What is Friendly Music Jam?
It's a jam where you can make and share music, that is Friendly, Healthy, and Formative
Friendly
- Everyone can participate - from newcomers to professionals!
- Submit anything - Any genres, any length, any state of the art.
- Multiple themes to choose from - Technical (theory, synthesis, production etc.) and creative/funny (emotions, places, pictures etc.)
Healthy
- We promote a culture of constructive feedback. Let's help each other improve.
- No toxic behaviour and destructive feedback.
- Be mindful of different experiences, backgrounds, tastes, and skills.
Formative
- The jam itself and the themes should push you to do something more.
- Negative feedback happens! It’s just an opportunity to do improve!
- Giving and providing feedback promotes growth.
- Be humble - there is no prize, so be mindful when voting. Also, make sure your comments match your votes. If you don't like something, try to explain what it is.
- It's no spotlight. While it's ok to just upload your music and ignore what the others have done, ask yourself if that will do any good to anyone. Let's collaborate as much as possible!
The themes
Important!
Themes are optional! Do not rate the theme-related fields for submissions that did not follow the theme.
Theme 1: Break The Rules
Description: Your musical piece will include surprising and unexpected elements, such as playing out of key, speeding up and down, changing key and changing tempo.
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To help you break the rules, I’ve made a list of possible variations to include in your track. You can use them freely, or you can let luck guide you.
If you feel lucky, roll a dice every 4 measures (or whenever you feel like you want to change something) and apply one of the variations based on the result.
Dice Roll
Variations:
1. A moment of silence - insert a moment of full silence, you choose the duration of the silence. It can be a fade out or an instant break.
2. Change of pace - increase or decrease the tempo. You decide the bpm variation and how quickly it happens. You are free to return to the previous bpm at any moment.
3. Make it spicy - play one or more notes that do not belong to the current key you’re playing in (or notes which you haven’t used yet in your composition). You decide how many and how long.
4. Can you count that? - add something rhythmically surprising, like a time signature change, triplets, other tuplets, polymeters, polyrhythms, swing, etc.
5. Flip it - take a section of your composition and flip it, chop it, delay it, whatever you want. I don’t mean to reverse the audio file, but actually take the notes and beats and mess with their order
6. Lucky roll! - Keep going without variations, re-roll or pick any other variation.
You decide how long the variations last, if they come in and leave smoothly or suddenly. You can ignore some variation if you don’t feel confident using them. Remember, these variations should be a creative tool, they should not move you away from your vision.
If you want to use some different variations, do it, and maybe share them with your fellow musicians so they might try them as well. Remember to describe what you did when submitting your project, so we can better appreciate your efforts.
Other variations
- Key Change - change the key you’re currently playing in
- Sustain - Sustain all the notes you play until the variation ends
- Staccato - All notes you play in this variation will be very short
- Bottleneck - in this variation, you cannot have 2 or more instruments playing a note on the same beat (sounds can overlap, but they cannot trigger on the same beat
Theme 2: GeoMusic
Description: Make a song for the place in the picture.
Photo by Aron Visuals from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-mountains-1643113/
Important! 2
You don't have to follow the themes, it's up to you. It's also up to you to decide how strictly you want to follow it. Consider describing your approach towards the themes in the description of the track.
Rules
Submit an audio file(s) (mp3, wav or flac) and upload it on a streaming service.
A description of your work is optional, but it can help other people understand what you did and how to rate. Furthermore, we’re curious people, and we love to know more about the background and the process.
A cover art is also optional.
Make sure you have the rights to submit all the material (more in the FAQ).
Submission:
In order to submit your project, you have to upload the above-mentioned files in a new itch.io project page. Follow these steps:
- Top-right arrow
- Upload new project
- Provide the following info:
- Title
- Classification -> Soundtrack
- Upload cover (optional) and any other image (DAW screenshot, your own instruments, your dog)
- Click upload files
- Upload the audio files (zipped if more than one)
- Click “Save & View Page”
- Click “Edit Project”
- Visibility-> Public
- Click “Save”
- Go to the jam page (here)
- Click “submit project”
- Select the project
For any doubt, feel free to reach us out on discord.
Join the community on Discord!
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I have to follow a theme? | You can follow one or more themes, or even ignore it. It’s up to you! However, we recommend using at least one to get inspired. |
| Can I collaborate with other jammers? | Of course! Just add your team members as collaborators to your project. |
| Can I use sounds I didn't create? | You can use loops, samples, anything - as long as you have the legal rights to use them (e.g. you purchased a sample pack, you are using a loop under Creative Commons, etc.). |
| Do I have to upload my file on a streaming service? | Only if you're ok with that. It will make it easier for other jammers to listen to it. You can use any service (Soundcloud, Youtube, etc.) |
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