the way it was last week.  The drummer, a nice enough guy, just had a
terrible meter and kept throwing these weird pick-ups in there to boot.
There wasn't a bassist on the sheet so that house bands bassist stayed up on
stage to work with the jammers.  The drummer wanted to do a Bob Seager song
and the bassist said "I ain't doin' any Bob Seager."  Somebody started
suggesting Led Zeppelin and Leonard Skinard but nobody wanted to sing so I
decided to volunteer to sing and so I got to call the songs.  I called
"Blues With A Feeling" which nobody knew so I had to explain how it was a
basic 12 bar with stops in G and to watch me for the stops.  The drummer
didn't watch me for the stops so you can imagine how that worked. I also did
"This Time, This Time" which is a Rod Piazza song and nobody knew that
either so I had to say how it was a fast shuffle in E with now stops,
everybody goes around twice.  When I say everybody goes around twice that
means everybody takes two 12 bar solos in a row, or 24 bars.  Since there's
only me on the harp and a guitarist (the drummer and bassist don't solo
usually) that means I have to fit the three 12 bar long verses of this song
around these solo sections.  Remember, nobody knows this song. That one
actually worked out okay but I tried to signal the drummer that we were on
the last verse so he would know to bring things to a close but he didn't get
the signal so the song ended really badly.

That's the way it goes sometimes. It can be very frustrating.  There have
been times where everybody really knew what they were doing, like the week
before when  everybody was somebody from some other band and it just sounds
great.  It all depends on the chemistry (and the chops) of the people who
are brought together.  My point is that you can't be too hard on your self
in these situations because if you suck it might not be you actually who is
doing the sucking.  More than anything it makes you want to get a band
together so you can go over a song more than once and maybe get it right.

Now the house band, they sound great.  But then they've been doing the same
set for like 14 years and it you can't get "I Hear You Knockin" right by
then, you ought to just give up.  So you see, that's the difference between
and jam and a band playing through their set and you can't be too hard on
yourself when you get up in front of a crowd of people and try to play with
a bunch of guys you hardly know.  Jams can be really great or really bad and
it depends on the skill level of the players and to a degree on what their
preferences are.


Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh