Fretboard Jam - 2017 Leicester - 2nd September - Running Order V4 Now up!!

Bridgehouse

I only want a t-shirt if it says "Official Jam Organising Skivvy" on it

Alnico

I thought "Jammy Git" was quite good?

Bridgehouse

Okay, a quick update.

Have been having a chat with the other organisers, and I've noticed a few things:

- We have a full complement of 30 people. That's a lot.
- We have a mix of experienced, not so experienced, and very inexperienced
- There is a massive song list suggested with varied tastes and massively varied abilities
- We only have 5 hours to cram in as much as possible
- You can please some of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time
- It's all about having fun, with an emphasis on helping inexperienced players experience what playing with a band is really like
- We have more than one drummer and bass player on hand

See where I'm going?

30 people paying £8 is a lot - considering the first room booking was £80.

So, I'm going to book another room on the 2nd Sept. This means we can have an 'experienced' room, and an 'experienced' song list, and a 'inexperienced' room with an 'inexperienced' song list. Obviously on the day people can drift around wherever they would like to - listen to jams, take part, ogle gear, fiddle about with stuff and all sorts of other stuff as well. It also means twice the time - 10 hours of Jam time, not 5, so more chance for people to play what they want. I think with this amount of time, it means everyone will get at least one chance to play one song they really want to, and probably two. It will mean some will get a chance to play a lot more, but ultimately that depends on how keen you are and how much confidence you have. 

Once done, we will publish two lists of songs - Experienced, and Inexperienced. You'll then get a chance to declare an interest in songs from either list, learn them, and then on the day we can run those lists in tandem and people will get more of a chance to play what they want. 

I don't propose to increase the number of places as that will just compound the problem. However, I am putting thought to getting an "Up Norf" jam and a "Dahn Sahf" jam up and running for October/November time as well.. Bear with me on that.

I'll book tomorrow (if they have another room free!) 

If anyone has any massive objection then let me know by tomorrow. However, I reserve the right to ignore you and book anyway.

Legionreturns

All sounds reasonable. My only concern is that there are still some seasoned pros to babysit us noobs. I certainly want to be playing with better players than me for the most part. 

Alnico

Legionreturns said:

All sounds reasonable. My only concern is that there are still some seasoned pros to babysit us noobs. I certainly want to be playing with better players than me for the most part. 

Exactly your point is exactly why we're looking at doing this, so that we can run a room FOR the less experienced and that'll be done by some of us who've done this before.

The idea of having a room where more of the experienced stuff is going on is so that in the 'Other Room' we can have some focus on "The Noobs" and try to give some practical experience to them in a less hectic setting. I'll be doing some of that,.........a sort of Jam Session Workshop if you like.

How does that sound to you Newbies?
A practical 'How-To' on Jam Sessions and how to survive them?

Alnico

As @Bridgehouse has already said if people have a big problem with this we can still talk about doing it either way.
There's plenty of time to sort this out.

Legionreturns

I'm just a little concerned that it'll turn into a bit of them and us personally. A big part of the attraction of this day is also getting to see some really good players doing their thing, safe in the knowledge that I can watch close up, grab some tips and get inspired without looking like a total knob. Getting to play and socialise with a big group of people is also right up there on the selling points for this, and splitting it up means I'll miss a lot of what goes on. 

Nikko

As a noob, this sounds like a good idea to me. I'd obviously be more comfortable in the noob room, but I would also like to push myself outside of my comfort zone and do at least one song with the more seasoned players. The fact that we could float around between rooms sounds perfect. I think it would be a good idea to all get together at the end in one room for one final song of the day though. Song obviously to be decided upon. 

Alnico

Legionreturns said:

I'm just a little concerned that it'll turn into a bit of them and us personally. A big part of the attraction of this day is also getting to see some really good players doing their thing, safe in the knowledge that I can watch close up, grab some tips and get inspired without looking like a total knob. Getting to play and socialise with a big group of people is also right up there on the selling points for this, and splitting it up means I'll miss a lot of what goes on. 

Ok, point taken.

This is just an idea that came from some newbies seem to feel that too much 'Experience' in the room might make them feel LESS comfortable about joining in.
It's just a case of finding a balance for us so that's what we'll try to do.

