�Jazz piano students� who don�t listen to jazz...

[Outkaster]

I am actually the student in this case. I went back to lessons at age 49 a few years agoits been a bitch. I was telling Joe M, Wes and Todd about it here on the forum. A lot of us are on Facebook outside of the forum and sometimes we get into these discussions. Learning Jazz or standards has been hard and my teacher keeps telling me to play with more facility. Mostly because of my style; soul with gospel licks were the majority of the action happens in the right hand chord wise. I noticed learning fake book arrangements that I really had no sense of left hand chords, not because I didnt like them but I am just not programed that way. Just learning the symbols on lead sheets is very confusing if you didnt come up with it but my ear is good so it's like learning another language. My teacher is a very good Latin jazz pianist but can also tell you how Oscar Peterson would play a tune as opposed to Bill Evans. I can do that with martial arts as I teach beginning kickboxers and realize the teacher/student relationship is important. Anyway I have started to play stuff like Green Dolphin Street, Moonglow, Stardust and so forth. I am sure for a lot of you this stuff is second nature but for someone that grew up with classical its different. He said I missed some developmental years in all the time I was off. All this said I can still go into three or four styles and just play without feeling musically contradicted. My teacher knows that and cant understand why I cant come in lessons and play like I do when I am out of the music school? As far as some jazz I feel like its not my music on some levels but am willing to learn. I just point all of this out because for some people with competing priorities, its very hard to study at an older age. I almost have to fit little practices in at work where there is a grand piano in a lounge in the next building over. Its hard being a student sometimes I guess is my point playing unfamiliar music.

[Legatoboy]

You know, before I studied jazz with a guy who also teaches classical and makes classical part of the jazz study before I knew the story ...and I wasn't even much of a classical player either before I meet him ..I thought a lot of things were more notated, when I listened and even watched jazz players on TV or film. Then, when I came to find out the true story as I matured as a player in terms of (true) improvisation and I came to understand how foolish the old me was . we live we learn etc yada yada.

 

These folks just think they can get there taking the same train to the plane, that's all. 'Listening' for them is delegated to the lower births because they were able to read their way to success w/classical, and if they were really good readers it could make matters worse...pretty normal human confusion if you really look at it. Too cerebral that's all, but fairly 'normal' human confusion really almost not a problem per say...'that's all' ...is my take!

 

It's an intellectual problem and should be addressed so.. the guy I studied with tended to continually 'hit' me but in a posing questions to me about certain psychological elements in me that are tied to the player in me sort of way of addressing such things. Things like that...you have to try and ween them, as infantile as that sounds....even as adults we have the diapers on...though our self definition and egos would deny that! Even me with me...every freakin day.

 

 

If after many attempts , if it didn't get through to me in my lessons.. I noticed he tended, after a fairly long period of time of attempts, maybe 2 months of weekly lessons.. to confronted the issue with me head on in 1 lesson. Most times i did things right eventually and got it d stayed and my ego unhurt, sometimes you get hurt....but in the head to head confrontation....be it jazz students or classical, out of his full compliment 34 students a week....either group...people would leave when confronted with the main issue 'of the block', whateer it was ...mostly adults he said! I have much less teaching experience.

 

Tell them things directly from the start that's informational about Jazz. That's is a music of intuition, that happens in the moment unlike classical and different than classical in this way/that way but pepper the lessons with it. Like -

...that includes 'hearing' say.. I highly recommend listening to specific recordings along with direct reinforcement by and ear training telling them they would have to sing 'jazz' intervals eventually...ask them if they can hear them in any recordings(that might be much, but for example) ...things such as that!

 

like the Ear training, to the solos they want to play, to recommended listening...hook them with a classical-like worthwhile task...ear training!

 

they have to realize their ears are as important as their eyes and their hands in a New way!

 

 

[I-missRichardTee]

The point about most students not being pushed in the slightest; and instead just encouraging their natural flow, has been very well described and I like it very much..

however

 

OPENESS AWARENESS LISTENING

For "jass" music... listening is of fundamental importance. I recall one of my fave teachers telling me Lee Konitz practiced 8 hours and listened to music an additional 8 hours a day.

 

Music is so much about listening... think of it.. when you listen to a band, you are listening to 2- 15 people ALL listening to one another!! Even a solo pianist is listening to the music within himself*

 

I recall one of the great listeners/ musicians, using the phrase open ears and that fits Herbie Hancock, perfectly openness to the experience of what you are hearing.

 

Listening is part of awareness. If your awareness is in the intellect or sense of self, you diminish the possibilities of music coming through. That is a high hurdle to negotiate.. all this musical info in our minds, and we have to forget it.

 

As pianists we have extra stuff ( Chuck Barrism ) to stay out of the way of, while performing. I am thinking of the idea that Bird brought out when he said, 'learn the music and then forget it.. and just play'.. Right just listen ( to the music as it shows up ).

 

And all of the above overlooks the primacy of jazz rhythm .... it is a deep study, to be sure.

( *this is not in any way shape or form about gender or genitalia , thus *himself reflects the impersonalness of the process of music)

[Outkaster]

Well you have to live in that world also a little. Listening is fine but I have to actually play it.

[I-missRichardTee]

Well you have to live in that world also a little. Listening is fine but I have to actually play it.

 

Now now now.... yes you have to live and make a live ing too... but that doesn't change the primacy of listening. But I am speaking about actual jazz piano playing.. the ful deal. that is for the very very few... and I actually don't quite fit that definition myself.

I am close, but it is such a daunting task... it is for the few.

 

For us, we should just love what we do... loving it is key. Love your time playing piano at home.

When you play jazz on the level of Bill Evans Oscar McCoy Chick etc... these guys are devoted 24 7 AND were supported by the world they inhabited,,,, long gone for the most part. However, Where there is a will there is a way.. so if you are one in 10 million, go right ahead!

The infrastructure generally speaking does not support jazz piano any longer. So we should just go for the openess and the joy of discovery, happy we can move forward at our own pace.

 

I recommend HALF your time at home studying:

LISTENING to wonderfully inspiring music

and the other HALF trying to reproduce some of that feeling of joy.

[Tusker]

Well you have to live in that world also a little. Listening is fine but I have to actually play it.

 

Now now now.... yes you have to live and make a live ing too... but that doesn't change the primacy of listening. But I am speaking about actual jazz piano playing.. the ful deal. that is for the very very few... and I actually don't quite fit that definition myself.

I am close, but it is such a daunting task... it is for the few.

 

For us, we should just love what we do... loving it is key. Love your time playing piano at home.

When you play jazz on the level of Bill Evans Oscar McCoy Chick etc... these guys are devoted, like a devoted Hindu wife who jumps on the flames of her departed husbands funeral pyre!!!

The infrastructure does not support jazz piano any longer. So we should just go for the openess and the joy of discovery, happy we can move forward at our own pace.

 

Agree with the love part. Loving is key.

 

If you don't mind, I am just going to register my disagreement with the illustration of the hindu wife who commits Sutti (self immolation) at her husband's funeral. I'll do this willingly at the risk of having the post deleted or becoming triple banninated in the forums. I am betting, that you meant no offence by the analogy and none is taken.

 

I personally grew up in a part of the world where this practice has existed and to me it has nothing to with love and everything to do with the powerlessness of certain widows within the social structure. I know some widows who have been asked by their in-laws if they would please jump in the pyre so as not to bring shame to the (dead husband's) family. I found the pressure exerted on these widows to be reprehensible in the cases I knew. Your experience may be different, or you may not have known that there is a debate about such practices, and the absence of free-will in some cases of widow suicide.

You strike me as a loving, kind person I'd like to have a beer with someday.

 

I hope my little post has not lessened the chances of that. Best wishes to all!

 

Jerry

[I-missRichardTee]

Well can I buy you the beer but I will have a sarsaparilla !

 

I had no idea about the self immolation issue... I am surprised it still exists.

Maybe I will delete the comment above!

[Outkaster]

Well yes there has to be some love of the music otherwise it eats you from the inside out. You can't also fake it.People will know. Personally I believe the style of music picks you that you play. As long as we are talking Zen concepts.

[nckeysandrums]

Jazz is also a music that becomes better as your brain ages and grows, and as you get more into music overall. For me, a Derek Trucks Band and Soulive obsession eventually helped bring my brain into jazz world. More exciting, rhythm heavy vocal-lead music is going to appeal to younger people, and until ones brain can hear melodies and harmonies as strongly as vocals and rhythm, it's not going to translate. Starting with Chick/Herbie/the Miles keyboard team is all well and good, but if the first thing a young student hears that's "Jazz" is an improvisation based off of an abstraction based on an abstraction of an old song, it might go over their head and they might write off the whole thing. Starting with harmonically simpler, Blues-based, super-swinging records with catchy melodies such as Cannonball, Mingus, Horace, Charlie Christian, Dr. John, and then graduating to deeper harmonies seems like one more approachable way. Going straight to deep Jazz, or even implied multiple key centers without a solid understanding of Blues seems like a fool's errand.

