Education (Pts. 2 & 3)
2:
When I was a junior in college I took jazz composition lessons with Stan Smith, the guitar professor at Capital. When I showed up for my first lesson, instead of asking me the standard questions that teachers ask new students (how long have you been doing this, what are your goals, etc…), Stan asked me if I read any poetry. This seemed like a completely unrelated question at the time, but eager as I was to soak up Stan’s knowledge, I went out the next day and bought as many books from his list of recommendations as I could find.
Stan never ended up using poetry as a compositional reference (as he claimed he may do), but the benefit I gained from reading the poetry is clear to me now. Having read poetry only in an AP high school English class, I had no real appreciation either for the art itself, or how that art could relate to the music that I wanted to create. It was a powerful learning experience that is still benefiting me.
From that experience I have come to determine that giving students outside rescources to explore is not just a cool addition to music lessons, but is instead an essential component of their all around musical education, which is left incomplete if they are only instructed on the specifics of their instruments. I thought back to my earliest learning, when I was practicing “jazz beats” on the drumset without any context or understand of why and how jazz drummers really played. If someone had given me the right record to listen to, the picture would have come into focus much sooner. Similarly, the natural rise and fall, tension and release that I later studied in compositions made appreciating poetry instantly easier than it had been for me the first time around. The appreciation of one art became an appreciation of two.
This broad idea of giving students outside resources can be an endless, parallel kind of education, running alongside and augmenting the individual instrumental instruction that students are learning. Why restrict education to fingerings and scales when the general music appreciation that is disappearing from school curriculum can and should be covered as well?
So far I’ve started primarily with jazz records, burning not only quintessential albums like Kind of Blue for my students, but also mixes that highlight the broad diversity of jazz’s genres. I’m doing this as a way to kind of “hook” kids on jazz, or at least on some part of it (as in, did you know that you could play Smells Like Teen Spirit in a jazz trio? Listen to how crazy all this stuff on your “jazz mix” is!)
So far I haven’t gotten much feedback, but I think appreciation of art, whether it’s the music that kids are struggling to emulate, or other works that serve as inspiration, is an integral part of music education, and perhaps more importantly, is the single most significant goal for many, many students who will quit playing an instrument after their senior year of high school.
3:
As far as my own continuing education, it is almost already time for me to again submit grad school tapes for early decision. In addition to recording in the coming months for that goal, I have just discovered that the School for Improvisational Music offers a Winter Intensive in January with masterclasses and lessons from some of New York’s most ridiculous musicians, (Ralph Alessi, Billy Hart, Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Ithan Iverson, and many more of my idols being on faculty at any given time). As I help my brother move in for his freshman year at the Savannah College of Art and Design (where I am currently), I grow more and more excited about my potential continued learning, and more and more anxious for my applications to be done.
It’s all about the tapes for me right now, and I’m sure I’ll be posting about the recording/application process as it occurs.
As I’m away from my computer for a couple of days, I will have trouble scouring the internet for my usual links. Check out the blogroll on this site if you crave reading material in the meantime.
