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Posted by: paolo on:05 Sep 2011 General » Summer Jam Sessions 2011 |
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Summer Jam Sessions 2011
During the summer break, Dom and I ran a series of Jam sessions for
Musiclab adult students. We decided to use this time to take the
students out of the comfort zone to make them more confident with their
instruments. The first week of the jam sessions, we used a simple 12 bar
to allow the students take it in turns soloing. Dom introduced a system
called "trading 4's, each student took it in turns soloing for 4 bars
each. We then tried to mix it up a little by changing it to "trading
2's" and "trading 1s!" Although this was very tricky (and proved a
challenge for both Dom and I too!) we had a lot of fun with the concept.
During the second week, we changed the genre of music to a more "funked" up kind of feel and continued playing around with Soloing and
Lead sections. The new genre meant that the guitarists had to learn 7th
chords (most common in Jazz and blues) and the drummers had to create
lead breaks. We also added a little bit more pressure by changing the
key signature half way through the song as the students were playing it.
Everyone handled it very well and improved a great deal as we went
along.
As the students progressed I noticed the lack of eye
contact between each student (most important thing in a band situation
is to look at each other and be aware of what everyone else is doing).
So to keep them on their toes I decided to give them some musical
direction using only body language. So not only did they all have to
solo, but they had to focus on me as well.



















