Virtual Folk College, May 22 & 23

PREP

Before the jam, you’ll need to download jammr.net, create an account, and get headphones. The only rule besides HAVE FUN is YOU MUST WEAR HEADPHONES OR EARBUDS. Although you can connect without them, the result will be loud squealing feedback heard by other people. On a Mac, you’ll get a security message when downloading – go to Security within System Preferences to override.

WHAT WE’LL PLAY

Because of the way jammr is set up, rounds work really well. We’ll work from the rounds at https://kensharpbus.wixsite.com/website-1, with sheet music there thanks to Ken Sharp. We can stick with simpler rounds for those who play by ear. After a few rounds, we’ll switch to “regular” jam tunes. It takes a while to set each one up, so we’ll play through each more times than usual.

AT JAM TIME

Open jammr, login, select the jam labeled ‘Folk College’, and click ‘connect’. After a delay, you’ll hear music – you can start playing! You’ll see the names of everyone in the jam, but won’t see your own name. You can mute people by clicking next to their name. If our jam is big, mute most everyone except Linda and Karen (khirshon51), then add people back as long as it isn’t unwieldy for you. Turn ‘metronome’ off. Turn ‘send’ on. If you’re confused about ‘send’, just make sure it’s a different color than ‘metronome’. Linda will have a metronome going that we’ll follow. Any problems, questions, suggestions, type in the chat area at the bottom. Feel free to leave our jam and start others if you’d like.

TRY IT IN ADVANCE

If you have time, try it out in advance of our jam to make sure it works for you. The etiquette of jammr is that it’s fine to connect to any jam and not considered rude to leave or to just listen and not play. If you want to try a one-on-one session in advance, email [email protected] and someone from our jammr team will contact you.

TROUBLESHOOTING

See https://kensharpbus.wixsite.com/website-1 for more tips.