Originally Posted by: Blakeney8I finally accepted and while they know I am not a great player, they are very encouraging for me to come. Most of the players are either working musicians or former professionals.
Everyone gave you great advice!
Relax & try to have fun with it. If they are pros they should be able to assess your skill level quickly & adjust to your playing or help you be part of the session.
Playing with musicians more skilled or advanced than you is great because you can count on them playing solidly, giving you pointers. Often with amateurs it's hard to know if or why something is not working. Or there are people with attitudes trying to posture instead of work together.
If they have any chord charts, then get them. Review them. If not, then ask what tunes they like to play, find a basic chord chart for those tunes & work on those chord changes.
Remember that when you play in real time you have to count on whatever skills you've already automated. There's no time to stop & start over. Or learn a complex new chord shape or complicated change. This is why repetitious practice with a metronome or backing track is so important.
In order to play in real time any & all physical motions, chord shapes or changes must already be completely second nature. With that in mind, don't try to play above your pay grade, or expect that you'll be able to do things that you can't already.
This is the part that can be daunting to beginners: they think they have to know everything in order to start playing! But you don't and realistically you can't. So, don't worry about what you can't play yet. Just concentrate on what you can currently do, relax & do it solidly in time. After one session you'll have a clear idea of where you stand.
Finally, congrats on finding people to jam with. Playing music, in real time, with other people is really where the rubber meets the road. You learn so much about what it really takes to play, what you need to work on, how to play & listen at the same time, what you enjoy, what you'd like to learn next.
Have fun with it!
