Things You'll Need:
- A sheet music store with a selection of "fake books," which are fat usually spiral bound books, containing melody lines and chord names
- Your musical instrument of choice
- A chord book or chord chart for that instrument, unless it's a melody instrument
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Step 1
Go to a party or jam session with your new musical friends and ask them for a sample list of titles that often come up at their get-togethers. It is likely they can also recommend some tune books, also known as fake books. There are hundreds and hundreds out there, and some you can even download and print online. Is it Bluegrass you're looking for? Celtic? Cajun? Old Time? Ragtime? Show tunes? They're out there.
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Step 2
Next decide if you'll be a melody person or a chord person. Of course, if you're on piano or keyboard, you could be both. But if you're jamming in a party group, you will likely be one or the other. It depends on the instrument you're playing. Guitars are usually, but not always, chord people. Mandolins are usually, but not always, melody people. Fiddles, flutes, saxophones, harmonicas and tin whistles are pretty much strictly melody. Banjos and accordions are whatever they want to be. Hammer dulcimers and harps are really too pretty to be drowned out by a group, but they usually do get drowned out anyway.
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Step 3
If you're a melody person, it will probably be a relief not to be dealing with all the orchestration, parts and random rests, that come with orchestral or symphony playing. The simplified fake book melody line by itself is just so much easier to read, and you can just play straight through without a whole lot of stopping or mental counting. Still, it is probably advisable that over time you memorize a goodly number of these tunes. Not only will it help you in keeping up with the group but memorizing the core of the tune will help you with your own embellishments and grace notes. Also, sometimes there are some anti-sheet music snobs among jammers, who will razz you if you can't ever play without the book. Really, it's all in fun, but it is whole different mindset, so think of the fake book as a launch pad into free-flying music making.
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Step 4
If you're a chord person, as long as you keep tempo, you're the backbone of the group. But just what do those chord names mean, since now you don't have your exact part spelled out in front of you anymore? This is really where you make your own mental leap into the fake book. You will now need to learn up on standard chord fingerings for your instrument, and strumming patterns. They are not written down in the fake book. Once you learn them, they become your bag of tricks for playing from fake books into the future.
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Step 5
So you will need a chord book or a chord chart, showing you where your fingers go for each chord. But do not try learning all the hundreds of chords in the chord book. It is simply a chord dictionary--you don't need it all. Flip through your fake book instead, and make a list of all the chords that are actually likely to come up at your sessions. If it's more than 20, that's really a lot. You can learn just 20 chords, can't you?
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Step 6
Without worrying about rhythm just yet, practice these chord fingering patterns and changing between them, over and over again, building up speed at simply changing from one chord to another. It doesn't take nearly as long as you might think it would to get relatively quick at it.
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Step 7
Now ask a music friend to show you, or take a workshop, to learn some strumming patterns, or if you're on piano or keyboard, some chord rhythm patterns for your left hand. You can probably pick some of that up yourself too, by listening to recordings of the music genre you're jumping into. Practice that a while too.
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Step 8
Suck it up, get your nerve up, and show up at a jam with your instrument.
