Guitar: Playing With Others: An Open Learning Guide

Almost as soon as you start playing the guitar, you start to meet many other guitarists. Eventually, you will wind up playing with some of them, in some sort of informal jam sessions, where friends play anything that tickles their fancy.

Playing with others is helped incredibly by having some basic knowledge of music theory along with some amount of talent or skill. This is especially true if you intend to improvise a melody or chord progression. this section will provide the basics of considerate playing, along with some tips on how to keep playing interesting.

Even if you never intend to play in a large group, it's still important to know the basic divisions of a band, because you never know what might happen tomorrow. Learning about how a band works can also help you learn new songs from popular groups, as well as improve your knowledge of general music theory, and your appreciation for music.

As explained in the lead guitar and rhythm guitar section, guitar playing essentially breaks down to two, somewhat overlapping categories; rhythm and lead (sometimes called melody). In a band, the rhythm guitar is more generally associated with the drums, bass, background vocals and less prominent instruments, while the melody guitar would be related to the lead vocals or any other lead instrument.

Thus, when you are playing only with two people, almost immediately one player provides the chords and groove of a song, while another play contributes a melody that complements the song's progression. With more people playing, this division becomes less strict, and players can shift from playing more of less prominent parts.

In general, it is almost always better to play with more than two people, because with more people, whatever piece you are playing is less likely to fall apart when the first person screws up. If you only play with one other person, consider including a metronome or a mp3 drum track in the background. Electronic accompaniment helps you keep a steady pace, and helps you learn to not "rush" or "drag" in the group.

The most important thing to remember about playing with others can be learned by carefully listening to any piece of recorded music: Every player contributes to the song with an appropriate tone and volume, and never plays in excess of that. Essentially this just means you shouldn't try to outplay and outshine everyone else in the group, because no one likes a showoff. It doesn't matter how good you are (or think you are), you should never play so much that it drowns everyone else out.

If not overplaying is the most important thing about jamming, then the second most important is listening. The key to improvisation is to listen to the interplay of all the other instruments, and to add to that whatever sounds best. Listening is, unfortunately, a very neglected skill among beginning musicians, and really, most musicians in general.

A common tendency, especially among those who have just begun to get a solid foundation in scale theory and technique, is to noodle around aimlessly on the fretboard with little or no regard for the shape of the song that is being played, or the structure of the arrangement. This is a huge mistake, and it leads to music that no one wants to listen to; worse yet, it does nothing to develop the musician who plays it.

Pay attention to the music that is being played around you. Add to it only when it is necessary. You should begin to hear the lines that you want to play before you play them. What you are shooting for here is something akin to the old koan about sculpting: the figure is already in the marble, and you are just trying to release it.

Source and licence

Text adapted from Guitar/Playing With Others by Wikibooks contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.