# Guitar/Playing With Others

Almost as soon as you start playing the guitar, you start to meet many
other guitarists. Eventually, you will wind up playing with some of
them, in some sort of informal *jam sessions*, where friends play
anything that tickles their fancy.

Playing with others is helped incredibly by having some basic knowledge
of music theory along with some amount of talent or
skill. This is especially true if you intend to improvise a melody or
chord progression. this section will provide the basics of considerate
playing, along with some tips on how to keep playing interesting.

## The Makeup of a Band

Even if you never intend to play in a large group, it\'s still important
to know the basic divisions of a band, because you never know what might
happen tomorrow. Learning about how a band works can also help you learn
new songs from popular groups, as well as improve your knowledge of
general music theory, and your appreciation for music.

As explained in the lead guitar and rhythm guitar
section, guitar
playing essentially breaks down to two, somewhat overlapping categories;
rhythm and lead (sometimes called melody). In a band, the rhythm guitar
is more generally associated with the drums, bass, background vocals and
less prominent instruments, while the melody guitar would be related to
the lead vocals or any other lead instrument.

Thus, when you are playing only with two people, almost immediately one
player provides the chords and groove of a song, while another play
contributes a melody that complements the song\'s progression. With more
people playing, this division becomes less strict, and players can shift
from playing more of less prominent parts.

In general, it is almost always better to play with more than two
people, because with more people, whatever piece you are playing is less
likely to fall apart when the first person screws up. If you only play
with one other person, consider including a metronome or a mp3 drum
track in the background. Electronic accompaniment helps you keep a
steady pace, and helps you learn to not \"rush\" or \"drag\" in the
group.

## Proper Playing Attitudes

The most important thing to remember about playing with others can be
learned by carefully listening to any piece of recorded music: **Every
player contributes to the song with an appropriate tone and volume, and
*never* plays in excess of that.** Essentially this just means you
shouldn\'t try to outplay and outshine everyone else in the group,
because no one likes a showoff. It doesn\'t matter how good you are (or
think you are), you should never play so much that it drowns everyone
else out.

If not overplaying is the most important thing about jamming, then the
second most important is **listening**. The key to improvisation is to
listen to the interplay of all the other instruments, and to add to that
whatever sounds best. Listening is, unfortunately, a very neglected
skill among beginning musicians, and really, most musicians in general.

A common tendency, especially among those who have just begun to get a
solid foundation in scale theory and technique, is to noodle around
aimlessly on the fretboard with little or no regard for the shape of the
song that is being played, or the structure of the arrangement. This is
a *huge* mistake, and it leads to music that no one wants to listen to;
worse yet, it does nothing to develop the musician who plays it.

Pay attention to the music that is being played around you. Add to it
only when it is necessary. You should begin to hear the lines that you
want to play before you play them. What you are shooting for here is
something akin to the old koan about sculpting: the figure is already in
the marble, and you are just trying to release it.

It is also important to make sure that you do not take up too much
\"space\" in the arrangement, which is to say, do not play so loudly
that other instruments must fight to be heard. This is especially a
problem for rhythm guitarists in jam sessions, who must be careful not
to drown out soloists.

## Staying in the Right Key

Perhaps the most important thing to do when playing with others is to
remember what key you are in. The \"key\" of a piece is essentially the
scale of notes that the song uses, but it also affects what the correct
chords are to play on each note. Suppose there is only yourself and
another guitarist playing, and the other guitarist is playing rhythm.
The chord progression they are playing determines the key of the song,
which naturally suggests certain notes for you, the lead guitarist.

Even if you have absolutely no knowledge of music theory, everyone can
generally tell when you play a wrong note. Although advanced players can
often add in \"wrong\" notes for colour (known in music
theory as an accidental), for beginners it is
important to know what notes are in what keys, so they can use the most
appropriate notes.

For example, the rhythm guitarist might be playing a three chord
blues riff in the key of B minor. Even if you
didn\'t know the key, often the first and last chord of a progression
can be good indicators of commonly used keys. At the very least, the
general tone of the progression will be enough to indicate if it is a
major or minor key. in this case, once you knew the key, you could
immediately start soling in any B minor scale, such as the B minor
pentatonic scale. However, since music is creative, it is impossible to
be \"limited\", and you also have available a number of other soloing
scales, like the pentatonic scale or any of the modes. For example, the
Phrygian mode has traditionally been the \"Spanish scale\". Modes are
much more complex and require knowledge of music theory to get the most
benefit from them.

## Improvising

There is also a basic approach to improvising which is more simple than
playing over a chord accompaniment. It also predates Western tuning
systems and chords. It is produced by playing a moving melody on one
higher-pitched string, while leaving a lower note ringing on another
**\"open\"**, or lower-pitched (unfretted) string. The static bass note
is referred to as a \"pedal tone\". The lower
note  or stays the same and the
upper note moves, creating both simple harmonic and melodic motion.
Traditional instruments which have fewer strings and a smaller range
than the guitar use this technique. It can be heard in many musical
styles in both Eastern and Western musical traditions including those
with guitar.

This technique can be found both within Western tuning systems which use
12 semitones per octave as well as beyond in more complex Eastern tuning
systems. Therefore before attempting to improvise a solo over a chord
progression or a series of chords in a particular key, it is useful to
practice playing simple melodies on one (upper) string to familiarize
your ear with the **intervals**, or distances between those fretted
notes and a static open, un-fretted (lower) string below it which is
sounding simultaneously. Another advantage of this is that with each
pair of notes you play, different intervals are sounded. Your ear begins
to detect these and this is a basic form of ear training.

## Well-known Improv Bands

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