Hi!
I have not had time to publish for a while. I've been fully busy with life, working, rehearsing with my two bands and the yearly jam event. The jam event is actually two times a year, during the winter in my town and in the summer in my old friend's garage in the town in which I grew up. My friend is one of the first drummers I ever played with but he quit the band after some years and sadly we have been on different paths, when it comes to musicianship, since. But after some time of discussions during parties we finally succeeded in getting people from my old band and some other people I have played with together for a jam event. That was about five years ago. Since then we have continued with this event once a year for the first couple of years and then two times a year.
The general idea with these jam events is to have FUN!! We get together, discuss old and new times, drink beer and play whatever we feel like playing. In the beginning we where barely one person on each type of instrument but over the years we have grown in numbers both on and off the stage. The musicians come from different musical backgrounds and have different experiences of playing their instrument and of playing in a band situation. During the jam all participants have the chance to play songs that they may or may not know together with people that they normally do or do not play with. This can be scary to the newcomers but after a while it changes into pure fun if you let it. Since we all play songs that we do not know that well we all make mistakes the whole time, regardless of musical competence. This generates good laughs and as a result of that even more FUN!!
During the event we had just a couple of weeks ago I realized one thing. To have fun like we do during these events really drives the development of the creativity and self confidence for us as musicians. I mean, you realize that making mistakes is not so dangerous. This insight makes you take chances and try things you would not have tried otherwise. Of course you will make mistakes, but after a while you will not anymore (or at least more seldom). I mean you have to crash some times to be a good race car driver.
So finally, what I would like to say is don't forget to have fun! Fun is a really good driving force and it makes playing your instrument and life in general more... FUN!!
Rock on!!
