Musicians' Jam Sessions

I wasn’t able to attend this session today, but am very interested in it. I would love to play the drums more with others that would like to jam once in a while. So basically, count me in! eliasgordon@gmail.com

DougEFresh - Awesome, Elias. Let’s do this thang! I’ll count you in… no… wait a minute, as drummer, you’re supposed to do count the rest of us in!

DougEFresh : As drummer, you’re supposed to count the rest of us in! (I mess up a good joke every time!)

HAHA I totally got the joke, I will definitely count everyone else in! I’m looking forward to seeing this happen.

Even though I minored in Music in College I am still VERY rough around the edges. Could we even broaden this area of “Music Lovin’” by having musicians mentor people wanting to learn instruments, develop singing etc? Just a thought. I would LOVE to participate in the Jam Sessions but am worried about Time Restrictions.
Shauna S.

I love this idea. i had a couple thoughts on it too, but i missed the unconference session.

it would be cool to have themes for jams. Like bluegrass night or hip hop night. And we could post a couple songs that everyone could learn. That way its not so imposing for those who are learning or aren’t completely comfortable.

Should be fun, and looking forward to learning a bit/improving. Don’t have much else to add to the list of thoughts, but just wanted to re-affirm my enthusiasm :D

DougEFresh
Steve’s idea of themes for jams is awesome. I like it! Great idea to have fun learning from each other too. Posting songs would be good. Let’s not call it a “lab band” though as I’ve heard of before - I hate the sound of that. So far, I’ve found out that we could use the Journey office on either Tuesday or Friday night. I vote for Tuesday. How about the rest of you? We can practice once weekly, with a couple of people taking turns as leaders. Let’s talk on Sunday between services if we see one another!

Hey all you musicians and singers! Here is a copy of an email I sent out today. If I forgot to send you an email, or you were at the Unconference and I never got your email address, consider yourself invited! That includes you, Shauna, and Irish Steve!

The Email:
DougEFresh (a.k.a. Doug Van Wyk) here to invite you to hang out with our Band Jam group for the first time this coming Tuesday night at the Journey Office. I know I haven’t seen some of you for a while, so I should explain what this is. The idea behind Band Jam is to allow musicians and singers to hang out with each other and work on some songs together for the FUN of it rather than to practice for a specific Sunday worship experience. If we get an opportunity, we will probably get plugged into a Sunday somewhere sometime, but that is not the main idea of Band Jam.

The idea was hatched by me at our first meeting at the new site (Pioneer High School) during the Unconference, when various people were brainstorming at the mic and coming up with new activities to do at The Journey.

Several people of various ages came to discuss this with our group, and I thought I would just let you all know about it so that you could come if you want. I don’t have all the email addresses of those people, so spread the word around to others (an Irish fellow, a blonde Scandenavian exchange student, two other teenagers, one of whom was Steve’s son, etc.) Some of you may want to invite your musically gifted spouses or significant others too. I know you are all busy people, and many of you are on worship teams, but let the Band Jam be a night to relax and enjoy the music! NO STRESS should be a motto that we adopt, I think. At our first meeting, we can talk about the following:

1. How to organize various groups that have particular styles of music that they like.
2. When and where to meet.
3. How often to meet and how many at a time.
4. How to select the music, organize it, and make it available to people.
5. Who will be leaders of the groups that meet.
6. How to structure the time and the playing so that people feel like they are learning and honing their musical skills.
7. Whether to have a time afterward for coffee, food, and/or hanging out.
8. How long to let the fun last each night.
9. How to organize instrument use and provide for a variety of instruments.
10. Setting up music online for each group - should we?
11. Responsible use of sound equipment.
12. Other?

Spread the word around to your musician friends if you have them! The more people that show up for our first night, the more groups we can establish! Don’t bring any instruments yet! We’ve got to organize our plans first.

Thanks for reading this, and DO get back to me by email and let me know if you are coming!

MEET AT 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (or a tad later than 8 if we need to) on TUESDAY, OCT. 23 at the Journey office! See you then!

Doug Van Wyk
408-528-4737 (cell)
408-528-1500 (home)

It’s Friday, Oct. 26! Sorry for the confusion! There is another group that is meeting on Tuesday at the Journey Office.

DougEFresh: So far 2 people have emailed me back about coming to our first meeting on Friday night this coming week (Oct.26). Any more takers? Please email me soon, so I can know how many are coming. We want as many people as possible, so that we can form several groups. The more the merrier! Come on, people!

I might be able for this week…add me to the mailing list…
ask Vanessa to get you the emails of the worship team members, I bet lots of them would be interested and not all are on this website yet…

DougEFresh: I already sent out an email of all those folks… I thought you were on the list, but maybe not… what’s your email address?

