Guitar Gear

This past weekend, I invited my band mates and their families over to my house for a barbeque. After we had all eaten our share of the feast, those who brought their guitars got them out, and we all sat around my patio table playing songs and jamming. We played for an hour and a half straight, going through a couple of gig books. At the end, I commented, “You know, you can tell we’ve been playing together for a long time because we all play off each other. There’s no egos, just an incredible comfort with playing together.” Smiles and nods of agreement followed. The memory of this past Saturday afternoon got me to thinking about what makes jammin’ with your buds so special.

1. As I said to the guys, there’s no ego when you’re jamming. You play songs, do solos, sing harmonies, etc., spontaneously.
2. There are no rules when you’re jammin’. You do what you do, and it’s all right.
3. You also learn riffs that you didn’t know before. For instance, my bassist is not only a great bassist, but also an accomplished acoustic guitarist, and he taught me some riffs to songs that I never knew, and vice-versa.

Those are just a few things that make jammin’ special. But there’s one thing that I took away from that and that is during our jam session, I took the route of comping against what the other guys were playing. That was incredibly valuable to me because it allowed me to play with different chord shapes up and down the neck; taking a minimalistic approach – perhaps playing a simple triad or adding an 11th or 13th where appropriate. It was VERY cool.

So next time you get the chance to jam with your buds, try to comp and see where it takes you.