All You Need To Get Started
Bluegrass Gospel Jam Starting Up
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Suggested Donation $25.00.
Through the medium of gospel music, Bluegrass Gospel Jams are a gathering place where both beginners and performers get a chance to mingle, share and shine. The Jams provide a welcoming and relaxing fun environment for introducing folks to God.
I first received the idea of a gospel jam when when I attended a gospel jam gathering as a spectator. At that time, I was in my own kind of “lost world.” Trying to adjust to a totally unexpected divorce, I was enveloped in some very troublesome and discouraging times. I was in a desperate fog of indecisions.
Every other Thursday evening, I started attending a gospel jam. Stapled-together pages of songs (with words) were passed out to the audience. The audience chose the the songs and the performers played and sang. I was amazed at how many of the songs the musicians could play, mostly from memory. The whole evening was a fun family event.
After attending several sessions, I finally mustered up enough courage to bring my classical guitar to the jam. I had to ask someone to tune my guitar for me. Even though I was truly an absolute beginner, the group let me play. After several months, the group dissipated. I tried to find another bluegrass gospel group. There were none. I decided to start a Bluegrass Gospel Jam of my own.
I did not know how to play my guitar. I did not know how to tune my guitar. I did not know how to strum. I had no musical ability. I could not sing. I only knew one chord, “G.”
Whether or not you feel you have ability or talent, I am relating this background information so that you will be encouraged to start your own Jam. If I can do it, anyone else can, too. If you already have talent, you are way ahead of where I was. This is a truth I uncovered: A talent can be developed. I am living proof of this fact.
Want to start a Bluegrass Gospel Jam in your location?
The development of Bluegrass Gospel Jams all across the USA is gathering momentum. There are clusters of bluegrass musicians just about anywhere you look. These are musicians who are looking for a place to play. Along with the right concept, all it takes is an organizer, some email, and a location.
A Bluegrass Gospel Jam will bloom when you are attempting to reach folks for God. It’s fun and rewarding! You can get started right away by requesting a Start-Up Kit available via email.
From the heart
Bluegrass Gospel Jam helps bring together passion for music, praise
Portion of an interview by By Magdalena Wegrzyn | Longmont Times-Call
Three people showed up the first night. Now, between 20 and 30 musicians drop by to play each month. Another 50 people sing along in the audience, and several belt out tunes at the front of the room.
Naomi Nelson of Loveland said she felt inspired to stand among the musicians and lead the audience in singing a rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
“Once I got up there I was sort of OK,” she said. “But once I got down, I was a wreck.”
Nelson said she fell in love with bluegrass music and the community that develops around it when she lived in Georgia. “It’s honesty. It’s really brutal, heartfelt honesty,” she said. “You’re just around real, honest people for a change. What you see is what you get, and what you see is who they are.”
Her friend, Diane Bathauser of Windsor, said the jam was like “stepping back in time” to the church choirs of her childhood in Mississippi and Tennessee. The popular Christian hymn “In the Garden” particularly touched her. It was played at her grandmother’s funeral.
Bathauser said she wants to return to the jam next month — this time with her 17-year-old daughter, Christa. “This is my heart,” she said. “This is a part of me. It’s good to know that things like this are still going on.”
