Jam Sessions

Pelham and Arthur Bruce playing alongside members of 'Burning Daylight' at a local church.

Jam session circles at Table Rock State Park's historic cabin

The Bruce Family Band pictured after jamming at the Hagood Mill Folklife and Music Festival

As my old car and I pulled up to a Saturday night ‘jam’ in Salem, SC, I was taken aback with the innumerable amount of stars I could see; I was truly in the middle of nowhere. I walked inside the old building, was overcome by the smell of old pine, and greeted by apprehensive but welcoming smiles. I stood out like a sore thumb, instrument-less and excited, I found my place outside the circle towards the back of the room. I sat and watched in awe as fingers, both young and old, intricately and confidently created song. I admired their connectivity; one person would start with a few chords, and without missing a step, others seemed to join in on instinct, as if they were all reading off the same sheet of music. Full bellied laughs filled the room as I watched song after song. These people were relentless. Susan Snow, Appalachian guitar instructor and ‘Heart Strings’ bass player laughed in her interview as she describes the most common phrase used during jam sessions, “Let’s do one more”.

Snow attributes her affinity for folk music in the Upstate to her first jam session experience at the Pumpkintown old school house. While the music brought her in the door, it was the “fellowship” and friendliness of the people that captivated her heart. She describes a “neighborly” element to these gatherings, and demonstrated this spirit by describing the jam session etiquette:

“I’ll sit down with my guitar or whatever, and...it goes around the circle and each person has the opportunity to call out a song they wanna do. And so, let’s say its me, and let’s say I’m gonna do ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ in the key of A….and the culture is like, everybody knows the same songs, so it’s fun. So everybody plays along and where as I might sing a verse and a chorus, I might look to my right and see my friend Carl and say, ‘Carl give me a banjo break’, and he would do a break from the banjo, and I would take off on the second verse….and Norma is over there on the fiddle and I’d say, ‘Norma, fiddle!’, and she would do a fiddle break…”

In this way, the music becomes a collective effort, a product of communal synergy. This element of connectivity is essential to the quality of the music.