How do you jam with other guitarists?

You’ve played guitar for awhile. You know some songs, you can play some cool chords, you’ve worked on strumming patterns and even some fingerstyle playing. When you play something you’ve practiced, you sound great. But, when you have to jam with someone you’ve never met, on a song that you don’t know, you get stuck.

Does this sound familiar? Have you ever been lost in the middle of a jam?

I know how this feels like.

I remember when I was in a jam once with some friends in college. The song was Chick Corea’s Spain. I thought I knew how to solo on the song. My confidence was way beyond my actual skill. My playing feel awkward and I could only play one lick that maybe sounded good. The rest was a mess. I played random ideas that didn’t work. At times, I was lost!

I remember how this felt and this made me want to learn how to improvise better. In fact, I made it my focus to learn how to improvise and how to teach it. That’s what I did when I went to Berklee. I studied improvisation with legendary teachers like Hal Crook and Ed Tomassi. I took private lessons with guitar teachers like Mick Goodrick and Bret Willmott. I learned a lot and I’ll be sharing more of what I learned on this site over time.

So, the cool thing is you can learn how to jam better. There’s a strategy to this and I’d like to share with you a concept I heard from legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino.

Pat says that there are two kinds of playing and practice:

• Step Time – thinking, playing out of time, analyzing what to do, figuring out what options are available
• Real Time – not thinking, simply trusting your instincts and going with the flow

What this means is that you can decide what kind of practice you need at any point in time. Let’s say you find out that you keep playing the same A minor pentatonic licks all the time, then it’s time to practice in Step Time and find new things to play.

Another situation would be you having all these cool licks but they never seem come out when you actually jam. Then, this is time for you to do more Real Time practice. That means you need to jam more!

Here are action steps you can take to improve your jamming skills. There’s two different plans, one for your own solo practice and another plan for those who have a friend or friends they can jam with. With jamming, the best way to learn is to jam with a friend.

[ACTION STEPS]

Solo practice plan:

1. Pick a chord or chord progression to jam.
2. Pick a style of music or groove and tempo.
3. Record a 3-minute backing track of you playing the chords along with a metronome
4. Jam with the backing track and record your playing
5. Listen to what was good and what y0u could improve about your playing.
6. Pick one thing to improve and jam again. This time focus on improving that one thing.
7. Some things that you might notice in your solo:
   • not having any cool melodies
   • not having actual melodies
   • playing only licks
   • playing nothing resembling a solo
   • playing non-stop
   • playing too little
   • playing is out of time
   • same rhythms all the time
   • solo doesn’t develop
   • solo doesn’t tell a story
   • nothing memorable about the solo

Whatever you choose to fix, fix only one thing at a time!

Group or duo practice plan:

1. Pick a chord or chord progression to jam.
2. Pick a style of music or groove and tempo.
3. Decide on who will play the accompaniment and who will solo first.
4. Determine what scale you’re going to explore. This is a key center approach using one scale that hopefully will fit the chord progression.
5. Jam using licks, melodies and ideas from that scale.
6. This approach allows you to really learn the sound of the scale.
7. Another approach is to solo by outlining each chord in your solo. This is a chord of the moment approach.
8. Take turns soloing and accompanying. Both are important skills!

Now, you might not know what scales or licks will work with the song or chord progression you’re working on. How do you find out what’s the right one to use?

Trust your ears. If something sounds good, use it. If you’re unsure, record your playing and listen back to figure out whether it works. If you’re completely unsure, transcribe licks and ideas from your favorite guitarist soloing over the same chord, progression or song.

Ideas come from either inward (your inner ear) or outward (transcribing someone else’s idea). Music theory and an understanding of harmony can also help you to explore the choices you can make.

The most important thing about jamming is listening. Listen to what the other musicians are playing. Listen and react to what you hear. Some people only play whatever they want n to what the other musicians are playing. Listen and react to what you hear. Some people only play whatever they want without considering what is happening in the moment.  These people are not musicians. To be a musician, you need to listen closely and interact.

Then, you’re really jamming! =)

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Hope you found this blog post helpful. Please share this post if you think others might enjoy it!

Now, I’d love to hear from you.

What’s the one main takeaway for you from this blog post?
Do you have your own personal tips for jamming?

Leave your answer in the comments below! Remember to share as much detail as possible so that we can all learn from one another. Your insight may help a fellow guitarist from across the world.

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Best wishes,
Az