“I don’t know what to play” confesses the student when it’s their turn to solo… I’ve heard this quite often from students throughout my years teaching and giving clinics. It is completely understandable, although I suspect that not knowing what to play (in that moment) is directly proportional to not knowing what to practice at [...]
“To know a scale “inside out” means that you know a scale starting anywhere in the scale, both ascending and descending” – Bergonzi My list of scales: Major Dorian Mixolydian Lydian Lydian Dominant Harmonic Minor Melodic Minor (Ascending) Locrian Locrian #2 Superlocrian (Diminished Whole Tone / Altered) Diminished 8-Toned Dominant / Half Whole Diminished [...]
NEA Survey Finds Jazz Musicians Are Largely Male And Well Educated But Many Are Underpaid And Lack Benefits Respondents Call for Affordable Health Care, Pension Plans, Education Programs and More Philanthropic Support From 2003, but still really interesting. Wonder how much has changed in the last 8 years? Read the rest: NEA News – Jazz [...]
One of my favorite time killers when I worked in the music library in college (aside from intensely studying and rubber band wars) was to play games online. This was before the age of smart phones and Angry Birds. Text Twist was one of my favorites. I love word games and I’m especially adept at [...]
Subtitled: How I Finally Learned, Really Learned, My Diminished Scales. Diminished scales were always that elusive sound that I wanted to try to understand but could never get my head around. Actually that was my problem. I could think my way through it, but I really didn’t have it under my fingers. My brain kept [...]
Tetrachords – the little pieces to a rather large puzzle A couple of years ago, a colleague told me that she teaches major scales to young students using tetrachords. This approach was eye opening for me and prompted me to try teaching this method to my 2nd level class for a couple of years. [...]
I’ve never really considered myself a techie but somehow in the last year or so I became not only that person that colleagues come to for computer advice, but someone who has created and maintains 3 websites, 3 Twitter accounts, spends more time on her iPad that the computer (and not just playing games), and [...]
A few hours ago I returned to Phoenix from the Jazz Education Network (known as JEN) 2nd Annual Conference in New Orleans. I spent 4 days attending clinics starting at 8 AM, watching live music until 1 AM and constantly being surrounded by some of the greatest jazz musicians and educators. I found myself continuously [...]
As I round the last corner of my musical adventure, I realized something quite profound about myself. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last few weeks (not to mention, you always discover a little bit more about yourself when you have to explain “why you’re here” to everyone you meet.) What I have [...]
I’m currently in Chicago. I left DC on Wednesday, after taking a early morning lesson with Chris Vadala at the University of Maryland. Getting to Chicago was kind of a hassle, everything from getting stopped 3 times by various people who said my saxophone case was too big to go on the plane (to which [...]
One of the things that I truly love about being a musician, especially a jazz musician is that you are immediately in this “brotherhood” of musicians. I have been so fortunate in my life to be constantly surrounded by kind, open, good-hearted, passionate people and those who aren’t tend to go away rather quickly. [...]
“All the answers are out there. They’re on the records.“ – Jamey Aebersold During day 2 of the Anyone Can Improvise Seminar, Jamey made some CD suggestions so people could find a place to start when building their collection. (Fun Fact #1: Jamey owns over 15,000 records.) I own most of what he recommended. In [...]
Today was the first day of the Aebersold Summer Jazz Camp in Louisville, KY. Technically, it’s day 2 of my grant journey, and although day 1 was interesting and exciting, I’ll save it for another night. (The 3 hour time different from Phoenix has really messed with my schedule.) Right now, I’ll talk about the [...]
I love hanging out with other musicians. I think most musicians do. Often times we feel so alone in our struggles and often our struggles force us to isolate ourselves unnecessarily. We are our own worst internal enemies. But, when we hang out with other musicians, we realize that we are not alone and that [...]
