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

Bridgehouse · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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 · July 2017

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

Legionreturns · July 2017

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

horse · July 2017

I think the 2 rooms is a good idea. Maybe the 2nd room could be 'advanced jamming' or something?

I know that everyone will be welcoming and encouraging etc, but I also think it is easy to forget how intimidating it can feel to have a go when you are nervous about your playing, particularly if somebody has just ripped out a session quality solo before you. Some people coming might be being over-modest about their playing whereas others might genuinely be at a very early stage - we can't really know until the day, but 2 rooms where everyone is welcome at any point lets people choose what will help them most to experience.

Tbh I'll only really be playing standards / songs I can follow by ear / jamming on keys as I don't really have time to learn a lot new just for the day.

mikeyrob73 · July 2017

Damn it @bridgehouse im in Kos on that date :-(

McToot · July 2017

Just spotted this. What a truly beautiful place this is. Kudos to the suggesters/organisers/payers and players.

Alas (and I hang my head in a deep blue funk) I am slated to take my 9 year old daughter to see Little Mix at the South of England Showground on that day.

Un-fucking-believable

Legionreturns · July 2017

McToot said:

Just spotted this. What a truly beautiful place this is. Kudos to the suggesters/organisers/payers and players.

Alas (and I hang my head in a deep blue funk) I am slated to take my 9 year old daughter to see Little Mix at the South of England Showground on that day.

Un-fucking-believable

I suspect your ears will be no worse off than if you had to listen to me guitar strangling

TTony · July 2017

Given the numbers coming*, I'd say that having two rooms available is a good thing, otherwise there's going to be very limited playing time for most of the people there.

Not sure about splitting it between "advanced" & "noobs" (or however it'd be defined) as that seems like it would defeat some of the original purpose for the day of getting different ability/experience levels mixed together for all the good reasons.

That said, not sure how you could mix it together on any better a basis!

*30 booked/paid, so I'd expect c20 to actually show up on the day. Various unexpected problems will emerge between now and then which will prevent a good proportion making it. In my experience of these things ...

McToot · July 2017

Legionreturns said:

McToot said:

Just spotted this. What a truly beautiful place this is. Kudos to the suggesters/organisers/payers and players.

Alas (and I hang my head in a deep blue funk) I am slated to take my 9 year old daughter to see Little Mix at the South of England Showground on that day.

Un-fucking-believable

I suspect your ears will be no worse off than if you had to listen to me guitar strangling

I think you're overestimating Little Mix...

spark240 · July 2017

Should I be lucky enough to get a reserve place.....happy to jam loads of covers, or learn anything prior to, can I bring acoustic?

I can bring the Kemper, plus headphone amp and a few cans for private listening,

Will there be a list of instruments people intend to bring so we dont get 25 Les Pauls and not much else !

I have a couple of small amps if needed, leads, di box all that jazz....

Also...Im guessing this could get noisy.....possible quiet times like the Bham guitar show?

Can someone drop out please.....

TTony · July 2017

spark240 said:

so we dont get 25 Les Pauls and not much else !

yeah but one of them might be a good 'un ...

Legionreturns · July 2017

spark240 said:
Can someone drop out please.....

You can buy my ticket. It's from the original 10 issued and is now relic'd so common sense dictates it's now worth about 3 grand. Ppg?

darthed1981 · July 2017

McToot said:

Legionreturns said:

McToot said:

Just spotted this. What a truly beautiful place this is. Kudos to the suggesters/organisers/payers and players.

Alas (and I hang my head in a deep blue funk) I am slated to take my 9 year old daughter to see Little Mix at the South of England Showground on that day.

Un-fucking-believable

I suspect your ears will be no worse off than if you had to listen to me guitar strangling

I think you're overestimating Little Mix...

To be fair, they are quite easy on the eye.

aord43 · July 2017

Just to add my contribution - since we have the funds and the number of participants two rooms is a very good idea (wasn't "Two Rooms" an Elton John covers album?)
Exactly what we do with it can be pinned down later, whether practice, chill out, advanced playing, or whatever.

Nikko · July 2017

Ive got an idea for the second room...

hywelg · July 2017

I'm a bit late to this as I usually hang about in Amps rather than geetars.

