Chris Scales, a fittingly-named multi-instrumentalist and associate professor of ethnomusicology at the MSU Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, began jamming with local musicians at Snyder Hall back in 2010 as part of a partnership with the MSU Community Music School. The school had a folk music program that offered lessons to students, with a jam session following that would allow students to play after they learned. Scales said some of the musicians are teachers at the school.

“That program has kind of died away a little bit but the jam session still remains, and so I’ve been kind of running that jam session since the beginning in 2010,” Scales said.

While the group has occasionally played outside of the jam sessions, Scales said, he’s hesitant to refer to the group as a band.

“We’ve played over at the (Eli and Edythe) Broad (Art Museum), and a few other gigs here and there when we get asked just by people who walk by and hear us play, but we’re not really a band, it’s me and whoever shows up on any given week is the group,” Scales said. “It’s not a formal arrangement outside of the fact that it’s every Tuesday night from 7:30 until whenever during the school year.”

The “old time” music played at the jam sessions is a collection of fiddle songs from the southern Appalachian Mountains as well as other Midwestern states like Michigan, Scales said.

“This kind of music, you can hear it throughout North America really, there’s jam sessions all over the place and in the summer months there’s festivals that people go to,” Scales said.

Bath Township resident and banjo teacher at MSU Community Music School Mike Ross is a regular at Scales’ jam sessions and mostly plays the fiddle there. Ross, a retired General Motors auto worker of 34 years, said he jams several times a week in different places around the area.

“Music’s been a passion of mine,” Ross said. “What I say now is that since I’m retired now I’m doing my life’s work I guess, which is playing music.”

Scales said the jam sessions serve a number of purposes, including meeting new musicians, staying in touch with old friends and improving musically in a number of fashions.

Despite being a lifelong musician, Scales said everyone at the jam, especially him, is still learning.

“Getting a better ear as a musician, being able to kind of pick up tunes after just hearing them a few times, all those things develop through jam sessions,” Scales said. “Because I play so many different instruments I don’t play any of them very well. … I’m always learning something new on one instrument or another.”

If Scales has his way, the group will continue to jam along every week for the foreseeable future.

“I’ll do it until Snyder decides to kick me out of the lounge,” Scales said.