How to join

TYJO are always looking for new players to come and join the band. If you’re Grade 7 or above, get in touch now by emailing thamesyouthmusic@gmail.com to arrange a trial rehearsal. We are looking for players who are confident on their instrument, passionate about jazz, and who are looking to develop their improvising skills. We don’t have a formal audition process for most instruments – but encourage you to come and give it a go!

Find out more about each of the band’s chairs:

Most players who join the band have been learning alto saxophone, which is a key chair in the band. If you’re already comfortable playing the alto saxophone, we have a tenor, baritone and soprano saxophone available to try out (subject to availability). We also recommend sax players to consider doubling on additional woodwind instruments (e.g. flute, clarinet), in order to play in a great number of charts.
Trumpet is a key chair in the band, and requires a lot of stamina, as there’s a lot of playing involved!
If you’re playing on one of the first two chairs, you’ll be playing well above the stave a lot of the time - so to play those parts, we’re looking for players to be developing their high playing.
We’d also expect that you’d be starting to collect a full set of mutes (straight, cup, harmon, bucket, plunger).
We usually have four or five trombones in the band.
If you’re playing on one of the first two chairs, you’ll be playing well above the stave a lot of the time - so to play those parts, we’re looking for players to be developing their high playing.
We’d also expect that you’d be starting to collect a full set of mutes (straight, cup, harmon, bucket, plunger).
Playing jazz guitar chords is very different from usual rhythm guitar, as it requires playing chords without the root: for most people this means a lot of re-learning! If you’re a confident guitar player, we can support you with this.
We have a full backline available at rehearsals, so you don’t have to bring your own amp or cables!
We have had double bass players and electric bass players in the rhythm section in the band’s history. We recommend that if you play one of them that you also try the other - it gives you more versatility to be able to play in different tunes. We have a double bass which you can use at rehearsals as well - and can support you with transferring electric bass skills to the double bass (and starting to learn bow technique), if that would be helpful!
Bass players need to be able to read stave notation and improvise walking lines from chord symbols.
We have a full backline available at rehearsals, so you don’t have to bring your own amp or cables!
We recommend that drummers immerse themselves in the world of jazz drumming to get a good feel of the music, to support them with their playing. In addition to the drum kit, we play many tunes which require additional auxiliary percussion, particularly in the Latin jazz numbers!
We have a full backline available at rehearsals, so you don’t have to bring your own kit (but you may wish to bring your own cymbals).
You don’t have to have taken grade exams to join the band as a vocalist - but you do have to have a passion for jazz! We recommend listening to lots of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to get a sense of the kinds of music we play, and see which songs you enjoy singing.