[Dixielandjazz] Teaching Competency in Jazz

[Stephen Barbone]

> "Patrick Cooke" <patcooke at cox.net> wrote (polite snip)

in answer to Bob William query about teaching jazz.

> Every conventional music teacher I have ever encountered teaches
> music with a sheet of written music in front of the student at all times.
> One will never learn to improvise as long as he feels he needs a sheet of
> written music to look at.  You won't learn to swim till you get rid of the
> water wings.  Don't be the one guy in the group that has to continue reading
> the same tunes he has been playing week in and week out for months.
>           If one is to develop an ear at all, he/she has to start thinking
> of music in terms of the sounds of intervals and scales.......not how they
> look on paper, but how they sound.

Hear, Hear!!!!!.

And some will never be able to absorb improvisation by ear. Chances are they will never
be competent jazz musicians, even though they may become excellent classical players. Ear
development "Really Hearing" is a key element in playing jazz. The Jamey Aebersold series
of "Jazz Aids" contains many books, records, and listening exercises that will assist in
developing a student's ears. Especially useful are the play along's that have various
chord patterns played at random. The exercise is to hear them and play along with them,
making those pattern changes, without reading. Kind of like when musicians say to each
other. Never heard this tune? "No sweat, the chords go exactly where you expect them to
go."

Perhaps budding teachers of jazz might take a course from, or speak to Aebersold about
it?

I forget who said it but someone did: "Jazz, is the most difficult of all the art forms
to teach." Or was it "impossible to teach"?

Cheers,
Steve (Jazz musicians hear differently) Barbone

PS. Am doing a gig with Tex Wyndham's Red Lions later this month. Trombonist will be
Frank Mesich (of Buck Creek) who has never played with this group. We are playing a fair
share of "obscure" tunes, some that he may not know. BUT, fear not, Frank will have no
trouble hearing where these tunes go, chord wise, because they are logical progressions.
Yes, Frank "has ears" thank goodness, because the front line of the band doesn't read
chord books, or lead sheets, while performing.