South West Jam - Factory Studios (Bristol) Edition - 8th June 2019

fandango

spark240 said:

So, If anyone fancies some acoustic jams in the other room, I have a few to try out, me and a pal can run through them and anyone can join in if time and circumstances permit. ;-)

High and Dry - Radiohead
Hero - Foo fighters
Nothing ever happens - Del amitri
Empress - snow patrol
Harvest Moon - Neil young

We are only getting three rooms.

One for the song set, one for workshops, and one for song set practice.

If you want an Acoustic jam, please organise this well in advance to slot in with other plans, otherwise it will be chaos.

Funkfingers

With one month to go, the song list and instrument roles could do with being confirmed and finalised. 

Time constraints at the venue mean that the current song list is probably too long for everything to get a proper turn. Your friendly neighbourhood organisers are considering a cull.

To make sure that your preferred songs remain on the list, volunteer to play on them or convince others to do so.

Alnico

I have offered to run a group workshop tutorial at this event.

It's designed for beginner to intermediate players and it's aimed at improving skills relevant to playing live at jam sessions.

If enough people are interested and if it can fit in with the performances, here's what it will include:

1 - Basic theory applied to the guitar fretboard.
2 - Key signatures and commonly used chord progressions.
3 - Shortcuts and relationships between strings.
4 - Major and minor scale, intervals and how to use them.
5 - Phrasing technique and rhythm.

The only real pre-requisites for this are:

1 - Know all 7 chords and how to play them, both major and minor . (14 chords total).
2 - Know all of the notes at every fret position up to the 12th fret on the Low E (6th) and the A (5th) string.
3 - Know how to play the E and the A Shape bar chords in all positions up to the 12th fret.

The idea is to have everyone who's taking part sat with an electric guitar plugged in and the volume turned down.

Part of it is listening and for those who want to, part of it is playing. One part of it will involve a few playing together and then one person at a time stepping forward sonically to play something improvised.

With the use of a PA there'll be examples of techniques from songs and some backing tracks to play along to.

This can be skimmed down to 1 hour and run a few times through the day or it can be expanded with more time for each subject and run once. There's a lot to learn if you're the type who's only ever played at home, doesn't really get theory at all and runs scared of those higher fret positions because you just don't know what they do or how they fit in with the rest. If you've already conquered that part of playing, this might be a bit too basic for you but anyone is welcome to sit in and watch.

This is a basic course aimed at taking the bare bones of playing and filling it out with some easy to remember techniques and some rock solid guidelines that will help you fit in and sound as good as you can do playing live. (Actual results may vary from person to person !).

Any questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

If this isn't of enough interest or if people think that this will clash with the excitement and nerves of the actual jam, It's perfectly fine. I run these tutorials as and when I can and have done for years in various ways. I've been thinking of taking it out as a complete "Thing" for a while so this was one possible way of testing the water.

I completely understand if this isn't of much interest and doesn't fit with the day.

It's also safe to say that if not *enough* people want to do this then we'll shelve the idea and I'll run this as a specific "Thing" at some point in the near future.

What do people think?

Brocco

@Alnico - this is hugely appreciated. My main goal would be to improve my lead fluidity and ability to improvise on the fly

MagicPigDetective

@Alnico sounds good. I'm down to play 3 or 4 songs, so I don't know how much time this allows me to do other things. If time does allows me to take part in your workshop, count me in.  

Alnico

MagicPigDetective said:

@Alnico sounds good. I'm down to play 3 or 4 songs, so I don't know how much time this allows me to do other things. If time does allows me to take part in your workshop, count me in.  

That's going to be the biggest sticking point with doing this.

I'm not trying to sell this, I'm looking for whether or not it will fit in and if it does, I'd enjoy doing it but if it doesn't work with a jam day, I'll work out how to run this as a "Thing" on it's own some other time.

It's no problem if this doesn't work for the Bristol Jam.

First thing to assess is how many are interested and *then* see if those people can be free for long enough to take part.

Just to reiterate this, the moment this adds to the headaches of the day, please drop the idea for now and I'll arrange a day doing just this in the near future.

If it's popular enough to become part of the day without causing headaches then I'll be glad to do it.

