Click here for • TUNE LISTS • from the weekly Creeper jams.

A Few Jam Notes

Acoustic instruments only, no amplifiers - no exceptions.

No drums.

We are beginning to loosen the COVID-era rule of no singing at the jam. Baby steps.

The band memers like to sit fairly close together, so we can hear each other and do our best to keep the tempo for the circle.

Jam participants sit on chairs arranged roughly in a circle. There is an assortment of folding chairs at the Press Club; feel free to bring your own if wish. When the circle gets too big to hear each other well enough, we may encourage the onion method (circle within the circle).

Other info
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We use the "raised foot" method to alert everyone that the tune is about to end. We try to do an audible "one more!" holler but some nights it's harder to hear, so keep an eye out for a foot. If it's round-robin style, the person who started the tune is expected to give a holler or raise a foot. (See the hazard of not being told to stop: click here.) There is no standard number of times to play a tune at this jam; we play it until it's done, anywhere from about 6 to 20 times. [When I think we've about reached the time to stop, I play it two more times. Your mileage may vary.]

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Fiddlers and banjo players use special tunings for different keys, so it's common to stay in one key for a while to minimize the retuning. ("A while" could mean 5 or 6 tunes, or 20, or all night, depending on the evening. Lately it's been all night.)

Common fiddle tunings (low string to high):
Key of C & G: standard GDAE
Key of A: AEAE
Key of A calico AEAC#
Key of D: ADAE

Common banjo tunings (high to low):
Key of G: DBGDg
Key of C: DCGCg
Key of A: EC#AEa
Key of Amix (modal): EDAEa
Key of D: EDADa

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Tunes vs Songs

We use this language to describe the difference: songs are sung and have lyrics/words. Tunes are instrumental, although there might be an occasional phrase sung or hollered.

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Crooked vs Straight tunes

Many tunes follow an AABB structure: two similar A parts (16 beats each, or four 8-beat phrases) followed by two B parts of the same length that differ from the A's. We call these "regular" or"straight" tunes. This tune is a good example of a "straight" tune.

A tune that varies from that structure, having more or fewer beats and/or parts, is a "crooked" tune. Here's an example of that. We play a lot of crooked tunes at the Creeper jams.

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A little noodling between tunes is probably unavoidable, but loud and insistent noodling is generally frowned upon and is not Dale Carnegie approved.

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Like many old-time musicians, the jam hosts wrestle with the issue of offensive and questionable content, lyrics, and titles of the older repertoire, in particular. While we recognize the historical perspectives of this material, we choose to apply our current sensibilities and will change titles and lyrics as we see fit. We encourage jam participants to do the same while in this setting.