Welcome to the JamWithLauren Blog
Many of these articles are inspired by questions from our JWL students. If you can’t find a post that digs into the issues that are plaguing you, consider signing up for lessons with Lauren. When you sign up you will gain access to her amazing curriculum and she’ll be able to answer your questions during our bi-weekly LIVE Lessons. Who knows, maybe your question will inspire the next post!
How Fiddlers and Guitarists Find the Sweet Spot: Where Creative Backing and Expressive Melody Meet.
Since fiddle and guitar are my primary instruments and I enjoy playing both in a variety of contexts, I thought I’d focus this piece on a tendency I’ve encountered for that instrumentation to lock one musician into the role of the backing player (guitar) and one into the role of the melody player (fiddle) in a way that can ultimately stifle the creative output of both players to the detriment of the overall musical experience.
How and Why to Join the Rhythm Section as a Fiddler
Today, I want to talk about rhythm. I am primarily a fiddler, and the fiddle is often considered a “melody” instrument. However, this is a misnomer because many instruments including the fiddle can play melody, chords, and rhythm simultaneously and separately. There is no good melody without good rhythm!
How To Improve Your Groove
Groove is such a difficult concept to pin down in words. And I already knew this because I try to talk about it on a regular basis! I talk about it with my bandmates, with my students, and with my musician friends, and we often find ourselves struggling to articulate what exactly we want to say. Groove is mysterious. Groove is what makes music and people dance.
How To Play Music At A Faster Tempo
When you are ready to move up a level and begin to increase your tempos, it’s an exciting time. Whether you’re going from slow to mid, or mid to performance and jam speeds, this post should have some helpful suggestions for your time in the woodshed.
Chord Shapes and Capos: How To Decode a Guitarist’s Hands
This post is a guide to a common tool/tip/hack: watching the guitarist’s hands and understanding their chord shapes. Of course, you want to use this skill as a confirmation to what you’re hearing, and not rely on it completely. Why? Because what happens if the guitarist doesn’t know the chords? You’ll want to use these shapes and fingerboard knowledge in tandem with your own growing skill set of hearing and understanding chord progressions.
Figuring Out the Key: A How To for All Musicians
When I lead workshops and jams at fiddle camps, one of the most commonly asked questions is some variant of, “How do I know what key I’m in?”
This question often happens when someone has learned a fiddle tune melody and might be trying to figure out the chords, or just tell their guitar playing friend what the key is so the friend can have a go at it.
5 Ways to Jam Without a Partner
We might have just experienced a move, a change in employment and schedules, you can’t make the weekly jam at a local dive bar, or you live in a place where you don’t know anyone to jam with. In the meantime, I’ve put together some ideas on how you can simulate a jam all by your lonesome.
Let’s be honest, we’re never alone if we have our instruments.