As things are opening up and people are working out ways of adapting the way they are going to deliver projects, Emma and I are planning our approach to our jamming with audio visual projects.
I am thinking of how best to facilitate the music side of the jam. Along with all the pre-prepared instruments we will be inviting people to come along with any musical instrument. This is intentional as the jamming approach is all about people coming along and making something together in the moment with very little need to control things. My role as musician is to use my knowledge and facilitating skills to avoid a cacophony of clashing notes, and sounds, and to enable everyone to have a pleasant and harmonious experience. To this end, I am revising and expanding my knowledge on how different instruments interact with each other and the language used. There will be people in the session ranging from those who have never played an instrument before to people who have focused on little else since a young age, so I need to make the session accessible to all.
Helping everything to fit together
I intend to use the same scale or set of usable notes, such as the C pentatonic scale, on all instruments as this is a great way of bringing everyone together to make a harmonious sound. So, I need to consider how different instruments could become part of this pentatonic space.
If a person came along with a mandolin, cello, violin or viola, the open strings are the notes that belong to the C pentatonic scale. As long as the strings were plucked or bowed, on open strings, the sound would fit nicely into what else was going on. There is a lot to explore with long notes and rhythmical playing and setting parameters of usable notes can still be an enjoyable challenge for the most accomplished musician.
Wind and Brass instruments would have the same notes to play with but as some are at different pitches they would need to transpose to come together. A skilled guitarist would know the chords that fit with C pentatonic and would be able to contribute wonderfully in E, A, D, G, B, E (low to high) tuning. Alternatively the open strings can be retuned to D,A,D,G,A,D (low to high) for example and create some great sounds just playing with the open strings.
This is a great opportunity for everyone to explore improvising. Many musicians have perfected the art of reading music but not had the inclination to improvise. So this is a way for all the participants to get together on a more level playing field.
I wonder what instruments will turn up? I would love to hear your thoughts and any ideas you may have that will help people with such a wide range of skills and abilities to make a beautiful sound together and have a great jamming experience.