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Originally Posted by Dr. Rez
First off Mr. Dave I am very sorry for never seeing this. I just randomly happened to see it in recent posts made while browsing. You are a very good writer and had a very interesting story to tell. I must admit some of the story near the end I skimmed but all the first entries about your dad and that jam room were quite interesting. his song was actually really good, I enjoyed it alot, would definitely be interested in hearing some more if you have any. Also your footage was cool as well. Unfortunately the quality of the camera was awful so I dont think I got a very good judge of the atmosphere, sure seemed like a good light show though by the look of it.
Secondly I can relate to so many of the points you have made about jamming with friends whether they be close or not. The problem is my friends always seem way to interested in JUST jamming. While I love that and a live performance is often half that, you need something of substance so you can have an excuse to play in front of people. Sure we did a few small shows and whatnot but never grew into anything more because they were never willing to put the time in to sit down and learn parts and make it sound remotely clean.
That is why I have wanted to go to college for the last 4 years. You seem to have had a good time meeting people who wanted to make music with you and that lived pretty close to you. What would you suggest doing regarding finding new people to play with. Im currently working and dont go to school so not many people around me play anything seriously. Just confused as to how to seek out people who would like to start seriously jamming now that I have a house thats perfect for it.
Again great journal keep it going, and im sorry it took me almost 5 months to get to it!
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It’s all good, thanks for the positive feedback haha (and TrollHeart as well). To be honest I don’t expect that many people to read it all. It’s as much of an opportunity for me to either clear out or reorganize a bunch of the crap in my head as anything else. That whole Baltimore can of worms was never supposed to be that long; I didn’t realize how deep that rabbit hole still happened to be hahaha. Also, considering one of my main recurring statements is “There’s far more to music than just the sounds you hear” it shouldn’t be too surprising that I see a Jam Room as a metaphor for the human psyche as much as a dirty room filled with amps in the back of a warehouse. Glad you enjoyed the clips hehe (and yeah, it was an AWESOME light show hahaha, I figure about 100 people in attendance).
I’m going to address your comment backwards because the next bit goes all Led Zep (
Ramble On!) Don’t think that I’m discouraging you from going to school for a second, but please have a better reason than just wanting to meet new people and stuff. Meeting people and finding people to jam with is almost a given in college / uni, the one thing you might have a bit of a hassle with is being seen as an ‘old’ guy. It took me a jam or two to warm up to playing with people in their 30s when I was in my 20s mainly due to my lack of experience with dealing with that level of age difference as equals. Even if you’re only in your mid-20s, the fact that you’d be surrounded by people who were still in high school a few months ago and you weren’t makes you appear ‘old / grown up’ in a lot of their eyes.
As for finding people to play with, I wouldn’t necessarily advertise the fact that I have a jam house right off the bat because it’s a bit of a kick-me sign for getting your place robbed. What’s your local scene like? Facebook groups for bars / venues that normally host live music? Out here there’s a general local message board, but it’s mainly amateur, if you want to step up or at least start trying you need to get involved with FB groups. Also, even if you’re not a student it doesn’t mean you can’t put a notice on school bulletin boards that you’re looking for musicians. Specify as much information as you can when you’re soliciting as well; that you want to start a gigging band, that you have a rehearsal space, what sort of style you’re hoping from the other musicians. It’s no fun for anyone to look for a metal singer but never specifying whether or not you want a Rob Halford screaming type or some black metal growler, right?
Your second point in regards to jamming and the purpose of performance is spot on and something I actually discussed at length with my cousin last week. He went the opposite direction than what I did and is actually involved with two proper working bands. I find it interesting to look back as well since both of our fathers played music, but his never had the same level of success as mine.
Ultimately we came to the conclusion that as a musician or any sort of performer you NEED to be able to recognize the
raison d’etre of a stage and respect it. That doesn’t mean you can’t be an improvisational freak out band, but you still need to accept that if you’re on a stage you have to respect and entertain the crowd. The point of being on a stage is to showcase some sort of performance for the crowd. The big mistake I used to, and a lot of idealistic amateur musicians continue to make, is ignoring the crowd, they don’t want to ‘sell out’ by appealing to the masses so they perform for the sake of their own ego (but holy crap dude don’t ever call them out on that while they’re drinking or you’re going to have a seriously pissy temper tantrum on your hands).
Something else we discussed was the lack of people playing music for the simple fun of it. When we were kids he could have named 10-15 places back home where he could be guaranteed to find some kind of live music every weekend (their living room was one of those places). Nothing major or earth shattering, but you knew if you went to buddy’s house on Saturday afternoon there would be a few people jamming with acoustics, and if you went to dude’s cottage that evening there would be a different group of people busting it out on theirs as well. At this point, he’s hard pressed to find one spot when we go back home where he can be guaranteed there will be live music.
There’s something to be said for economic downturns and an aging population especially in rural areas but I don’t think the lack of jobs and increase in old people is necessarily causing a decline in music so much as a shift in cultural attitudes and expectations due to technological innovation. On one hand technology has changed the face of live music, DJs who play ‘gigs’ with just an iPod, on the other it seems less and less people just play for fun. It seems to me that we, as a culture, did more with less, before we had all those technological distractions we were forced to spend our time doing other things and developing various skills and abilities based on those hobbies. Back then ‘showing off’ was a reflection of your talents, today ‘showing off’ is about displaying your material possessions.
As a result of that technological shift it seems that there's far less opportunity for 3-4
good musicians to entertain a crowd of a few hundred as opposed to a few hundred melodic geeks entertaining groups of 3-4 people everywhere via their phones. That semi-professional middle ground between garage grade amateurs and international superstars has become very eroded over the last few decades to the point where it's become an undeniable concern. I'm not saying the sky is falling and that this shift is the death of good music, but at the same time it's hardly an encouraging direction for society to be moving towards in regards to the arts.
Dang, I didn’t expect this response to be this long hahaha