Guidelines For the Jam

The following are merely guidelines for allowing the spirit of Share to flourish*.

1) Listen carefully to what others are doing.

2) Don't listen to yourself; listen to yourself as part of the overall music mix. Don't turn up to hear yourself as well as you'd like, try to find the appropriate volume so that it all fits together.

3) Trying to hear your self in the mix? Instead of turning up, turn your self down temporarily and listen to what disappears.

4) It is easy to blast loud volume if you're not careful. Don't start with volume up and press play. Start with volume down, play, and fade in. If you find something accidentally muted, don't unmute until you're sure the level is reasonable.

5) The more people are playing together, the more the musical space should be divided to prevent overwhelming noise. Pick one of: percussion vs. melody vs. bass, downbeat vs. upbeat, odd bars vs. even bars, bass verses treble, vocal versus instrumental. There are many ways to share musical space so that people aren't trampling each other.

6) If the jam is too crowded, drop out for a few minutes then fade back in.

7) Ask those around you what tempo and/or key they are playing in. No need to guess.

8) When joining, be respectful of those who are already playing. You may need to play some audio to check your line, but try to blend in. Don't blast out of place samples or repeat "check check" into the mic endlessly.

9) If you are trying to beatmatch, start with a lighter percussion sample such as highhats, or use a baseline or melodic part to first get a rough alignment. These are much more forgiving than snare hits to misalignment. If rhythms are colliding, take one out until synch can be established.