If I focus insanely hard, I can scratch out a comedy pop song. I once wrote a jingle that went viral.
Nothing very deep, juicy or emo. Just catchy.
I love music and play every day, but really I'm not much of a musician.
Can't keep good time. Can't perform consistently. Audiences make me nervous.
And I never really understood music theory. Until now.
Background Fill
It all began about three months ago when I met a guy called Johnny.
Johnny said he had invented an app that would make me a better musician.
Johnny said the app would reveal the relationships between keys, scales and chords in a way never seen before.
Johnny got pretty excited.
He scribbled circles, waved his arms, fingered his fretboard and went on and on about how modern music was circular.
The app wasn't developed yet.
I didn't really understand what the hell he was talking about but it sounded cool.
I signed on as a beta tester. Lucky me.
You gotta know that Jamn is not a standalone app. It goes with a guitar, keyboard or uke.
It’s not a fast food, instant gratification kind of app either. It’s not a toy.
Jamn needs an open mind and a little commitment. Just like any instrument I suppose.
Music theory is obvious to some people, but I never understood the logic behind chords and keys. I can hear what sounds good, but how it works was a mystery.
It’s hard to see any logic in an alphabetical guitar chord finder. Or in a song chord/lyrics chart.
It’s there in traditional sheet music but that’s not easy to read fluently.
Jamn reveals the logic of music and it’s a magical thing.
It lays out the music notes in a circle called the Jamn Wheel.
By default, the wheel shows the C major scale – white notes on a piano keyboard. Much less obvious on a fretboard.
Give the wheel a spin to instantly transpose a scale into another key.
Instrumental Arithmetic
The Jamn Wheel also has an inner circle. On it are a bunch of dots that indicate the triads (three note chords) derived from the current scale.
Click a dot to see a major chord plus fretboard fingering.
Click on a ring for a minor chord.
There's also a dot inside a ring that shows the odd-man-out triad, the diminished seventh chord.
I was always vaguely aware of the existence of major and minor scales. I didn’t really get why I needed to know that to build a chord. I didn’t know how they were related.
On the Jamn Wheel, the major scale begins in a box marked with a blue line, and goes clockwise around the wheel.
The relative minor scale, begins in a box marked with a red line and also goes clockwise around the wheel.
Until I saw it laid out like this I had no idea that the major scale and its minor scale used exactly the same notes.
You could say the scales fell from my eyes.
That first flash of insight confirmed Johnny was onto something.
I was hooked.
Where's That Confounded Bridge?
Jamn taught me a scale has a limited number of triads, some major, some minor, some oddities.
What really surprised me was how many songs, something like ninety percent, only use the chords shown on the Jamn Wheel’s default inner circle.
The second big revelation was how I could apply this to my music.
Instead of fiddling around finding cool sounding chords by trial and error, all I had to do was check Jamn for chords in the key.
I tried this with a song I’d couldn’t finish writing.
Eureka!
The diminished seventh clicked with the melody.
I then found even more chords that sounded good via Jamn’s pull-down chord finder. Unlike conventional, illogical alphabetical chord finders, the Jamn chord finder only shows chords that work in the current key.
Suddenly I had a stack of chords to choose from.
Why aren’t all chord finders structured like this?
Who knows.
When I Was Young I Listened To The Radio
I don’t have a great ear, but I can get satisfaction by turning on the radio and jamming along in real time to a song I’ve never heard before.
Before Jamn this was really hit and miss. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard.
Why? Turns out the hard songs are in an unfamiliar key.
Another ah-ha moment came when I realized you could punch a couple of known root notes into the Jamn Wheel, spin the wheel to figure out the key, and all the unknown chords in a song just click into place.
It’s a shortcut to learning, applying and recalling new chord. Scale and key patterns.
Your mileage may vary.
Will you get anything from this app if you already know music theory? Probably.
Dial up key transposing, finding chords that work in a key, locating chord and scale fingering, exploring exotic scales and variations of blues and rock scales. It’s all there.
Jamn has only been on the app store a couple of weeks.
I’ve used it about two months as a beta tester and it’s left me with a much better understanding of harmony.
Now I know how chords and scales work.
Songwriting is easier and more satisfying.
Jamn has increased my confidence and lifted me from a rut.
I’m still nervous of audiences and drift out of time, but yeah, I’d say Jamn has made me a better musician.
"There’s a new app out called Jamn that gave me three beautiful insights into music making. " "author: Jamn Man" Nope, certainly doesn't seem biased to me.
obvious ad is obvious.
I really dont mind someone advertising a product in here but could you at least admit that it is an add instead of running around in circles talking about bumping into johnny and shit?!
that being said, one muat admit it is a very detailed description of an apperently good application, which you good luck with your work and hopefully it helps a lot of guitarists out there.
I enjoy a Blues Brothers reference as much as the next guy, but I gotta ask - did you pay in order to have this article shown on the front page of Ultimate Guitar?
I mean, if you did, then your ads should be displayed on banners where one would expect to see adverts, and if you didn't then you should be banned from this website.
my eyes hurt so much while I'm trying to read this -.- I always thought that ads should be like...you know...easy to read, not something that will make your eyes bleed
Off topic, but numerous legibility and usability studies PROVE that white on black text and long line lengths reduce legibility and reading comprehension.
Aware of this and unable to change the design I added lots of space.
i don't mind the white on black, my problem lies with the way you write (no coherent block of text, each sentence on new line). It makes it very difficult to actually get through the text (which is pretty contra-productive, since it's an ad trying to make me spend my hard earned buck on an app i don't need)
Hi Guys, It's a new kind of advert I guess. My name's Johnny.. and the story was written by this guy Paul that actually had the experience he describes. We wanted to show everyone the tool and how it works, without blasting a straight up ad in ya face. Ad's kinda suc. Anyway, hope everyone get's Jamn and enjoys it. I want it to help players all over the world with cool tools and awesome design. JQ
An eyesore, both in formatting and the fact that this "column" is basically one big advert. Fantastic way to demonstrate how not to make an advertisement.
maybe there should be a section specifically for this type of thing, UG could make more ad revenue from it and the users can read a more in-depth description of a music related app or service.
Yeah, writing virtually each sentence as a new paragraph is a ****ing terrible way to get people to read about this app. I stopped reading after about 20 seconds because of the formatting.
