The Jam App

Jam sessions are fun and amazing, creative moments that musicians are actively searching for. It simply brings a new level of invention once you are not playing on your own. Setting up a jam session, on the other hand is not as easy—you have to have a place, time, musicians and someone always have to lag their instrument anyway.

Even though the Jam app would technically be quite a challenge to code due to server issues and unstable connections that would make it quite hard to create a seamless sound stream without any delays, it is a nice idea to think about. You sit down, you get your instrument, open app and jam with someone, anyone—you might be a good fit or a really bad one. Too much tension—you just connect to a different jam.

So with this idea, I have started working on some UI and UX mockups. There are three ways, you can use this app: to create a jam, to join one or just to listen to other people play.

Listening to a good jam session is somewhat mesmerizing. There is a little verbal communication going on, yet the melody keeps changing a shifting literally all the time. This musical way of communication is rather interesting to witness.

The app would allow you to do just that. A user would see a list of all ongoing jam sessions, scroll through, listen, like or search for specific jam or user. On the other hand, the jamming musicians can see they are being listened to and receive likes for doing well. This creates and opportunity to have more social media functionalities. To create groups, online bands and friends that you enjoy playing with.

If a user is listening, it is very easy to just take the next step and join in the jam. The jam screen offers couple of main functionalities. Tracing your input volume and managing your output levels, same as controlling levels of other players—you might want to concentrate on certain instrument or maybe the drums are just too loud (as they always are, in nearly every jam). The crimson part of the screen gives you an overview of the other players while the green portion is to control your own input.

Creating a Jam session

Creating a Jam session gives user a little more control over what is currently going on in the jam. Upon set up, the creator controls the number of players by their respective volume sliders—all the way down to have the position of a player closed, or to kick a player out of the jam. All the way up to invite a friend or a specific user or moving the slider to the middle just opens a free slot for anyone to join a jam. Once the position is taken, the slider would return to its normal function, apart for the kick out functionality.

The creator of the jam, just as the rest of the players can see number of likes and listeners that their jam has attracted.

There is without a doubt a lot more to explore in the Jam app. Namely the possibility of the app coming to existence. The concept of creating a social media oriented app that would allow musicians to communicate in the way that is the most comfortable is just something I would love to see become reality.