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Hello and welcome to the NewGrounds Jam Sessions Project! Here you can collaborate with myself and other artists to create online Jam Sessions!
A Jam Session, in real life, is a musical act where musicians sit together without any previous preparation or predefined arrangements besides what they know, and "Jam" on something they don't know or that one invented; improvisation. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one player, or may be wholly improvisational, but in the end the point is to improvise, not to do covers.
What I want to do here, is to create Online Jam Sessions. It obviously won't be as good as real live Jam sessions, but it still should be freakin' awesome. The main point is, that one artist picks up his instrument and records the rhythm (the "melody", "Back-up", aka not the lead). He uploads it, tells people right here in the topic what is it, and people record themselves on top of it, send it back to the original artist, and he decides whether to upload or not.
Main Guidelines
- Nothing, and I mean nothing, in this thread, is to be used maliciously.
- Be supportive. The Jam Sessions are both for beginners and for professionals. The abilities to hear and understand chord progressions and to keep time are a prerequisite; However, the ability to play improvised leads that contain at least a suggestion of the melody is desired, but not a must.
- While bitching, ranting and moaning are welcomed, don't moan if no one picks up your rhythm, or if the original artist prefers not to use your recording. Just try again until you make something better.
- It goes like this. The first musician (Let's call him "Jim") records a rhythm. Another 2 musicians ("Bob" and "Melanie") tell Jim they like it in the topic, pick it up, download it, record themselves on it, and send it back to Jim. Jim likes Melanie's playing more then Bob's, and he uploads THAT Jam session to NewGrounds. ONLY "JIM" (THE MUSICIAN THAT STARTED THE JAM) IS ALLOWED TO UPLOAD THE JAM SESSION, UNLESS AGREED OTHERWISE.
- For unfinished work, please don't upload your songs to NewGrounds. Work in progress you should upload to different sites. I'm using FileDen, but use whatever you want as long as people can download from it without having to create accounts or something stupid and pesky of the sort.
- When you upload any finished Jam Sessions, upload it with this name - "NGJSP - ________". The line is the name of the Jam (A name, or "Blues in E", "Jazz in C", "Fun funk improv "). NGJSP Stands for NewGrounds Jam Session Project.
Do's
- Enjoy it. We are here to have fun, to jam and to improvise.
- Define what sound you're looking for. You upload a rhythm and you're looking for a lead, say "I'm looking for an acoustic funky lead", or "I'm looking for a fast and furious, electric, distorted, rock-ish lead".
- Buy milk.
- Try to do have more then 2 people in your Jam, it's more interesting.
Dont's
- Don't upload the Jam session unless all musicians involved agree to upload. And the only one who should upload the Jam session is the one who started it.
- Don't start a Jam session without some materiel in your hands.
- Don't play with a drum machine. If you don't have a drummer to Jam with, don't replace them with a machine.
That's pretty much it! I'll get it rolling in the next post.
