-
I personally get a bit annoyed with the obsession in some jazz circles to be "breaking ground"... who cares if something isn't new ? Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel sound just as good today as ever. Some guys get so "far ahead" they leave Blues, Swing and Melody behind. If something is good it can be enjoyed over and over again. At one point W. Marsalis used to do impromptu concerts with his touring bands on street corners, in train stations, etc. I'm sure he wowed hundreds of people that way who will never forget the experience. In my town in the summer classical music students often play on busy streets on Saturdays to make a little money but mainly out of joy. It's a wonderful thing. It's very rare to hear a jazz player, if I were good enough I would totally do it.
-
05-31-2023 12:38 AM
-
This part:
Originally Posted by coyote-1
"it’s not possible to craft a curriculum for something that is being created in that moment."
-
so then… you are saying that music schools across the world could have, and should have, been able to teach their students how to navigate Giant Steps the day it was first released. Should have been able to cobble that curriculum together while Coltrane was still in the studio recording it. Got it. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
-
I think it sounds like you’re saying you can’t teach someone to innovate, which is true. You can’t teach someone something that is truly original, otherwise it wouldn’t be original. Originally Posted by coyote-1
The phrase quoted and called BS *sounds* like you’re saying you can’t teach someone to improvise, i.e. create something in the moment. Which I think most people would disagree with to some degree or another. But it sounds now like you meant big picture — you can teach someone to improvise, but you can’t teach someone to be really original and break new artistic ground.
Is that kind of what you mean?
-
Yeah me too. I have a friend who says sometimes being excellent is different enough. Which I like. Originally Posted by m_d
-
YES!!! Originally Posted by m_d
I often use Wes Montgomery as an example. Wes didn't create a new kind of jazz. His innovation was creating a whole new standard of excellence.
-
To say that a curriculum can't be created, is to say that something can't be taught. (But wait!, uh, it can be self-taught, or uh, learned on the band stand, or learned by playing tunes, or learned from a good teacher, or Micky Baker's books, or... ). Originally Posted by coyote-1
And to say that something can't be taught because the skill in question is utilzed extemporaneously means.... you can't teach sports, or boxing, or martial arts, or how to fire a gun. Or typing.
-
To quote someone on this forum, that’s total BS. Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
First off, I did not say a curriculum for these things could never ever be created. So your statement is dishonest. I said the curriculum could not be created at the moment the thing itself is created. Edison and Tesla were not creating lesson plans for the teaching of electrical theory at the moment they were performing their experiments. “this is what students will be taught in the first semester…”…. Nope. They were busy experimenting.
Crafting a curriculum is a different thing than teaching. A curriculum is an education plan. Extemporaneous teaching is not planned teaching. From the Rhode Island Dept of Education:
Curriculum is a standards-based sequence of planned experiences where students practice and achieve proficiency in content and applied learning skills. Curriculum is the central guide for all educators as to what is essential for teaching and learning, so that every student has access to rigorous academic experiences.
-
Extemporaneous teaching? Now what are you talking about? You say that you teach a little harmony here and there… Originally Posted by coyote-1
The point is simple. A curriculum is a group of courses, typically involving some sequencing, but not always. BIg whoop. If something can be taught then we can create a course, or a number of courses if the topic is large and varied.
That is done with music, including jazz music. There are courses, and there are curriculums, from fundamentals through PhD.
-
The context of my post was stringswinger’s comment “Jazz education is a modern thing and great players like Herb and Barney did not suffer from too much of it.” I thought it was clever, and responded to it: “Jazz education is great… and sometimes it’s not. Thing is, it’s not possible to craft a curriculum for something that is being created in that moment. And if it’s been around long enough to be able to generate a formal curriculum, then the major creative energy is already somewhat dissipated. That’s not the fault of the educators.” Originally Posted by pamosmusic
It did not occur to me that folks would take it out of that context. Furthermore I start by saying “jazz education is great”… how could anyone possibly imagine I’d say that, and then claim it’s impossible to teach improvisation skills? Improv is the essence of jazz education! Going back to context of my reply to stringswinger, I meant exactly what I said. If Style X is being created anew in this moment, by definition there is not yet a college curriculum of Style X 101, Style X 102, etc.
