Think About
How do people jam together and sound good?
While sometimes you can jam by just making up rhythms like beat boxing, playing percussion instruments, or tapping something on a hard surface, other times you might want to play some pitches or notes to create melodies or harmony.
Get Started
- Check out the free web app aQWERTYon
- Experiment with playing music with your computer keyboard
- Try jamming with a new video (copy and paste a URL to a video in the enter a video URL box)
Go Further
- As you are jamming with the video, listen to the different notes/pitches you can play with the computer keyboard? Which ones sound better than others?
- Experiment with changing the Scale Type, Scale, and Root by using the drop down menus and clicking on the picture of the keyboard (under “Root”). Do some sound better than others?
When you jam with others or with a recording, you sometimes have to figure out what group of pitches/notes works well.
Sometimes the group will agree on a group of pitches/notes (a key).
Sometimes a group leader will tell everyone the group of pitches/notes (key).
Sometimes you have to figure it out by listening to what people are playing and trying out a couple of notes that sound good with what everyone else is playing.
Share What you Learned
Link to a recording that you jammed with and include some of the notes/pitches that you think sounded good with the recording.
