Hi! I got into Griff's courses many years ago and only today found the forum and access via PDF's to the courses I originally got through the mail. Great and fair resource! I barely know how to use this forum. Tried to register by area for jams (I'm in Ashland, Oregon) but couldn't work it.
I've been a music lover all my life. (Dad liked piano despite having three fingers squished off; uncle played jazz guitar.) Always messing with some instrument (mainly electric guitar and piano, but also dunbecks, sax, flutes, voice), favoring solid blues, funk, and simplified classics. (Enjoying Shostakovich child's piece in A-, piano > guitar.) (Also dearly favor Chopin, Lidst, Satie, Beethoven, but really like James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Talking Heads, Ray Charles, etc.) Sometimes a classical piece will intrigue me, only to analyze it slowly and find it is in a simple classic blues-like structure!
Fortunately, I live in a music-rich town. My favorite local guitar player is Jeff Pevar, who once played with Ray Charles and Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Bonnie Rait, etc., but now lives here. He's somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Chopin, only via improvisation!
I want to move from being An Appreciator to A Contributor. I have funky jams and riffs to contribute. Would love a drummer. Would love to create danceable jams and telling lyrics. At 75, I better get going before I'm gone!
But where? How? Is there an on-line way to offer jams or ways to add to others' jams? Are any of you working with a looper, multi-tracking (like Audacity) or know the where and how of hooking up with other jammers?
I've found only some sorts of jammers I can jam with. I like simple, rhythmic, and room for slop. (I was in a vocal jam group for years; no leader, no rules, no expectation, all improv by ear and voice. Sometimes it was an annoying cacophony, sometimes an exquisite surprise of theme emerging, variation, and resolution - all on the spot.) I find expertise on an instrument isn't as important as the ability to listen and jam in, a knack for going along and making it better. Any similar jammers out there?