The classes focus on rhythm playing, jam etiquette, and learning new tunes. It’s a great way for beginners to get their feet wet. “People go to a jam when they first start playing, a song comes by, and before a newcomer knows what’s going on, that song’s over and they’re getting into a new song,” Siegel explains. “It’s a little bit overwhelming. The newcomer usually doesn’t even have any idea what it is they’re missing.”
Following the format of a real jam, students go around the circle picking a song or a tune. Although he likes to start the class off with a song that most people know, Siegel encourages students to bring in songs they’re working on or tunes they want to try. “It keeps it more organic,” he says. “People are thinking about what song they want to play.” In order to give them a common background when the class starts, he distributes a CD of some of the definitive or original versions of classic bluegrass songs. “That’s been very helpful,” he says, “especially for people who are still a little bit new to bluegrass. It also gives them an idea of musicians they might want to check out further.”
Siegel modifies his usual detail-oriented style of instruction to suit the jam setting. “You can’t just stop and take a bunch of time on one person’s mandolin solo in a class,” he says. “But I’ll try to give a mandolin player a specific idea of how to approach the kickoff of to the song that would be helpful to other people.”
He routinely asks nonsingers to try singing harmony parts and shy pickers to kick off a song or take a solo break on an unfamiliar tune. “You learn so much by trying to be included in all the different parts of the music that’s going on,” he says. “It really helps to participate in the other segments of it, even if that’s not your main interest.”
Many of his jam class students continue taking the classes through multiple sessions, and the seeds of several performing amateur bands were planted in Siegel’s living room. “It’s just worked out so great, because people really have a great time,” Siegel says. “At Grass Valley [the California Bluegrass Association’s Father’s Day Festival] last year, all the new jammers were just playing and playing and playing. Seeing them out there was really fun.” n

NICOLE SOLIS has been taking lessons and classes from Avram Siegel on and off since the second session of the jam class and cohosts a regular Sunday jam with a fellow student. To contact Siegel, visit his website: www.avramsiegel.com.