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The Problem

This technology will be useful for the organization and communication of simple musical improvisations.  Even simple musical improvisations can be difficult for trained musicians because of difficulty communicating musical ideas in real time, remembering chord progressions as well as trading melodic phrases based on scales. For musicians at this level of play, cognitive load is very high during jam sessions. This is primarily due to a large amount of cognitive resources being dedicated to the memorization of chords, scales or note placement.

An additional issue with coordinating music in a group is viewability. It is important that all musicians be able to see the musical information. Traditionally musicians have had their own music stands and are coordinated by page number. This is undesireable for many reasons including the obstruction of the field of view of the musicians. "It is important that every musician is able to see each other in a Jam session. Otherwise someone may be trying to get your attention and you would never see it!"-Victor Wooten. It is also important to maintain a clear stage because it helps support the sense of community within the jam session. 

In the Fall of 2017 there were no resources to view musical scores outside of a 2-Dimensional screen. There was also no technology that coordinated this information with a visual display on a piano. The Jam Tabs technology serves as the first multi-person jam coordination system when used in conjunction with SolJAMM Piano Bars. Jam Tabs aims to serve as a reminder for musicians during jam sessions what the most important notes are in a given sequence of chords and display them in color on LED cubes. When coupled with the SolJAMM Piano Bar the notes present on the Jam Tab LED Display should be able to be located easily on the piano. 

 

Fig.1_Jam Tabs will display a prearranged note sequence (notes are associated with colors).

 Fig.2_Colored music bar applied to piano. This product is used to coordinate light color with the notes on the piano. Colored music bar provided by SolJAMM, LLC.

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