Jamming As a Rhythm Guitarist
Zot Zin Guitar Lessons
A jam is a get together of musicians who all together make up music on the spot.
Very often the musicians who come together to jam will play
1.Blues (This is a set in stone 12-bar musical form that musicians typically have memorized, which makes it a great way for musicians who never played together before to instantly connect and jam.)
2.Jazz standards. (Especially jazz musicians play standards when they get together. They more often than not know the songs by heart and improvise over the song’s chord progression).
3.Freely improvise new musical material together. This is typically the most exciting and rewarding kind of jamming, because you are creating new music together from scratch, completely free and in the moment.
Most of the time either one of 2 things happen when you tell a guitar student: “You and me are going to jam and you’re the rhythm guitarist. Go for it.”
1.The student completely blanks out
2.The student starts strumming basic beginner’s chords or bar chords using a rudimentary (folk or singer-songwriter oriented) rhythm.
The main issue at hand leading to either one of those 2 responses is a lack of understanding of theory, harmony and rhythm techniques. There is nothing wrong with strumming bar chords. If you sing on top of it you are basically performing a song.
However: when you are jamming with another player, you are not merely “playing a song”, you are “making up music together” on the spot. As such: your goal and job is to “inspire” the other person to come up with great improvisations and creative musical moments.
It is very hard to play your best and come up with fantastic melodies and evoke emotion in your playing if the other player is distracting you with bad timing, undeveloped sound, rudimentary rhythmic skills and basic, uninspiring chords.
Musicians who jam, feed off of each other, inspire and excite one another and incite creativity providing:
1.Rich, interesting, colorful chords that inspire 2.Interesting chord progressions 3.A harmonic rhythm that is concise and dependable. 4.Interesting varying rhythms 5.A more band arrangement oriented kind of rhythm guitar playing incorporating percussive muted attacks and bass notes or bass lines with the chords. 6.Great rhythmic feel and groove 7.Chordal embellishments
Jamming with musicians is tons of fun. We have found that the lessons we offer on how to jam with other musicians, is one of the topics our students are always very excited about. You can find out more about the guitar lessons online at zotzinguitarlessons.com
About the Author
Vreny, is a patient and an enthusiastic teacher in California. With 17 years of teaching experience, he offers the best <b> guitar lessons california</b>. His life's goal has been to make the world a fun place to live in, sharing his love for music through education.
Tell others about
this page:
Comments? Questions? Email Here