You make good points.

Bridgehouse

Just to be absolutely clear..

When I first suggested this idea, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to get 10 people along. We now have 30 paid up subscribers. 

We have 1 room booked for 5 hours. There's only 1 PA, 1 drum kit etc. and in all practical senses, you can only have 1 song being played at a time, and in reality probably only about a maximum of 8 to 10 people taking part in that. That means 20 people not playing at that time.

In all reality, to get organised, set up kit, sort out what you are doing, and have a good go at a song, including repeating bits, working bits out, sorting out gear issues, change around times, getting the right people in the right place etc. I would imagine each 'slot' will take 10-15 mins. Lets be generous - 10 mins. That's 6 slots per hour. That's 6x5=30 slots for the full 5 hours, if we kick off pretty smartish and pack away dead quickly. In reality, I think its going to be more like 15 mins, and thus 4 slots an hour, and 15 mins either end for setting up and packing away - that means 18 slots. 

We have a song list of 50+ songs already.... 

Now, the idea of two rooms is more divide and conquer. Two rooms gives us the potential for between 36 - 60 slots depending on how efficient we are. It also means twice the number of people playing at the same time. It also allows some more experienced style songs to be done without meaning the less experienced guys feel they can't take part at that time. 

In my original suggestion, I didn't mean for the two sessions to be closed. Both open. Both allowing anyone to move between the two whenever they feel like it. Sometimes one room will be busy, sometimes it will be the other one. 


Now, I'm happy to do whatever. We have a room booked, 5 hours of time, and 30 people. We can keep it like that, but for complete openness, and being absolutely honest, I want everyone to realise up front now that that means that we will in reality probably only get through 18 - 25 ish songs in the afternoon. If everyone is happy with that, then that's great. 

Given the sheer number of songs suggested (which is why I had the other thread closed!) I think people want to get through the most material possible in the time we have. That's fine too. The suggestion I made was based on the fact that two rooms allows twice the amount of material to be done. Similarly, given we will publish the lists well before people may think "I want to play/listen/get tips on 10 songs in room one and 10 in room two, all at different times, and I'll float between them. Some might want to stick in one room all afternoon, others might choose to play it by ear on the day. 

If I'm honest, we are making this up as we go along. It's much bigger than we first imagined, and you have to bear with us on that. Similarly, we want everyone to get as most out of it as we can. Also, it's your jam session, not mine, or @Alnico 's. We will go with the flow. But we can only do what we can with what we have.

The limits at the moment are 1 room, 5 hours, and one song at a time that will probably in reality take up a 15 minute slot end to end. And there's 30 people potentially in that room from time to time. And that's fine if we are happy with that. 

There is the potential to put on another room - it will be close, easily accessible etc. which gives us more choice and expandability. If we think that's a good option then great. If not, then that's fine too. 

Do remember though, we can't please everyone all the time. In fact, it's going to be hard enough to please most people most of the time! Reality is, we will please some people some of the time. 

Bridgehouse

And just to show that I'm not a sour faced kill joy and I do actually care deeply about this Jam session and getting it right, I'd like to throw another option into the mix:

2 rooms. 

1 "Formal"

1 "Relaxed"

In the Formal room, we have a song list, a schedule, people lined up to play, and people can join in, get tips, watch, play along, etc. etc. in a structured and "jam" like way, just as we planned.

In the Relaxed room, we have people trying out gear, amps, guitars, getting advice on setup, changing strings, having a chat, having some 1-1 help with bits, doing some informal jamming and practice etc. etc.

In effect, the Formal room is the main room, where most people will be, where we stick to the song structure and have a proper schedule. 

The relaxed room is for gearbating, cork sniffing, swearing at strings when they stab you, having a chat, getting some help, frantically trying to practice Am7 before your jam turn, or whatever the hell you want to do..

Just another thought for the mix.

As I said before, we have 1 room booked for us all to do probably 20 ish songs. If that's cool for everyone then cool.

If we fancy some MOAR on the day, then we have the option of a second room at no cost to anyone to either have a second jam-fest, or just a widdle, gearbate, cork sniff and other such stuff.

