Preparing For A Jam Session - The Jazz Piano Site [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

(http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/)



Preparing For A Jam Session Let’s say you got invited to a Jam Session with a few other musicians and so you want to attend and not make a fool of yourself. What do you do? Well, I’ve got a separate lesson on the ‘Minimum Requirements to play Jazz Piano (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/jazz-chordvoicings/jazz-piano-minimum-requirements/)’ where I list the minimum number of techniques that you should know when playing a song, so you’re welcome to read that lesson. In this video I’m hoping to say a few more generic things about how to prepare for a jam session and how to play in a jam session.

Learn the Repertoire So obviously, rst you need to get a list of the repertoire you will be playing at the jam session, so you know what songs you have to learn. As the piano player, you’re in charge of playing the chords, though you’ll also get a chance to solo. You’ll also have to play the bass-line if there is no bass player.

Fill in the Gaps Very broadly, there are three registers in music: lower (bass), middle (tenor, alto), upper (soprano). To get a full, dense and interesting sound, the band needs to cover all three of these registers.  

  Piano has the great advantage of having quite a large range and so is able to cover all three registers rather well. This makes it very versatile in a group setting. And as the pianist, you essentially just need to ll in the gaps. If you’re playing with a double bass, stick to the middle and upper register. If you’re playing with a soprano vocalist, stick to the lower and middle register.

If you’re playing with a guitar and a Tenor Sax, play a walking bassline in the lower register



and some lls in the upper register.

Right, ll in the gaps!   So very generally, you should be able to play in any combination of these registers, so for example: Bass + Harmony (+ lls) Bass + Melody (+ lls) Harmony + Melody (+ lls) Harmony + Upper Structure (+ lls)

Music Lessons Online - Professional Touring Musician Experienced teacher and professional touring musician. jordanmorita.com

OPEN

Listen The whole point of playing in a band is to interact and listen and respond to the other band members. It’s supposed to be a two way conversation. You listen to everyone and responds accordingly, and everyone listens to you and responds accordingly. If there is no interaction between the instruments then you may as well be playing with a backing track at home. So listen to the other band members and respond: If the soloist goes high, you go low If the soloist plays softly, you play softly If the soloist plays a phrase, repeat or mimic it – as a kind of call and response

Have Fun and Try Some Weird Stu The whole point of jamming with others is to have fun. So…have some fun – do some weird or usual stu and just see what happens. Try inserting the following during your playing: Silence Unusual Reharmonisations (Polychords) Descending Chromatic Chords (Leaving the chord progression) Repeating Ostinati/Pedal Point

Quote a di erent song during your solo Play the melody in the bass (and scare the crap out of the bassist)



Displace the melody etc.

Your goal is almost to try throw the other people o their game and make them stu up. So just do some stu and see how they respond. That’s the di erence between and half the fun of playing in a Jazz Band as opposed to an Orchestra – you can just make stu up and no one is going to chastise you if you play the wrong note.  

Music Lessons with a pro - Professional touring musician Experienced teacher and professional touring musician available for online lessons. jordanmorita.com

OPEN

How to Prepare for a Jam Session

  >> NEXT LESSON >> (/jazz-piano-lessons/jazz-chord-voicings/tone-clusters-secundal-harmony)

  How To Rebuild Your Piano Complete manual on piano rebuilding Free consultation with purchase. a eckpianotuning.com

Search The Jazz Piano Site

OPEN

Search …



Donate While all my lessons are free, if you nd them useful please consider donating to help keep them coming. (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr? cmd=_donations&business=DUZ6VARAK7VAE&lc=AU&item_name=Walk%20That%20Bass¤cy_c ode=AUD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donate_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted)   Home (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com) Donate (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/donate/) Resources (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/resources/) Privacy Policy (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/privacy-policy/) Sitemap (http://www.thejazzpianosite.com/sitemap/)

Theme by Tesseract (https://tesseracttheme.com)  

(https://tesseracttheme.com)