Talk:Vamp (music)

Examples
A vamp is an arrangement that is played over and over, there is no A B A section just A, ie John Mclaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra song "You Know You Know" off the 1971 album Inner Mounting Flame is a typical Vamp type song. Another example of a Vamp would be Miles Davis tune called ALL BLUES.

Only Jazz?
AFAIK there's a lot of vamping in metal, too. --84.173.11.216 16:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Big Business Actually led me here ;) --Morbid-o 19:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Bluegrass
Any bluegrass experts out there? In my first exposure to the term in the late 60s, it always referred to an ostinato that featured violin ("fiddle" in bluegrass parlance). Refer to the essential vamp song "With A Vamp In The Middle" by John Hartford: "Well, I wrote this song with a vamp in the middle. And I knew when I wrote it, that I'd written it for the fiddle". I also recall hearing a number called "the vamp from Hey Jude" and it was a jam (on fiddle) of the Hey Jude outro, if I remember correctly.

--Further on the John Hartford song mentioned above, which is what brought me to this article; from the context of the song, it appears that the vamp in the title refers to a short (four bars, I believe) fiddle instrumental within the verse, between the first and second lines. It's not a normal fill, which should be something just a measure or so long; the vamp is obviously intended to be a short stand-alone instrumental break within the verse. If memory serves, it's improvised, with no repeated figures. This doesn't seem to be served by anything in the entry. Anyone else know anything about this particular meaning of vamp? Is it peculiar to the fiddle only? I've only heard it used to mean improvise, generically, as Gekritzl says below.

It also seems to have lots of common usage in bluegrass as a synonym for "to jam," mostly as rhythm section (as opposed to lead riffs) -- some citations: "So he could vamp" "vamp into the night" "When one player was involved in their solo the other players would vamp along..." Gekritzl 18:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Vamping: attribute of all types of music
I came across the term vamping while listening to Pandora. Apparently, vamping appears in ALL types of music, including classic rock and heavy rock; not merely in "jazz, gospel, soul, and musical theater" as the introductory sentence suggests. Thoughts anyone? ~ Rollo44 22:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we want to defer to usage -- I have never heard any of my rock or jazz musician friends use the term "vamp". They would probably stare at me like a dog looking at a ceiling fan if I used the term. We "riff", we "solo", we improvise, we ad lib, we even "noodle". I have only heard the term in reference to bluegrass and country, normally referrring to a fiddle-intensive interlude. --GeĸrίtzĿ...•˚˚ 00:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gekritzl (talk • contribs)


 * Can anybody come up with some notable and verifiable references using the term, that don't refer to bluegrass or country? -- GeĸrίtzĿ..<B>.</B>•˚<B>˚</B> 00:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gekritzl (talk • contribs)

--67.173.214.141 (talk) 00:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the word printed several times in jazz charts. (I couldn't tell you which ones because I haven't played in years.) I've also heard the term used by lots rock musicians, but most of the rock musicians I knew also played any combination of jazz, bluegrass, country, etc. I tend to think of vamp as a word used in just about any type of music besides classical/symphonic. 152.228.167.150 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC).