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Improv Choirs Updates

Highlighting Eden – Virtual Choir

This Spring we’re working with Highlights to put together a virtual choir as part of Highlighting Eden (funded by Eden District Council). Jilly Jarman is working with local people to write an Anthem for Spring, which will then be performed by a virtual choir for the festival.

Want to join the choir? We’re running weekly virtual sessions every Monday evening (7pm) up until 8th March 2021. Contact us at bluejamarts @ gmail.com to book your place. You will be on mute during the rehearsal and you can choose to have your video on or off. All ages welcome!

Jilly Jazz Online Practice Sessions

Zoom choirs don’t really work for Improv …so Jilly has running bi-weekly Zoom Jazz Practice Sessions instead

Mondays 7.40-8.40 Wednesdays 7.00 – 8.00

Each week Jilly introduces a new jazz standard. She zaps through some interesting features of the song and leads you through a series of warm-up and soloing exercises based on the tune. The most popular bit seems to be when she plays the piano accompaniment for people to sing the tune or improvise over!

Online sessions are a good way for newcomers to dip their toe into the scary improvisation sea as no-one can hear your initial attempts! You can sing or play an instrument. She tries to go at a speed to suit the group. All charts are shared in our WhatsApp group or emailed to you in advance.

Sessions are £5 payable ‘on the door’ or you can book 4 sessions in advance – use the PayPal or BACS link on the homepage. Young adults welcome over 16 years. Please e-mail us to get the Zoom link to come along (bluejamarts@gmail.com)

BlueJam Lockdown Videos

We really miss playing with you guys.

So what we have been doing is to try to recreate the experience of playing together by making a series of videos with the BlueJam Jazz team and our visiting  artists, which you can join in with but also, within an online music-making programme Soundtrap (like a cut-down Logic or Cubase), record your own solos and arrangements. You can then upload these to the website if you want or share them with each other and build new pieces etc. 

We have finished the first video which teaches a new song written specially for BlueJam by the amazing Jemma Freese (look at her credits at the end, she’s flying). Anyone in the BlueJam Jazz project, or your friends if they want to join, can access all the videos in the series for free, and we can log them in to Soundtrap as well. Go to the JAZZ page to see the video!

You can find the words and music and audio clips for the singalong by clicking on the flyer