 

Finding vocal music seems like another way to go, something exciting like Snarky Puppy's Something, eventually graduating to the vocalese Kind of Blue. I am of the theory that Jazz is not a single genre, but is a series of Blues-based instrumental abstractions of the history of American musical genres. In theory this allows for different kinds of modern pedagogy.

 

Younger students probably like Kendrick Lamar, and going on a musicological journey from To Pimp A Butterfly (clean version) -> Thundercat, Terrence Martin, Robert Glasper -> their influences is theoretically a way to explain Jazz in a more approachable way where all pathways lead to Coltrane. Finding Hip Hop loops with interesting chords, and learning to improvise in modal language over them seems like a pathway forward for younger children. Yes, even though it hurts, improvising in blues language over Hotline Bling or Get Lucky or Work could be an exercise for young students. Using the introduction to Roses by Outkast as a beginner etude is a way to internalize gospel language. Even transcribing vocal melodies to indie singers like Sufjan Stevens is a way to build aural skills. I think that musical pedagogy is stuck 50-80 years in the past, and that means that it is literally taught in a different aural language than the music that is being made today. There needs to be a modern pedagogical system that bridges the gap for musical education to thrive in the future. The question is how do you allow students to gain aural skills and theory knowledge in an exciting and approachable way that naturally bridges into building traditional repertoire and a strong swing feel?

[Tusker]

Well can I buy you the beer but I will have a sarsaparilla !

 

I can buy the Sarsaparilla.

 

Without exception every person from this forum has turned out to be just wonderful in real life. Must be something about music, I guess.

[I-missRichardTee]

Jazz is also a music that becomes better as your brain ages and grows, and as you get more into music overall. For me, a Derek Trucks Band and Soulive obsession eventually helped bring my brain into jazz world. More exciting, rhythm heavy vocal-lead music is going to appeal to younger people, and until ones brain can hear melodies and harmonies as strongly as vocals and rhythm, it's not going to translate. Starting with Chick/Herbie/the Miles keyboard team is all well and good, but if the first thing a young student hears that's "Jazz" is an improvisation based off of an abstraction based on an abstraction of an old song, it might go over their head and they might write off the whole thing. Starting with harmonically simpler, Blues-based, super-swinging records with catchy melodies such as Cannonball, Mingus, Horace, Charlie Christian, Dr. John, and then graduating to deeper harmonies seems like one more approachable way. Going straight to deep Jazz, or even implied multiple key centers without a solid understanding of Blues seems like a fool's errand.

 

Finding vocal music seems like another way to go, something exciting like Snarky Puppy's Something, eventually graduating to the vocalese Kind of Blue. I am of the theory that Jazz is not a single genre, but is a series of Blues-based instrumental abstractions of the history of American musical genres. In theory this allows for different kinds of modern pedagogy.

 

Younger students probably like Kendrick Lamar, and going on a musicological journey from To Pimp A Butterfly (clean version) -> Thundercat, Terrence Martin, Robert Glasper -> their influences is theoretically a way to explain Jazz in a more approachable way where all pathways lead to Coltrane. Finding Hip Hop loops with interesting chords, and learning to improvise in modal language over them seems like a pathway forward for younger children. Yes, even though it hurts, improvising in blues language over Hotline Bling or Get Lucky or Work could be an exercise for young students. Using the introduction to Roses by Outkast as a beginner etude is a way to internalize gospel language. Even transcribing vocal melodies to indie singers like Sufjan Stevens is a way to build aural skills. I think that musical pedagogy is stuck 50-80 years in the past, and that means that it is literally taught in a different aural language than the music that is being made today. There needs to be a modern pedagogical system that bridges the gap for musical education to thrive in the future. The question is how do you allow students to gain aural skills and theory knowledge in an exciting and approachable way that naturally bridges into building traditional repertoire and a strong swing feel?

 

Makes sense to me

[I-missRichardTee]

Well can I buy you the beer but I will have a sarsaparilla !

 

I can buy the Sarsaparilla.

 

Without exception every person from this forum has turned out to be just wonderful in real life. Must be something about music, I guess.

 

Sarsaparilla. I never noticed that first R in Sarsaparilla. of course that was in old cowboy pictures!

 

[I-missRichardTee]

Outcaster the reggae/ judo man from NY state...

Man, you've got to immerse yourself in the sounds of the music daily.

 

If not, then find a jazz style you CAN immerse yourself in. Loving it, being incredibly idealistically impractically attracted to it, is a major key to playing it eventually.