Things that pop up when I'm jamming

[artilleryo]

One of my favorite things is to do when I'm playing is a sort of musical stream of consciousness. Basically, I start playing something and see what comes around next on the mandolin.

Last night I was doing this while I was chatting with my wife on the couch. I started out with some Bach pieces, then some Irish tunes, the few bluegrass tunes I know and then...

the theme from Gilligan's Island.

Do things like this happen to anyone else?

[dcoventry]

I do a TV theme song medley, and the Ballad of Gilligan's Island is great for mando. Sits nicely on the fretboard in it's original arrangement and keys.

Scarboro Fair popped up the other night as did Greensleeves and a few other X-mas things. Great melodies all of them.

[tablaninja]

I wandered into, and figured out most of the theme song for Dexter the other night. Surf tunes seem to pop up as well. I've had no exposure to either of these in a while. The brain is a deep and mysterious blob!

[Astro]

Thats funny, our band was practicing Down Under (Men At Work) one night and we all automatically launched into Gilligan's Island. Sounded awful but we laughed and laughed. Now we're thinking of incorporating them as a hoot. We sound awful a lot so we're used to it.

[Bertram Henze]

This is like that old joke "last night I dreamed I was eating a giant marshmallow. When I awoke, my pillow was gone".
It happens all the time when you do more than, say, 100 Irish tunes: some of them are so similar in parts that you can start in one and end up in the other. That is, if you are not concentrating. The bigger the distraction, the bigger the jumps can be, I guess, and chatting with someone while playing an Irish tune would completely derail me - no suprise you land on Gilligan's Island.

[250sc]

I remember being at a festival and walking past all the jams and I'd play along with one then the next and then the next... as I kept walking. So, I played for about 15 seconds in a lot of jams, changeing songs as I walked.

[AlanN]

Kind of like speed-dating...

[OldSausage]

I fell asleep playing Red Haired Boy, and when I woke up my pillow was a giant marshmallow.

[Jim Garber]

The Leave It to Beaver Hornpipe

[sarai]

I have a friend who always does that when we're jamming, always makes for good laughs.

[jv nc]

Is this the equivalent to speaking in tongues?

"Noodling in tongues".....or A.D.D.?

[Laird]

"Noodling in tongues".....or A.D.D.?

Right, the give-away was that the OP was chatting to his wife while playing. I'd call that "noodling," and I have fun doing that, too, but it seems very different to me than "jamming."

[artilleryo]

Noodling in tongues. I'm going to use that phrase.

[Bertram Henze]

Approaching the proverbial infinite number of monkeys with mandolins that will invent every B.M. bluegrass break ...

[Fred Young]

Yep! Stuff like that happens, while picking or sleeping. I dreamed I was a rather large Midus Muffler! set on 240 tempo. When I woke up I was plumb exhausted!