Every initial "jam" session ever

1. Someone playing funk licks while everyone else is trying to tune up.

2. hell of bum notes

3. Crazy guy "experimenting" with harmonics.

4. Repetitive "groove" that goes on for 25 minutes and only ends when the drummer tells everyone that it's going nowhere.

5. delay pedal atmospherics

6. Heinous microphone feedback

7. "Can I have a quick go on the drums?"

8. "A Minoooor, D, D, A Minoooor, E, E, E....."

9. Guitarist is asked to "turn it down a little"

10. brief awesome moment that nobody can remember how to play after the smoke break

desperate switching between the ride and the hi-hat in an effort to create dynamics

10. brief awesome moment that nobody can remember how to play after the smoke break

― saturday nose fever (electricsound), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 12:02 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

iPhone has a habit of running out of recording memory at this point too.

There is the switching between ride and hat, yes. Or the switch between eighths and sixteenths. Or go to half-time with the snare on three.

In my world, people overwhelmingly start with 12-bar blooz in A or B (because E is SO VERY DONE). I'm actually pretty sympathetic to this, as the alternatives seem to be either a very dull progression that everybody can follow (and that quickly gets old) or rapid-fire Steely Dannish changes that invariably leave someone behind.

11. someone sheepishly tries to get everyone to work on an actual song they've been writing for the past two months and quickly gives up because it sounds terrible with everyone trying to figure out what they're supposed to do
12. someone jokingly plays a famous riff from a big rock song, everyone joins in but it falls apart as soon as it's determined that no one knows how to play the rest of the song

ugh "jamming"

<3 jamming

that's lightweight jammin'

one of the most ostensibly fun / effectively fruitless activities in music.

^^ would not jam with

I still like it though, not that I get to do it often. It's always much better if there is a bit of material to work with. For musicians, it can be the time when you get shown up for technical knowledge.

13. Rhythm guitarist only knows how to play flamenco flourishes in obscure keys. Is drowned out by metal-shredding lead guy.

ugh this thread is my constant work experience, except i get to be in the ever-present bored bass players girlfriend role trying to find something distracting to do

this thread otm so far

14. inappropriate slap bass

15. "oh shit i didnt know my gain channel was turned up all the way when i channel switched" ear nuking moment

16. "Does anyone know any drummers?"

17. someone has a bad cord but refuses to believe it

18. Most skilled player's discomfort with skill level of least skilled player(s) leads to sulky introversion/enervated jamming

So far so good.

http://www.google.com/search?l&q=";bass+player+infractions"

that's enervated jammin'

(aargh. Search for it yourselves)

19. Someone gets hit in the face with the bass head due to jam taking place in host's front room.

20. Both guitarists playing exactly the same thing but at different times.

21. everything ends up sounding vaguely like stoner rock. pretty sure this is a result of:

4. Repetitive "groove" that goes on for 25 minutes and only ends when the drummer tells everyone that it's going nowhere.

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 5:42 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

+

5. delay pedal atmospherics

― saturday nose fever (electricsound), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 5:42 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

+

endless solos

it is inevitable that at some point things will get way, way too loud

22. Neighbours

Jam POO:

strawberry
quince
The
grape
blackberry
Pearl

toe

23. room has one fewer electrical outlet than required.

Jam POO:

strawberry
quince
The
grape
blackberry
Pearl

― Ye Mad Puffin, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 12:54 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

toe

― Ye Mad Puffin, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 12:55 PM Bookmark

Least valuable poster nominee for this.

24. critical part of someone's signal chain is missing a battery, power supply or cable
25. everyone else basically relieved

alternative to this:

6. Heinous microphone feedback

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 5:42 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

26. vocal mics are hooked up to a weak pa and/or tiny shitty speakers so all vocals are too quiet and muffled, but it doesn't matter because everyone's too scared to sing anything

anyways singing isn't really typically part of "jamming" in my experience

26. The sound of A440 from a six-dollar metronome approximately 5 times an hour.

27.^

28. Microphone plugged into digital delay.

^ yesssss

i remember reading somewhere about how robert quine and lou reed started their collaboration after getting together and jamming on sister ray and i thought wow that sounds like the coolest initial jam evar!

and ive just decided that any initial jam i rock in the future will be sister ray or nothing

I visited a friend back whenever it was, he has a music room.

So, me, him, and Amber and Alice all went in. Bear in mind, this is when they'd have been about 5 and 7 (That photo of Alice with the fender, you know the one, would be from about this time)

So, Alice (5) dashes onto the drum stool, picks up the sticks, and goes "Right, let's do "Put on yr dancing shoes!"

Yeah, we all fluffed the intro in a fit of "WTF?"

29. uncomfortable silence

30. keyboard player spends 15 minutes going through every single preset on their synth, one at a time, looking for "that sound that will totally suite this song, man"

30. keyboard player spends 15 minutes going through every single preset on their synth, one at a time, looking for "that sound that will totally suite this song, man"

mea culpa u_u

30b. Finds "Jump Brass", and everyone starts playing Huey Lewis & The News for about a minute.

30c. Finds 'piano house' preset, plays piano house dun dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun-dun break, bursts out laughing. No-one else laughs.

30d. Finds 'percussion' preset, plays super fast ten finger drum rolls, says to drummer "betcha can't play that", drummer flips off keyboard player.

