Jam Sessions in South West London & Surrey

Pretty much anyone can play at our jams as long as you can get through a few "standard" songs or 12 bars (see sample list below), just get your name on the player list when you arrive. We run neither a "first come first served" nor a "pecking order" system, but somewhere between the two. In terms of who gets to play with who and when, our priority is to get the best balance between giving the less experienced players the best opportunity whilst not overly limiting the scope of the more experienced players, in conjunction with the goal of providing the best possible music for our good and appreciative audiences. To do this, we look at the players present and try to put the best combinations together to get both the best music, and best playing opportunity, not always an easy task with 25+ players, frequently over 30, with a broad range of styles and experience levels.

Sometimes a more experienced player that arrives later gets to play a set quite promptly, this is because they tend to be more versatile and make a new line-up possible. There are also style & repertoire factors to fit in, some players are happy or able to play any style whilst others have a specific niche, making it harder to fit them in with other players.  It can be quite a juggling act to fit it all together, but we do make a point of trying to ensure that everyone gets to play at some point in the evening. It can be the case that a player that arrives early may not get to play until later because of the "juggling" of line-ups. Occasionally we find a player has left before the end of the night thinking that they have been overlooked without checking with us first, and has missed out on a set ear-marked for them for later - don't assume you have been overlooked, check with us first!.

We try our best but unfortunately, especially on very busy nights with or nights with challenging logistics, we can't keep all of the people happy all of the time in terms of which set they get to play, but we do try very hard to make it a good experience for everyone there - within the circumstances on the night!