After viewing the video “Anatomy of a Jam Session” from Virginia Roots: A Journey into Appalachian Music, Blue Ridge PBS, students will collaborate to create a performance of a two or three chord old-time song with available classroom instruments in the style of a jam session.

Virginia Roots is a video series for middle and high school music that focuses on the role of Appalachian Music and is designed to help teachers incorporate traditional music and art forms into the curriculum.

Episode 5: The jam session is at the heart of old time music in Appalachia. In this episode we travel to Floyd, Virginia to the Handmade Music School's Old Time Get Together, an event that brings over a hundred musicians together each year to learn tunes "knee to knee". We also visited the Floyd Country Store, which has been hosting old time music for generations to learn how anyone can learn the basics so that they can join a jam session themselves, and the Blue Ridge Institute and Museum in Ferrum, VA, which also hosts a weekly jam..