Can I get on the reserve list please? Happy to bring amps and cabs if required (Rambler,D Clone, 1987clone,etc )

Now for a bit of bribery.....how about some beer??? I have some rather decent (and I am a beer snob so if it was crap it would have gone down the drain by now) bottled beers which actually do need drinking as I need to free up some crate space for new brews.

I also have a lot of song sheets (nearly 90) prepared over the course of 10 years in various attempts at getting bands into regular gigging. These were roundly criciticed by @Phil_aka_Pip a while ago as being neither use nor ornament but I believe they form a very decent basis for getting everyone to follow the song properly. So they have the chords, lyrics and the song structure, but you need to know how the song goes in order to work with them.

I'd be happy to share these if they'd be of any use. List of songs is here
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l5ww4ojyipvgqjt/SongNames.txt?dl=0

Alnico · July 2017

@hywelg ;;
Sure....I'll put you on the reserve list later when I'm at home.
I'm not sure about drinking beer on the premises at quad. Studios tend to discourage it but I don't know that for sure.

Phil is someone I consider a friend but I agree with you about song sheets, they are eminently useful and it's something I mentioned very early on. Im not sure why Phil would have criticised that? There's plenty of time for us to sort that out though and the song suggestions are closed for now.

I'll put your name down as reserve and see what happens. You're number 2 on that list behind @spark240 ;;

Vinylfan · July 2017

Initially I was in two minds apart having two rooms as opposed to the original one room (maybe I just don't like change). I think my main fear was that the 'experienced' room would attract all those that could really play etc and the 'inexperienced' room would be left full of people that can't (e.g. me). That defeats the purpose of the exercise and would probably make it even more intimidating for those at an early stage.

But, given how the discussion has evolved, I now really like the idea of a second room. Especially if some of it can be used for learning about set-ups, trying out gear, chatting to folks etc. That doesn't mean to say that the experienced guys shouldn't get a chance to show their skills by any means - in fact that will give us something to aspire to.

From my perspective, if I can play just 1 song most of the way through with some others then I'll be very happy! Then @Alnico and @Bridgehouse will see the smiles they talked about earlier.

Good idea to have 2 overall.

Modellista · July 2017

FWIW I agree a second room is a very good idea. For all the purposes previously suggested - guitar ogling, tuning and setup; chilling out and chatting; some freestyle noodling. And possibly simply for gear storage - there's going to be a lot of gear there, and whilst I don't know how big the main room is, surely it would be good to minimise clutter. The main room is properly choreographed with set lists etc, the second room anything goes. Certainly not split between noob/experience, both should be encouraged to mix.

The only down side I can think of is it thins out the audience for the main room.

WezV · July 2017

hywelg said:

Now for a bit of bribery.....how about some beer??? I have some rather decent (and I am a beer snob so if it was crap it would have gone down the drain by now) bottled beers which actually do need drinking as I need to free up some crate space for new brews.

I did offer a couple of crates of free beer a few pages back. It is stuff @hwelg would likely pour down the drain on principle, but most would be more than happy with. If you do bring some, I may be drinking from your stash

I was thinking about a crate of whatever is new from Sharp's (I am just about to go and taste a brand new one) or Franciscan Well, and a crate of one of the better lagers - Bavaria or Staro etc. Just refreshment rather than a piss up.

But if @alnico thinks its not a good idea that's understandable

Alnico · July 2017

It's not that I think that as such, it's that Quad is an upmarket very not-scruffy place and they *might* frown on it in the afternoon but I don't know that for sure, it's just an educated guess from previous experience of the place.

Drinks afterwards would be great but as a driver that day (like a lot will be) I won't even have one but I'm sure there will be those who aren't driving that will.

I'm not a killjoy, those who know me personally will vouch for me being quote the opposite but unless I'm over worrying the situition at Quad my *guess* is that they wouldn't like that many people there drinking.

Most of their booking will be a group of no more than 8 people at a time as bands so this is different enough for them.
Tell you what though at some point we'll find a way to ask them without putting them off the whole thing and risking being told no.

@Bridgehouse booked it so I'll ask him his opinion and if anyone's going to approach them to ask it'll be him.

I'm not known for PR and less for being tactful so we'll look Into the for you.

How's that ?

WezV · July 2017

Yeah, I do think it's understandable if they say no.

Bridgehouse · July 2017

WezV said:

Yeah, I do think it's understandable if they say no.

Compared to some studio/rehearsal places I've been to it's dead posh!!

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

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