On the flip side, you’ve got folks like Jimmy Bruno lamenting the advent of unknown local clubdate players somehow becoming professors at music colleges. I presume that’s what stringswinger was alluding to in his “suffer too much from it” comment.
hope that clarifies.
-
“The schools are always five years behind the market” is something I heard about graduate engineering school, some years ago. I can’t disagree too much.
-
If the uni/college level jazz educators I know are anything to go by they all seem to enjoy quoting Paul Desmond ‘jazz cannot be taught …. But it can be learned.’
again, it’s entirely possibly to overvalue the importance of *pedagogy* to the music school experience, if my own research is anything to go by students seem to be quite aware of this - they consistently remark on the importance of community within the college.
Jazz musicians know this and cultivate community and practice as well as classroom experiences; which is why it is important imo that a faculty consists of practitioners rather than ex students who end up institutionalised within the same school. This does seem to happen a fair bit.
-
Originally Posted by deacon Mark
The late Jeff Beck once said of Barney Kessell :"With regard to style, I don't like messy sound. People like Barney Kessell, who use plenty of chords, are what I call messy". Contrarian as ever though, he would later claim to have always been a major fan Originally Posted by AndyV
-
My line was indeed clever and you guys have parsed it out like a bunch of first year lawyers trying to meet their billable hours quota. Originally Posted by coyote-1
Carry on.
-
I spent a few decades teaching writing--not the kind strangely called "creative," but plain old producing-prose-that-delivers-meaning. And what I discovered (partly by observing my own processes) was which part could not be taught, though all the elements that surrounded that mysterious part could be. The unteachable is the part that actually generates sentences, which are then built up into paragraphs and such. Though I could get pretty close by observing what I do when I, say, write a book review (which task I'm stealing time from to write this post).
So what did I teach in my writing courses? All the stuff that surrounds generating sentences, including "theory" material about language (grammar, sentence structure, idioms, word choice) and how texts are organized (rhetoric, logic, conventional forms). And there were plenty of models of competent writing to mimic, and advice about how to organize one's work process. But when students asked me where I came up with the actual sentences or "ideas," I couldn't give them a cookbook answer.
Making music isn't all that different, however different the products look at the end. I have observed experienced performer-teachers lead younger players toward improvisation, and what they did a lot was get basically competent players comfortable with playing--with getting off the page and fooling around, finding things that fit the context and might be interesting or amusing or revealing.
Myself, I don't solo because of my technical limitations--but after listening to jazz (and everything else) for sixty-odd years, my head is full of the ways a tune might be messed with. And when I sing, I do improvise a bit (no scatting--I know my limits) by altering tempos, phrasing, and even the melody. That's ear stuff, acquired the long way 'round, though sometimes I know the terms for what I'm doing. And I'd probably be better at it if I'd had a musical education as thorough as my literary/rhetorical/linguistic one.
-
Only problem is … we’re not getting paid…. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
My line was indeed clever and you guys have parsed it out like a bunch of first year lawyers trying to meet their billable hours quota.
Carry on.
-
Being a musician, you are already used to that. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
sometimes at the end of ten emails it happens? Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Being a musician, you are already used to that.
I figure music performance is basically an office job with some unpaid playing tacked on when you crunch the numbers… Amateurs have no idea..
-
I tell people that the music is free, the money is for the driving. And indeed, the hours spent doing administrative stuff sure do add up! Originally Posted by Christian Miller
-
true. Professional driving…. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
just don’t say you are musican when getting insurance…. Music teaching! The insurance companies know…
-
In contrast to you, I spent a few decades actually professionally writing what you call "plain old producing-prose-that-delivers-meaning." Doing, not teaching. And I completely agree with the experts here who say you need to learn tunes. The time I spent trying the academic approach to learning music/jazz was mostly boring and mostly wasted. I should have approached learning music the way I did my professional writing: Just do it and learn it in real life.