Legionreturns

Don't get me wrong, it will be a fantastic day no matter what, and you're completely right when you say two rooms gives us a chance to cover more ground. I think what made me a bit jumpy was the idea of having an experienced room and a noob room. Perhaps, given the number of experienced musicians coming, we just have two rooms split by genre or just set list, as opposed to billing them as different abilities. The original idea was a day aimed at less experienced players and wiser heads imparting knowledge on others. 

I certainly don't want to come across as whinging, and I really appreciate the effort and willingness to get this off the ground. So thank you. 

Bridgehouse

Legionreturns said:

Don't get me wrong, it will be a fantastic day no matter what, and you're completely right when you say two rooms gives us a chance to cover more ground. I think what made me a bit jumpy was the idea of having an experienced room and a noob room. Perhaps, given the number of experienced musicians coming, we just have two rooms split by genre or just set list, as opposed to billing them as different abilities. The original idea was a day aimed at less experienced players and wiser heads imparting knowledge on others. 

I certainly don't want to come across as whinging, and I really appreciate the effort and willingness to get this off the ground. So thank you. 

I'm more than happy for everyone to have a debate here on whether a second room is a good idea. 

We have one room, with a more inexperienced-oriented theme of imparting knowledge, listening to geniuses play well, having a go and getting some experience in a friendly and totally risk free environment. That's set up, in the bag, sorted and happening.

There's lots of possibilities with a second room:
- A parallel room to get more songs in given limited time and 30 people (!) 
- A more experienced room for the widdlers and shredders to play mad licks
- An informal room to gearbate, cork sniff, change strings, ogle guitars etc. etc.

And of course, the option of no second room at all to keep us together in one space. All valid. 

I propose to let you guys debate it out for a few days and not poke my nose in too much (unless to answer questions), and after some chat I'll try to pick what I think is the consensus/most popular view and act on that. That might be to keep it as it is as one room, or it might be one of the second room suggestions. Either way, I'm cool with whatever. 

Given we have the cash and they have the space, I thought it only fair to let you all have a chance to decide whether to go down that route. To be honest, I didn't want us to get there on the day and everyone to say "shame we didn't book a second room, we could have done 'x' in there"

Debate away!

bigjon

I think you might be pleasantly surprised at how many songs we get through on the day, especially if the more tentative people have done a bit of homework on what they are going to play.

If you get the backing band / singer doing sets of about three songs at a time, you could rotate the guest musicians more frequently if they wanted a breather but they could stay up for two or all three songs of the set if they were up for it. (Of course, jam etiquette is that you tune up BEFORE you plug in on stage :-) ).

Average for the jam-nights I'm involved with is 15 minutes for a three-song set, of course the pace in September will be slower but it might well speed up a bit as the afternoon goes on and some momentum builds up. Maybe you could alternate; one three-song set with players who want to play all three songs, then one three-song set with players who only want to play one or two songs each.

darthed1981

FWIW the social aspect could be helped by a second sort of chill out room, where things are more informal not to mention somewhere to practise.

I'd like to get to know you all a bit maybe make some local mates for future jamming, field trips to Andertons etc ☺

slacker

I like the principle of a second room. What is done with it can vary.  You could make an itinary where it stars off as a tuning practivce chill room and then is used as a jam room later. 

I don't actually care about the detail . If there is a written itinary people will know what is going on in each room at any given time.

Also for those that have offered to help it will make it easier. We,ll know when we are supporting, when we can chill and when we have an opportunity to take a song on guitar.

darthed1981

Just a thought, during the jam is everything going to be individual amps, or is there some PA/mixing going on?

There are lots of studio amps I know, does anyone who has used the studio know which ones?

digitalscream

darthed1981 said:

Just a thought, during the jam is everything going to be individual amps, or is there some PA/mixing going on?

There are lots of studio amps I know, does anyone who has used the studio know which ones?

I suspect the smart thing - given the amount of gear and people there - is going to be just vocals and maybe the kick running through the PA. That'd be my suggestion anyway...

monofin

Reckon booking the 2nd room as a chill room is a great idea. We have the funds so why not

Legionreturns

Obviously we're also going to have the dirty smokers corner outside for in depth discussions and random banter.