(I have nothing against keyboard players btw, often am one in fact)

31. "Everybody stop playin for just a second... Hey, hey... Hey stop playing! YOOOO! STOP PLAYING FOR A SEC!!"

32. Guitarist spends at least half the session swapping a dozen different half-dead 9V batteries in his/her Fuzz Face clone.

33. Nut/bolt from drummer's kick pedal falls off, gets lost on patterned carpet.

34. "You're out of tune." "No, you're out of tune." "Trust me, I have perfect pitch".

haha how many people say that! "Listen, only two people ever in history had perfect pitch. Mozart and Bill Bailey. Now tune the fuck up."

Yeah, it really winds me up.

I'm a bit tone deaf, so usually it's like this:

bandmate: "You're out of tune!"
snoball: "Yeah, probably."

Also -

35. Someone always has some wild and wacky way of tuning their guitar. Stop lamely trying to keep it real and use a fucking tuner, yeah?

36. meanwhile, the drummer hasn't tuned their drums in four years

1. Someone playing funk licks while everyone else is trying to tune up.

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 11:34 (Yesterday)

Painfully, PAINFULLY otm.

Ah, in my era it was "Someone plays Deep Purple riff while everyone else is trying to get into the post-punk mood"

37. Technical Guy vs. Cave Man

TG: "it's add9/7b5/9sus4 UNLESS you think that 'mu major' steely dan thing would fit'

CM: *nods* 'gotcha- but play it slow & lemme look at your fingers...'

-quickly leads to #18

38. Vastly more technically skilled lead guitarist insists that Sublime's "Badfish" be covered; you retaliate by making him listen to "Ege Bamyasi" for the first time during a smoke break; Unfortunately, Can and Sublime CAN be blended

31. "Everybody stop playin for just a second... Hey, hey... Hey stop playing! YOOOO! STOP PLAYING FOR A SEC!!"

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Thursday, 20 January 2011 16:20 (1 month ago)

aaahaha. i'd also like to ammend this w/ 31-B. which is about verbatim but everybody is shouting at the drummer.

14. inappropriate slap bass

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:44 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

i got this far into the thread and the part of me that wanted to be in a band again grabbed his coat and hat. "OTM y'all, bye...!"

39. Listening back to session (recorded on guitarist's MP3 player), everyone giggling and smiling and nodding.

40. Guitarist plays session back to girl he likes. Never sees her again.

41. On the occasional prac where everyone get themselves set-up and ready at the same point, awkward 9 second 'whatdowestartwith' silence hangs in air like dead man's fart.

42. Keep trying to play stuff that ilx wont think is "blooze", leading to silence

43. Silence broken only by tube amp exploding

I have an initial jam session today... uh-oh!

44. Bassist/maracas player/teaboy sets out incongruous and detailed vision for a band, while imagining others might think he's talking about a different band and will ask him back

45. Bassist and drummer are trying to figure out a groove when guitarist enters and begins playing Nirvana riffs at full volume.

46. guitarist is playing sick nirvana riffs, drummer and bass player start playing some lame funk "groove"

and ive just decided that any initial jam i rock in the future will be sister ray or nothing

― "crut" copy (diamonddave85), Thursday, January 20, 2011 12:24 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark

had a sister ray jam with some friends a couple months ago — it was really fun!! everyone should try it once in their life

The talented poet Bernard Snowy, on I Make Music! Is there anything he CAN'T do?

(also here - Tracer Hand! I forgot that he had a guitar past. or is it a present?)

xpost find a job, keep a friend, get over my neuroses

but yay, thank u for calling me "talented"! :D

well, I am only going on the poems you have posted on ILB - I am impressed by the creativity and craft.

47. One person is visibly nervous and keeps apologizing

8. "A Minoooor, D, D, A Minoooor, E, E, E....."

― Bernard V. O'Hare (dog latin), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 11:47 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark

this makes me lol every time

5. delay pedal atmospherics

― saturday nose fever (electricsound), Wednesday, 19 January 2011 11:42 (3 months ago)

I was messing around with delay/chorus/phaser for an hour this morning, and was having a great time, then I realised that if anyone else had been there, they'd have been bored/irritated.

Stop lamely trying to keep it real and use a fucking tuner, yeah?

48. One guy brings fancy tuner that no-one else can work out how to use but, because they don't want to appear uncool, they carry on using it regardless with the result that after 15 minutes of faffing around everyone's more out of tune than when they started. Eventual outcome: "Oh fuck it, it'll do"

49. awkward chuckle/sheepish "yeah that was cool" at the end of a jam no one is actually sure was any good or enjoyable at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIgiYvis3OY

Is it better to have jammed and lost than never to have jammed at all?

Many years ago, I had dinner with and played some with Paul Reed Smith, of the Paul Reed Smith guitar company. A nice enough guy, albeit a little full of himself. One really funny thing he mentioned was that at a NAMM show a few years prior to this dinner/jam, he and his friends were talking about how to tame the inevitably cacophonous nature of GuitarCenter. They came to the conclusion that it would be tamed to some degree if they were to post what key everyone had to play in.

A guy that I knew who worked at Guitar Center said the show room sounds would be the on hold music dialing into hell.