QUOTE=RLetson;1268916]I spent a few decades teaching writing--not the kind strangely called "creative," but plain old producing-prose-that-delivers-meaning. And what I discovered (partly by observing my own processes) was which part could not be taught, though all the elements that surrounded that mysterious part could be. The unteachable is the part that actually generates sentences, which are then built up into paragraphs and such. Though I could get pretty close by observing what I do when I, say, write a book review (which task I'm stealing time from to write this post).
So what did I teach in my writing courses? All the stuff that surrounds generating sentences, including "theory" material about language (grammar, sentence structure, idioms, word choice) and how texts are organized (rhetoric, logic, conventional forms). And there were plenty of models of competent writing to mimic, and advice about how to organize one's work process. But when students asked me where I came up with the actual sentences or "ideas," I couldn't give them a cookbook answer.
Making music isn't all that different, however different the products look at the end. I have observed experienced performer-teachers lead younger players toward improvisation, and what they did a lot was get basically competent players comfortable with playing--with getting off the page and fooling around, finding things that fit the context and might be interesting or amusing or revealing.
Myself, I don't solo because of my technical limitations--but after listening to jazz (and everything else) for sixty-odd years, my head is full of the ways a tune might be messed with. And when I sing, I do improvise a bit (no scatting--I know my limits) by altering tempos, phrasing, and even the melody. That's ear stuff, acquired the long way 'round, though sometimes I know the terms for what I'm doing. And I'd probably be better at it if I'd had a musical education as thorough as my literary/rhetorical/linguistic one.[/QUOTE]
-
Phil59: After my two decades in the classroom (during which I published plenty in my field), I spent three as a freelance journalist, so no contrast. The point of my post is that generating material (copy, music, photographs, cabinetry) is rooted in skills that can be taught and learned (those two are not identical). Though I would say that at the deepest levels of "creative" work, the generative part is mostly learned, either with the help and examples of active practitioners or (for the gifted/persistent) mostly on one's own.
FWIW, my formal musical training is thin and spotty, and I have proceeded primarily by learning tunes, figuring out (or being shown) how they work and how to execute them better. For those who prefer the bandstand or the woodshed over the classroom or the library, fine. Though the finishing school, I think, remains the bandstand (where I received my weekly dose of instruction this evening, thanks to the patience and tolerance of a bunch of schooled and experienced players).
-
Miles Davis once said something about some of the composers who followed in his footsteps to the effect of they bring me this music full of chords… I can’t play it. Originally Posted by olliehalsall
The late Jeff Beck once said of Barney Kessell :"With regard to style, I don't like messy sound. People like Barney Kessell, who use plenty of chords, are what I call messy". Contrarian as ever though, he would later claim to have always been a major fan
As interesting as the bebop era was, it pays to remember that the preponderance of it was soloing over existing frameworks. And the majority of those frameworks were not overly complex. Teaching people to navigate those frameworks can’t be impossible.
-
It isn’t. Rythm changes is basically I V I V I IV I V when you look at the bones of it. And then there’s the blues. and that accounts for something like 75% of Birds compositional output…. Originally Posted by coyote-1
Later bop got into these chromatic ii V’s that again that are not too hard to navigate once you’ve practiced your stuff in all the keys.
Like classical era music it’s a small room harmonically; strongly schematic.
-
So Christian - you say kids can skillfully improvise jazz solos on the guitar "for days". I've not seen evidence of that, but maybe I've missed it.
For round numbers, let's say there are roughly 100 jazz guitar majors in the US as of now. Can you - or anyone really - provide 100 links that prove that jazz education is not needed by these kids (17 and younger)? And by that I also mean, they can skillfully improvise Bebop AND Post-bop, not just the latter. And no fusion allowed, lol.
I'll get my popcorn ready. (but expect I'll need 100 bowls)Last edited by Jazzjourney4Eva; 06-04-2023 at 11:59 AM.
Reply With Quote
Campellone Deluxe 16" thin-line
Today, 06:37 PM in For Sale