Perspectives on jazz education

Hi,

Way back when I was doing a lot of tutoring with students, and they hired me for a class that I ended up calling "The 7 Deadly Arts", and we went through them one per week ... with all the students involved in some way or another ... for me this was their chance to invent something or other. Turns out it was magnificent, and got excellent results and the theater week was far out with the kids all working on creating a play and performing it at the end of the week .. but there was something that gave me a massive jolt on the first class ... these were "minorities" from a federal program for the kids to be able to make it at UCSB ... and I had prepared a prompt book for the class to handle all of the weeks ... and within the first hour ... I realized that NONE OF IT WAS GOING TO WORK ... I was not on "their level" to be able to help them, and had to change how I handled it ... and during that first couple of hours it became clear how to get it done, and since the kids were not "ready for prime time" at all, I had to hope that something could be done to help them ... and separating the different things about the arts really helped ... but making the students the workers in this area, was the valuable point. 

But some things were very important ... the student had to feel in charge of what they came up with ... not me ... and this was the fun part ... and when we did the television thing on the last week, these kids were onto it ... the assignment for that week upcoming was for kids to watch a Sunday Football game and tell me how many cameras they found in it ... which at the time varied to almost 16 or 18. The surprise? None of them had a total, but they had the angles ... and could tell something was there, and this was a great exercise ... they figured the camera views out really well.

Fast forward, 15 years and I was working with a lady that was an excellent artist, and drew "angels" ... while channelling a lot of stuff, some of it religious minded that was obviously part of her upbringing, but the context was modern and completely out of the religious element. Having had some experience with actors for improvisation, we had her tape a few of these sessions which she did at about 4 in the morning on her own. And we would listen to it later and maybe break it down ... if needed, for example.

Right then and there I knew one thing ... about this recording of it and keeping track of the "details" ... it didn't matter, and I stopped the recordings to once a week, if that ... the issue was that you wanted to develop the continuity of this thing ... not find out what it was about, since its "meaning" was not important for many folks, but how it happened was. Thus, for me, the one thing that is most important in an improvisation is the EXPERIENCE, and NEVER EVER the results ... because the person/student has not yet developed the ability to continue doing this until it gets to a point that it might make sense to record the materials, instead of it just being happy go lucky might find something ... something is always found, but in the end, when you list the 5 things (or so), they don't come together at all and appear all lost in the middle of nowhere.

Here, you learn quickly that it is the continuity that needs developing, and how you help define that is the serious issue ... you don't want to break it up ... you want it to continue, until it finds some logical conclusion, which, somehow, it always does.

To me, it wasn't about "mastery, autonomy or purpose" that made it happen ... it was the actual doing, and making sure the student is comfortable with the whole thing ... since the ability changes from student to student ... and you can not assume that your idea is the right way, and the student is the wrong way ...which is the major issue with ALL THE INSTRUCTORS in music and (likely) all the arts. There is always an expert that uses their resume for more money!

MASTERY is something that happens over time as the student gets comfortable with the work they are doing, and it can not be preset, or given a direction since this will likely change during the process as a whole.

PURPOSE is the harsh one ... and I have found that the best exercises are the ones that DO NOT have a purpose, so they can be fun to do as a child does ... and you want to kinda treat these as that, otherwise you are creating a barrier between the student and yourself ... you have to "join them" on their level, so you can find some details on how to handle it ... not think that you have the answers before hand, because you and I don't. Some things might repeat themselves which makes us think of something to do or so, but in general,  you do not want a purpose ... you want to give the 2 year old child that toy piano and let the kid go ... totally ... until they stop and decide to go play with something else.

And with a student/teacher situation, this is almost impossible ... and one has to be careful to ensure that we don't take/break their ability to concentrate ... in order to continue ... it might be like Miles ... a totally different set of notes and touches out of nowhere ... so what ... let it happen, until there is enough information to learn from it and how to work it. You want to improve the student's comfort level with the odd/weird/different anything that takes place ... not intimidate it because "it's not music!".

And for things like jazz, that rely on interpretation and personality many times, this makes for a very tough piece of work ... I always thought that if I taught music, in the first day, I would give the students an assignment ... and it would be 6 score sheets EMPTY ... and let's see what each student comes up with ... what their "idea" of this class and work is and so on, and in this case, I bets a few folks will drop out ... because it is going to "force" them to bring out something or other, and they are not used to that ... they had been taught for a long time to follow a script and stay with the other players, and all of a sudden, you are the "creator" and the script is YOU ... and having an answer it not something that you have considered before as a player, or possibly even as a teacher.

I would like to have a go with some musicians, but sadly, I don't think this is possible ... in the stage examples I had the communication created between the players was exceptional, and even to the point of it being "psychic" several times, and I suppose I worked their rehearsals towards their ability to work together and react to each other, not just throw out lines ...and "working together" is a lot more than just following the notes on the staff ... and we do not realize that ... but then, we do not create enough exercises so folks learn to LISTEN to each other, specially in rock/jazz music when so many folks are tied to the drum and the bass is tied to the drummer, and the music is not ... free! You can easily see this in 9 out of 10 bands ... that are counting out loud, so to speak ... take away their metronome, and the music is dead! Which is weird ... the greatest music can survive one instrument missing, with the exception of the rock guitar solos, since many of them are not exactly a part of the rest of the song at all ... but it fits ... in actuality anything would fit, but we don't see that. In a lot of classical music you can take an instrument out and you still hear it ... and in rock/jazz music, we have not learned or taught folks how to get to that area ... and let me tell you ... it's not about the scales ... it's about YOU ... and how you live and relate to the very sounds you are playing ... if it is all notes and chords, you'll never really be free of the music, so to speak ... and we will continue to love watching the folks that are FREE ... because they are far out ... but we're afraid to learn how they do it, and worse, have no inclination to discuss it with students and help them learn something internal, instead of something external ...

In the end, the work you want to do is strictly about that ... the internal or the external ... and for a student to fly and flourish? The internal comes out ... and usually flies beautifully.