I find myself listening to jam bands a lot. Even more after I started dating a Phish-o-phile I really like 70's jazz jams the best. Herbie,Miles ect....
hey man, yea people want to hear jam stuff. my band plays shows all the time without a singer and we just jam for 45 minuites. we once played an older party (we are young) for a guy who was retiring and we started off with jazz then we did our jam stuff for at least 2 hours and got alot of tips.
ever think of how many people went to a Dead or Phish show?
Originally posted by Judson: hey man, yea people want to hear jam stuff. my band plays shows all the time without a singer and we just jam for 45 minuites. we once played an older party (we are young) for a guy who was retiring and we started off with jazz then we did our jam stuff for at least 2 hours and got alot of tips.
ever think of how many people went to a Dead or Phish show?
So, do you make many mistakes or ever crash and burn? That's how it is for me if I'm really making it up as I go along. If so, are your audiences forgiving? Or, do you improvise on a arrangement that you already know?
I have only 'crashed and burned' once at a gig, it was a 5 peice no singer, but it turned out ok because there wernt that many people there yet (it was the first jam) and it was an older croud, they were verry forgiving. But in my trio i play in now we have never crashed and burned yet(nock on wood). We will do some arrangements we already know like Dave Matthews "Crash", try jaming on it, its alot of fun, but what we do is sing the song or olny a half then jam on it and it turns out to be a totaly diffrent song by the end but it is unintentional, everything just flows naturaly. My bass player and i are verry close, we have an almost telepathic bond, it is really weird. So all we have to do is listen and peek at eachothers fretboards every now and then, and my drummer just has a good ear, he has been with me since he first started playing drums so he can tell when stuff is coming up.
90% of the songs we play are made up on the spot with the exeption of a cover here and there, all you have to do is stay in the same key and keep an open ear, making up signals is a good way to keep up too, like doing a hop or somthing if you are going to change keys. And always change the tempo slowly. That is how we keep afloat, hope it can help you out.