What makes music easy?
Learning to play music fluently can be daunting. How can we make music easy?
We think we’ve figured it out. Read more.

Here's where study/play sessions come in.
Finding opportunities to play with others is especially difficult for beginners. This is doubly unfortunate because playing with others is the quickest and most enjoyable way to learn to play. The ToneWay "practice jam" approach solves this problem. Read more.

Prerequisites to attend (or offer) a session

1) Complete the Toneway Get Started Workshop Series on our website. These free lessons teach the essentials for playing music with others:

• strumming and changing between a few chords,
  
• singing the chorus for a few songs,
  
• play some simple melodies on your instrument.
  

2) Obtain a ToneWay songbook like Get Started Plus. Order it online here, and you'll get it in a few days.

3) RSVP for a session, or offer one. Yes, even if you're a complete beginner! Read more about offering a session.


Details on Practice Jams, Study/Play Sessions, etc.

Playing with others is the better way to learn music. A practice jam is a study/play session with an intention to learn by playing with others. Typical jams are set up for playing, not learning per se. A practice jam is set up to play and learn within a predetermined range of Songs, Keys, and Tempos. Read more about the various kinds of sessions.


About Your Instrument

You’ll need a guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, Dobro, or bass.

Sylvan Music (on the corner of Mission and Bay in Santa Cruz) offers affordable rentals of all of these instruments. Better yet, you can apply three months of your rental fees towards an instrument should you choose to buy one. (They'll sell you a tuner too; we recommend a chromatic, clip-on model.)

Our website has advice for choosing an instrument.


IMPORTANT RSVP POLICY

Please RSVP if you plan to attend. We only allow so many RSVPs to keep the jam at a reasonable size, and we will also cancel if we get too few "Yes" RSVPs. Only those who RSVP will be notified of the cancellation—which is why observers should RSVP too (with a note about wishing to be an observer).

If your plans change, please change your RSVP! Anyone who "no-shows" 3 times (i.e. fails to de-RSVP 3 times) will be removed from the group.

Watch a jam in action (and hear from the jammers)!




______________________________________________________

Still got questions? Please read our answers to other issues.


______________________________________________________

For an overview of what The ToneWay Project is all about, go to ToneWay.com.