Handling Requests at a Jam

[Bruce Evans]

I'm posting this on a couple music boards, seeking opinions about listener’s requests at jam sessions.

Understand first that this subject has nothing to do with listener requests at a paid gig. If someone is paying you to play music, I think you have an obligation to at least try to give them or their customers the music they want to hear. Here's the hypothetical situation.

You are at an open jam in a public place, going around the circle, choosing or passing as it suits each participant. One of the non-participants pipes up with an off-the-wall request, far removed from the type of music which you have been playing.

Does the group of musicians have any responsibility to attempt to honor the request?

You can probably guess that my answer to this question is "No.", but feel free to disagree with me. Let's take it a step further. The jilted requester continues to persist, demanding that the group has to play his or her tune. Does the group have the right to tell this person that s/he is welcome to stay and listen, but please desist in the demand? In other words, "Knock it off!"

Sometimes I think people who frequent places where the musicians are paid and have an obligation to please the listeners get the opinion that honoring requests is incumbent on all musicians. This very situation has happened to me on numerous occasions. The negative response has produced everything from hurt expressions to profane demands.

I tried to explain it this way to someone with hurt feelings. (She was kind’a cute). If you were playing golf and someone walked up and requested that you suddenly start bowling, would you be obligated to do it? That’s how I feel about my music. It’s my entertainment.

Because I have written this much, you can surely understand that I have strong opinions on the subject. And because you have read this far, you probably do also. How do you think? If you disagree with my position, please say so.

Bruce

[mandofiddle]

I'd say especially at a jam, you don't have any obligation as a jam group to try and play a sing that someone not within the jam group has requested. If they start out by being polite about it, a good response might be "We don't really know it, but if you tell us how the chords go, we'll try and play it and YOU can sing it". Or if you DO know it... "Tell ya what, if you buy us all a beer, we'll give it a shot".

Now if they are just being plain rude about it it, and aren't backing down when you respond that you aren't going to play it. Well, I'm not really sure about that one. Maybe a response like "I'm sorry, how much did you say you paid for your ticket to this concert was again?" might do the trick. If the person still won't give up, and is downright rude, maybe it's time to talk to the owner of the establishment about this person harrassing you...

[sbarnes]

i don't think that there is any obligation even when you are playing for money.....
usually (at least in our case) the person who hires us knows what (kind) of music we play....we play it.....
this might be discussed prior to the performance but the performance is ours....they are paying for our performance not for their requests.....
there was once a band that billed themselves as 'the human jukebox' so yes they'd have to take requests....and yes we sometimes do requests too, but there is no obligation to do so........

[mandofiddle]

Usually if someone at a gig asks us if we know a song, I point them down to the setlist on the floor and say "If it's on there, we know it". http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif We'll change the order of our setlist to accomodate someone who wants to hear something off of it, but if we don't know a tune, we sure as heck aren't gonna try it for the first time at a gig.

I've even heard a recording of a high profile band that asked "Does anyone have any requests?" Someone asked for one of their originals and they responded "Um, well we forgot that one, any other requests?"

[Scotti Adams]

..tell them to write the request on a twenty dollar bill....then see what they say..

[jim simpson]

We get requests at our jam and usually someone in the jam knows it well enough for everyone to follow. Often a round is bought for the group by the requestee but not always. On another note, our band was warming up behind a stage before our set and this young kid came up and asked if we knew that song from "O Brother.." I said no and we went back to practicing. I wondered if I discouraged a potential bluegrass fan from developing but he didn't even know the name of what he was requesting. I shouldn't have been bothered by it but I just arrived after driving 3 hours to get to the job and jumped right into our warm-up. O brother!

[Doug Edwards]

How 'bout, "We don't know that one, but this one has a lot of the same notes in it".

[Rroyd]

Or "wow, there's only seven songs in the whole world that we don't know. Can you believe that the one you want to hear is one of them???"

[Clyde Clevenger]

At a paying gig if a request is made for a song we either don't know or don't want to do we try to be polite and say the we don't have that one worked out, that works unless they are drunk, then I don't have to be polite anymore. Same thing for jams, ours are mostly run by our local bluegrass association and we want to keep folks interested, it's not their fault if all they know of bluegrass is Dueling Banjos, we are there to educate. Be nice, be polite, but don't do it.

[jim_n_virginia]

It's no big deal to me, if you know the song (or someone else does) and you like it then just play it, if you don't like the song and don't feel like playing it then don't.

I usually use humor to cover just about anything so as not to hurt someone's feelings. If they are being a jerk about it and won't stop asking for requests or asks request after request, then I don't worry about hurting their feelings as they are not worried about hurting mine.

But usually if I know the song I play it because I think it is nice that someone is listening. I play occasionally at one Celtic Jam at a Irish pub and there are a lot of regulars there and I think they don't even hear us anymore!