Brocco

@Alnico - I am pretty confident that we can facilitate the workshop. It would help the organisers enormously to know asap who wishes to participate, so we can consider this when thinking about the running order for the live room. 

mrkb

Sounds like it’ll cover some theory I’d be interested in and maybe give another view/way of thinking on things I do know, so I’d be interested in doing it. I’m only guitaring on a few tracks so should be able to make it work timing wise.

Alnico

Ok:

1 - Fandango
2 - Brocco
3 - MagicPigDetective
4 - Mark Blagdon
5 - 
6 - 
7 - 
8 - 
9 - 
10-

Fill that up and there's enough for one or two "Group(s)" as suits the day.

The minimum to make it work is 5 so if it works better and we only have 10 people, we could still run it twice in one day for two groups or if we get 20 people we can run two groups of 10.

10 is the max to keep it small enough to focus and relax.
5 is the minimum to have a broad range of personalities, ability and approach in the room.

As it stands it's 1 away from being worth doing for one group of 5. That's cool so if it gets a bit more interest, the organisers can start to stitch it in however they want to.

The order of the list above is simply the order in which I've seen names in the thread and has no bearing on who is in which group, if that becomes a thing.

I'll keep a close eye on this thread and update the list as we go.

Legionreturns

I'd probably be interested @Alnico but I feel like between singing, playing and looking after the recording, I'll be very hard to fit in. 

I suppose I could just book you for a 1:1 sometime up north though, so less of an issue. It's a good excuse to come and see you or have you and the lovely Audrey round  

roberty

Legionreturns said:

I'd probably be interested @Alnico but I feel like between singing, playing and looking after the recording, I'll be very hard to fit in. 

I suppose I could just book you for a 1:1 sometime up north though, so less of an issue. It's a good excuse to come and see you or have you and the lovely Audrey round  

I can mind the DAW @Legionreturns ;

Alnico

Let's keep this workshop idea open until Friday next week.

Today is 4 weeks until the event.

With 3 weeks left next weekend that's enough time for organisers to work with one plan or the other.

It's no great shakes if we don't do it this time. It can be done independently in the near future, which going by some private chats I've had, does seem like a better idea but let's see where this goes.

Friday 17th closing the list for the workshop and we can see what's going to happen from that.

Funkfingers

Speaking of closed lists ...

CONFIRMED SONG LIST

All Right Now 
Born to Be Wild
Comfortably Numb
Ironman 
Just Like Heaven
Motorcycle Emptiness 
My Hero 
Rock And Roll 
Rocks
Sit Down   
Teenage Kicks 
You Really Got Me 

ONE PERSON SHORT OF CONFIRMED SONG LIST

Alive 
Be Yourself 
Girl From Mars
Pump It Up

*

If you have not already done so, please put your name down for any songs on which you wish to play. Where there is sufficient demand, there will be more than one opportunity to perform each song.

If there is any song that you feel strongly should be reinstated to the lists above, use private messaging to assemble a line-up for that song, then, contact me or Brocco. 

Ithenkew.

mrkb

Fire just needs a bass player, anyone fancy doing that please?
its mostly D and C , I can email the guitar tab if that helps.

Funkfingers

Perhaps, I ought to make the effort to give that a listen? Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to Spotify and, hence, can only access a thirty second clip. Anyone got a copy on phonograph cylinder?

mart

mrkb said:

Fire just needs a bass player, anyone fancy doing that please?
its mostly D and C , I can email the guitar tab if that helps.

I can play bass on that if it helps. Although I’ll happily step back and let somebody else take the job if they’d prefer - I feel like I’m already playing on quite a lot.

mart

Funkfingers said:

Perhaps, I ought to make the effort to give that a listen? Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to Spotify and, hence, can only access a thirty second clip. Anyone got a copy on phonograph cylinder?

It's not great audio quality, but should give you an idea.

fandango

Funkfingers said:

Perhaps, I ought to make the effort to give that a listen? Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to Spotify and, hence, can only access a thirty second clip. Anyone got a copy on phonograph cylinder?

If not Spotify, then Youtube.

Brocco

As we have two rhythm guitarists for All Right Now I will move myself to Line Up #2. This creates an opportunity for anyone not in Line Up #1 to step up and take the other band roles - who anyone like to join me in Line Up #2?

roberty

Brocco said:

As we have two rhythm guitarists for All Right Now I will move myself to Line Up #2. This creates an opportunity for anyone not in Line Up #1 to step up and take the other band roles - who anyone like to join me in Line Up #2?

I could do with playing some lead guitar if that helps?