Jam drama (Walking in My Sleep)

It's a little hard to say Jam drama . What do I mean by that ? It's come up a few times recently . People have been talking to me about experiences they had at jams or sessions and I think it often boils down to kind of who's in the club and who's out of the club and how you feel when you're jamming with people .

Do you feel like you're part of it or do you feel like you're on the outside ? It's a very human thing to want to be part of the tribe , so I don't think we can quite escape from the desire to feel accepted and part of the group in a jam . How does this all work ?

I was speaking to a woman at a jam that I was at at a party at someone's house and she's a little older than I am , and she said she often feels a little self-conscious at jams because she feels like she's older than some of the folks jamming and she worries that they'll be thinking something like , oh that old lady , she can't keep up .

And I told her that I often feel self-conscious at jams , especially when I was younger , because I thought that the older folks at the jam , who had been around a long time and knew a million tunes , would think oh , that kid doesn't know what she's doing .

So I guess the lesson there is that everybody is thinking about if they belong and if they're part of the group . How do you get to the place where you feel accepted , you feel part of a jam . Some folks are pretty outgoing and they'll come to session a few times , introduce themselves , get to know everyone , make conversation .

Other people are shy , they consider themselves introverts . But by showing up repeatedly to the same kinds of events you will become a known entity .

And if you see a tight group of musicians at a camp , at Clifftop , at Fiddle Hell , at a festival , they all seem to know each other and they all seem to know the same tunes and you think , oh , I wish that I had that .

I think by repeatedly showing up and getting to know people and getting to play with people you will develop it over time those are just folks that have played together a lot because they keep running into each other and making plans to play and over time they develop and the more you play with people , the more enjoyable it is to play with them , because you

all start to learn the same tunes . You get a feel for how to play together . It's fun To get a crew . You have to keep showing up really is what I'm saying . Why do you want to be known ? Why do you not want to be an unknown musician ? Well , people can be adverse to unknown musicians . You just don't know what you're going to get .

I always have a lot of stories from martial arts . So when I was in a Muay Thai gym , for every 10 people who would kind of come in and try the gym , five of them might be complete beginners and totally reasonable people and another four of them might have some experience but follow along with class , do a great job , have a good attitude .

But there was usually one guy . Every now and then we'd have someone come in . I said guy . It was usually a guy who had done martial arts before and was just doing very unexpected things , kind of off the rocker , like asking to fight people being really aggressive .

Someone like brought their trainer in who was sort of arguing with the teacher during class , or just like coming to class but ignoring the class and being off , doing like push-ups and pull-ups in the corner Strange behavior . So you get someone unknown .

You just don't know if they're going to be one of those nine reasonable people or if they're going to be that the 10th guy . So people will be more interested in jamming with you . Once they know you a little , they get a feel for you .

I read some stories from folks on Facebook complaining about being told off in jams for doing something that somebody considered to be the wrong thing I don't know Using music , playing the wrong instrument or the wrong tune . I mean , maybe this person was being rude , but certainly if you're telling someone off in a jam , you are also being rude .

I think the goal here is for everyone to assume that everyone is doing their best . You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would wake up and say tonight I'm going to go to a jam and ruin it . I'm going to play way too fast or way too slow or not in this style and I'm just going to ruin their jam . Yeah , they're not trying to do anything .

It's like when a toddler spills their milk and makes a big mess they weren't trying to well , usually they weren't trying to make a big mess . So you just have to remind yourself they're trying their best and if they're doing something that's kind of insensitive , it's not necessarily going to help to tell them off .

You want everyone around you as much as possible , when you're collaborating musically , to be sensitive to what's going on and also flexible .

So when you're sensitive , you're keeping track of what's happening with other people , you're trying to fit yourself into what they're doing , and then being flexible is also just accepting oh , this isn't happening the way I expected it to , but that's okay , we can roll with it . Try not to take things too personally . It does come up sometime about social media .

It didn't used to be so much of an issue . I know it's a big thing with , like , birthday parties . You know people say , well , you don't invite your whole Facebook , all your friends , to a birthday parties , but then you post your party and so some of your friends look on Facebook and they're like , oh , why wasn't I invited ?

Well , this happens with musicians , with jams and parties , and people have feelings about it .

It's pretty tricky in the music business because in order to make money as a musician , you kind of need to constantly remind people that you're there to hire to play music , or to hire to teach a lesson or to buy some of your merch , and so a lot of musicians , just as part of their business , will post about the different musical events they do .

I do this , too as a way to kind of drum up enough work for the profession . It's not really a high paying profession . So if you're having feelings about people posting on social media , I would maybe try to find some things to go to .

There's some events and parties that are closed and you need an invitation , but there's a lot of stuff that's open concerts you can go to , and festivals and jams at bars and if you're looking at somebody else's posting and wishing that you could do something like that , I think you can try to create that for yourself .

Like I said before , showing up becoming a known entity I mean really live music is becoming less common and I try to remind myself to view it as a gift .

Now People don't play music in person as much as they did , so just the opportunity to be with other people who want to leave their houses , put their phones down , get out their instruments and play music with you isn't , some ways , a luxury ? It's a gift and I try to treat it as such . Try to remember Not everybody gets to do this .

Our tune for today is Walking in My Sleep . This is a tune that I pulled from the Baltimore Square Dance . Baltimore has a really great square dance . It's run by Brad Kolodner , a great fiddler and banjo player . I think they're coming up next month August 2023 , on their 10th anniversary square dance .

It happens about once a month and this one was at the Mob Town Ballroom in Baltimore . Walking in my Sleep is an Old-T ime reel Breakdown , A tune from the mountains . We've got Western North Carolina and Southwest Virginia and East Kentucky played in those areas . It's in G major . Yeah , they called it a Blue Ridge area standard In Surrey County , north Carolina .

It was in the repertoire of Otis Burris , a fiddler down there , and also played by Esker Hutchings in Dobson , North Carolina . Oh , and the other place I saw it was Fiddler Glenn Smith played the tune at the 1935 Gallax Fiddlers Convention . I am not sure how do you say Gallax . I looked at this Fiddler's Convention . First of all .

I was trying to see where it said what this one guy played and I couldn't find that Glenn Smith . We'll just have to assume he played this tune . But they have been having a fiddler's convention in Gallax apparently since 1935 . That was the first year and some members of the Moose Lodge , number 733 , needed to raise some funds .

So the way they did that was by promoting a fiddling competition and publicizing it . They put it in the newspaper , lots of people came , wanted to play all different instruments and fiddle and compete on them .

They had conventions in their lodge , I guess , and then they moved outside to Felts Park and it's been held there pretty much every year , one year canceled due to World War II and the other year it was canceled was in 2020 because of the pandemic , but they're still having that . It's probably coming up . I think it's in August every year .

Here's the tune , anyway , walking in my sleep you , you , you , you . Thank you for listening . You can find the music for today's tune at fiddle studio . comm , along with my books , courses and membership for learning to fiddle . I'll be back next week with another tune for you . Have a wonderful day .