DougEFresh: Hey Everyone! Here’s the latest. After our planning meeting on Oct. 26, we came up with some good stuff! If you couldn’t make it to that meeting but wanted to come, please check us out on Tues., Nov. 5.
1. The following people showed up that night and said they played these instruments or sang only: Irish Steve (vocals), Brian Underhill (keys), Jim Haughey (acoustic and electric guitar, base, harmonica), and Doug Van Wyk (vocals, acoustic and electric guitar).
2. We still need a drummer! Elias Gordon, I think you da man! Be there next time, kay?
3. We plan to do the jam session on the first Tuesday of every month at the Journey office. Our first Jam then will be Nov. 5, from 7 pm to 9:30 pm.
4. Everyone who comes is asked to bring a copy of their favorite song to work on and a CD or MP3 to play it for us.
5. We’d like to come up with a name for our group - we’re still working on that.
6. We’d like to open it up to anyone and everyone who’d like to come. If you would like to come, please get back to me by email or on the forum and let me know. If we get an influx of people, we’ll need to plan accordingly so we don’t have too many coming at once. We may have to schedule two different groups per month if more want to come. If you sing only, please come! We need singers too!
7. One piece we are working on already is “It’s Good to be King,” by Tom Petty. You can download it off ITunes if you want to hear it.
8. All players are planning to practice before each session with their instruments to be prepared for the group meet as much as possible.
9. We are open to playing all kinds of music (worship and/or secular) and learning from each other.
10. We want to perform sometime for a farmer’s market, a Journey outdoor gig, or something like that. If we come up with good stuff, we should share it, right?
11. This should be a time where we get feedback from each other regarding how to improve/enhance our instruments, the best gear to buy, etc.
12. On with the jamming! In the words of The Cars, let the good times roll - let them knock you around! If you don’t know who the Cars are, then you need to attend the School of Rock! Hey, maybe that should be our name, huh? Or is that too limiting?
DougE

I love it! I will definitely be there next time with sticks in hand. I won’t be able to make it until 7:30 due to not getting off work until 7pm so I hope thats not a problem. Rock on!

DougEFresh: My bad… Our first real jam session with Irish Steve, Elias Gordon, Brian Underhill, Jim Haughey, and DougEFresh is Tues., Nov. 6, NOT Nov. 5! See you all then. If anyone else wants to jam, email me or do the forum, and come prepared for the Tom Petty song for sure. We’ll see what everyone else brings to the table. The Tom Petty song is “It’s Good to be King.” My email is vw45sj@yahoo.com.

Aw man I guess I missed it!? I didn’t even know we had our first session already. Can we get some sort of email thing going so we know when and where?? Thanks
=)

-Tara

I believe they will be practicing on Tuesday nights which might interfere with the musicians’ jam session.

DougEFresh: Hey guys! Believe it or not, last Sunday was the first time I heard about the Journeyland group having a conflict with our group. I had talked to the folks in the office several times in the last few weeks about our Tuesday night thing, but no one said anything about a conflict. So for now our plans are on hold. We won’t be meeting this Tuesday night. I’m hoping we can do Wedsnesdays or Fridays or something, but I’m still waiting on clearance for that. So sorry about all these glitches in the schedule. I’ve emailed most of you, except for Tara, who is our most recent singer interested, so hopefully none of you are going to go there Tuesday night this week! Tara, what is your email address and last name?

DougEFresh: Okay, so on with the saga of our Jam sessions. I got clearance from Frances tonight - yes, you are my witnesses - I got clearance to meet at the Journey office for any Wednesday night we want during the month. So what say we try for next Wednesday, November 14? After that we could go back to the first Wed. of every month. Are you all up for that? Be sure to check in with the forum here as often as you can, so I don’t have to send emails and do the forum too. Otherwise, the forum just makes for more work and duplicating effort, right? So talk to me, people!

Doug - I got your email. Nov 14 isn’t a good day for me. 95 percent chance I cannot make it. I’m traveling to SoCal that night for daughter’s wedding on Saturday. Hope you can get a reasonable turnout and have fun playing! I’ll aim for the next meeting.

Recruitment target — Nigel Price plays hand drums, probably you know him. Maybe he’d be interested. Jim H.

DougEFresh: Hey, everyone! So sorry that Nov. 14 didn’t work well for any of you. Our next meeting will be Wed., Dec. 5. Come if you can for some musical good times - bring a cd and sheet music for your favorite song. See you then! Email me (vw45sj@yahoo.com) or post a message letting me know you can come that day. Thanks!

DougEFresh: For this coming Dec. 5, so far we have Jim Haughey on bass, Phil Rocca on percussion, and me on guitar. Anyone else coming? Singers? More guitarists? Brian U. - are you in?

lookin good for me too

I don’t know about you - but I’m not going to live in hell, just to die, and then go to hell.

I am going to be setting my drums up at the office for now because right now they are just collecting dust at home and are unused due to a lack of space. So I will be there Wednesday and have a kick back jam session. Let me know if anything changes.

DougEFresh: On Dec. 5, our first real jam, we had a great time! Jim Haughey played bass, Phil Rocca rocked out on his new drum, and I played guitar and sang a bit. Elias would have played because he did come that night, but he felt like one drummer was enough for that evening. The guys were cool when I blew some vocal transitions within songs, and we all got better as the night went on. We worked on these songs: It’s Good to be King (Tom Petty), Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out)(John Lennon), Feel a Whole Lot Better (Gene Clark, The Byrds, Petty), Better Now (Collective Soul), Oye Como Va (Tito Puente), and Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young). We really missed having Brian there. His keys would have been great for John Lennon’s song. But we had an awesome time with the three of us in a tight circle just jammin’. It was very relaxing and fun, and we got to know each other a bit better. Baby steps! I’m going to continue working on the songs we started, and I am looking forward to Jan. 2, our next session. See you then! Newcomers - give me a call (528-1500), respond to the forum, or email me if you want to join us - we’ll work it out. I don’t want to be the only one leading this and singing - I know there are plenty of you that could help me get this thing off the ground, and some of you play guitar a heck of a lot better than me!

DougEFresh: Okay, so we had New Year’s Day and that messed up Jan. 2. I’ve got a dentist appointment on the 9th at 6:30 PM which will mess that night up. Do any of you want to try for Jan. 16?