I’m hosting an open jam and livestream on Wednesdays at 7:30pm US CST (01:30 GMT). Drop by pajam.live/join/FREEDOM from 7:30-9 or so to participate. I will be livestreaming it to my youtube channel.
Tips:
If you’ve never used pajam before, I recommend trying it out as a looper for 15 minutes before you join, just so you are familiar with the basics.
If you’re just using your laptop microphone to jam, make sure you use headphones or else there will be feedback and it will be very unpleasant for everyone.
To get started, add a new track (top bar), and then push its record button to record a loop, push again to stop recording. There are controls to change the loop length, switch between overdubbing and overwriting, volume, pan, etc.
If you just want to play and don’t want to bother with looping, just turn off overdub (it’s on by default) and then start recording onto the track and don’t stop.
Don’t play songs. This is an exploratory jam space. And Pajam doesn’t end up working very well with song forms anyway.
It’s okay to come and fumble around and not know what you’re doing. It’s an open jam, nobody expects perfection, and it’s kind of fun to have some weird noises to work with.
If you want anybody to see you in the livestream, enable your video!
The room is limited to 8 players at once. First come first serve!
If somebody turns down or mutes one of your tracks, don’t take it personally. We’re all just doing what we think the jam needs, it’s not about you. Give it a little space (to respect the intention) and then unmute and get back in there when it feels right.
Leave space! It can be very satisfying to do a thing for a while, then stop, then bring it back. When in doubt, leave space!
If the jam is so busy or chaotic that you feel like there is nothing to add (it happens), everyone else is feeling that too. Your attention is needed to identify tracks that would be satisfying to remove or turn down. Do it, you’re not going to offend anyone! Make sure there is enough space to play in, even if that means taking away something someone else created.
Above all, just do whatever you want, and have funnnn!