Time To Pick

Last Wednesday night I went over to pick at our friends David and Linda’s house. They’ve started hosting some regular picking on Thursday nights, something we haven’t had around this area before. The picking was good, and it brought some good points to mind:

1. When you’re playing music with some folks whose music you don’t know very well (and vice versa), KEEP IT SIMPLE. I mean, PICK OUT THINGS TO PLAY THAT EVERYBODY KNOWS. Now, along with several other folks, Cousin David was there last night. He and I know each other’s music pretty well, and when the two of us are picking, it’s hard for either one of us to get thrown off the track, even if one of us is playing (literally) some musical joke or other. Each of us can figure out and keep up with the other, no matter what we throw into the music on impulse. But this evening we were with several other folks we didn’t know as well, so I needed to keep it simple. When it was time to start, and Linda looked at me and said, “Pick one!”, I selected “Down Yonder” to play. Most folks will know that tune, and everyone there did. And we went from there to “Head Over Heels” and “Faded Love” and lots of three-chord bluegrass songs that everybody knew. And it was fun.

2. DON’T try to be the star of the show. You can almost tell the best musician in most jam sessions– he or she will be the most relaxed and laid-back person there, just waiting for their turn to play. When I see someone who’s trying to dominate a jam session, I generally know two things: (a) that person may not be as great a performer as they think they are, and (b) I want to stay away from there. The idea of a jam session is for everybody to sound good and have fun, and the pickers should all help with that. So this evening, nobody tried to be a star. We took turns selecting songs and tunes to play, and passed the breaks around freely— clockwise, in this case.

(I think that someone could write a phychological paper on “clockwise” versus “counter-clockwise” break-passing in picking sessions!)

3. Everybody in a session has something to contribute, and you’re all there to let them do that. So give the less-experienced pickers a chance to play their favorite tunes too. They may pass up their turn sometimes, but with the right encouragement, they may come out with some surprisingly good tunes that are less well known, or at least remind everyone of some more popular songs that they’ve been neglecting.

4. When you’re playing with others, notice what they are doing. Don’t get so immersed in your own private world that you don’t listen to the music and watch the other people play! You’ll hear (and learn) a lot more if you PAY ATTENTION TO THE GROUP, not just to yourself. In this case we had a lot of fun intereacting during the songs and tunes, trading glances and licks to our own (and the small but friendly audience’s) amusement.

5. KEEP LISTENING. Is someone singing a lead vocal? Listen to him or her, and make sure that what you’re playing is adding to the music, or at least, not distracting from or covering up the lead. Are you singing harmony on a chorus? LISTEN to the other vocalists, and make sure your voice blends with theirs the best you can. Is someone playing lead on a softer instrument (guitar, or sometimes mandolin)? — LISTEN and quiet down enough not to drown out what they’re playing.

We played music for three hours or so, and a good time was had by all. Finally, Cousin David said he had to get back to his house and family, and the rest of us packed up too. Many of us had to get up early the next day. So David and Linda and Cousin David and Wayne the fiddler and Terry the banjo player all said goodbye and headed back to our homes. But it had been a good jam session. Everybody had known how to make the session work. Even if they hadn’t ever thought about it, they knew these five points— and we’ll all look forward to picking again.