OMEA 2020 Jazz Presentation

“Are You Wanting to Start a Jazz Program, But You Feel You’re Are Not a “Jazzer?”

It OK! We’re all about the Pre-Game.

“Jazz is what you do to the music”- so you already have a band, help them swing!

“I DON’T LIKE JAZZ…”

So- maybe you are a new teacher, or you are at a new school, or you’re ready to try something new at your school...and you mention the words Jazz Band, and the kids say “I don’t like jazz…” But- for the most part, they don’t know what jazz is, and in my experience, are mostly shy about new things, solos, and the mystique that jazz is “hard.” Anything that they might not excel at immediately. (Hold that thought…)

I like to come at this project from a different angle- and not mention Jazz Band, or improvisation, or even instrumentation, at the outset. This approach can work with all ages of players-middle school, high school college or adults, with a few simple adaptations.

LOUD AND FAST!

We all know that most young players like to play fast and loud, they like “music with a beat” so if we try to meet them where they are, it’s easier to take them somewhere new. IMHO all students need to be exposed to a variety of musical styles, including Swing, Funk, Blues, World Music and Pop. Kids today are used to faster gratification, and the challenge is to keep the instrument in their hands long enough to have the skills to play something fun. Or is it…?

BOILING THAT FROG…

What if we aim to give them a fun rhythmic experience when they can only play 3 or 5 notes? Can we get them to improvise before they know what that is? Absolutely. It’s important to introduce improvisation at the very beginning so that they become comfortable with call and response, creating or copying a one measure rhythm and just making stuff up in general, so that it’s safe and not scary. We need to encourage/require them to play alone in front of the band almost every day, and then praise the heck out of them when they do it. With any volunteer, find the one thing they are doing right and celebrate it, and others will see that it’s Ok to try it. If they are ready, you can add a suggestion about the next level, like this:

“Your tone and posture were amazing, and I really liked the rhythm you chose. What would it sound like if you played some notes short and some notes long?” Or, “the rhythm would be easier for us to copy (clearer)if you were tonguing, etc.”

WHAT IF WE…?

The words “What if we or you tried this or that can create an atmosphere of safety around trying new things. This is important, because trying new things is the only way to discover what they like and don’t like, and what they might be good at that they never knew about. It can also help you find a solution to a problem in a tune.

PA- RUM PUM PUM PUM

Repeat after me: “THE METRONOME IS YOUR LITTLE DRUMMER FRIEND”- who never speeds up, never slows down, will play the same song forever and won’t drop sticks, show up late or talk in rehearsal…

BOOM SHAKALAKA!

Another way to expose the students to rhythmic excitement at the beginning of their journey is the metronome- wait, what? Everybody hates the metronome! Not if you put a cool beat on when you are doing warm-ups, or scales, or call and response. I use the Dr Beat version, and will switch around from a rock beat to a samba, or swing or sometimes even polka- and it really works wonders to get them to listen to something besides themselves, listen for the bass, adjust to different tempos, different accents and just move their bodies to the beat. All of these will help when you introduce that new tune with a beat, that the kids want to play over and over again. It might be Louie, Louie, it might be Chili Pepper 101- but the pulse and energy will keep them interested at the ground level. We can get to Li’l Darlin’ and Over the Rainbow in a bit.

IF YOU LIKE THIS…

So- assuming that you have done some footwork at the beginning of the year, gotten them used to different beat patterns, playing one or two measures at a time in front of each other, and listening to the rhythm section on the metronome, now it is time to introduce a chart to your whole concert band- preferably an uptempo swing chart. For my 6th graders, I use Diamond Joe’s Riviera Club, which has cool parts for everyone in the band, a “Pink Panther” Hi-hat part, a cool floor tom solo part, great bass line, trumpet section feature, and fun woodwind parts. My bands go crazy for this tune every year, and in fact it is the one tune I do with every sixth grade band, every year, in time for the spring concert. You could introduce it to 7th and 8th graders in October and have it ready for performance in a few weeks. And then I tell them- if you like this, you will like jazz band. There are several other tunes that work this way- Paul Cook’s arrangement of Sing Sing Sing, (Middle School) Selections from the movie Chicago, arr Ted Ricketts for HS, honestly almost any uptempo jazz chart arranged for the full concert band.

GETTING THEIR FEET WET

Once you get them to understand about the feel of the music, they may be ready for you to set up an all-comers band two or three days before or after school. Pick some really easy charts, that they may have heard before- in several styles. Choose a rock tune, a swing tune, a funk tune and a blues. Chameleon is a great one for the funk tune, 25 or 6 to 4 is a fun rock tune, Sing Sing Sing, or Hey Pachuco from the mask are good swing tunes. St Louis Blues is one of a million good blues tunes. Don’t start with the blues arrangement, though- try to find a head chart of the tune- particularly the blues chart. By teaching everyone the melody, you will find that they learn the form and respond to the changes better. I REALLY like the Real Easy books for getting kids started- they provide a lot of great info, in every flavor. Teach the melody first and the bass line second.

BETTER GIT IT IN YOUR EAR!

After everyone learns (and eventually memorizes) the melody - which is easy enough on tunes like Bag’s Groove or ? .Have one section play the bass line with the rhythm section, and the rest of the horns play the head. If it’s got a swing feel, introduce Doot-N-Dah Doot-N-Dah (or La-Doo-dle, La-Doo-dle)- as a syllable to keep everyone swinging together. Accent the last syllable, the Dah, more that the Doot. Repeat as needed until most players have the melody memorized. Teach the players on the bass line to accent the notes gently on 2 and 4. Once they have the melody and the bass line in their ears, they will have a better chance of hearing how the chords change.

DON”T LOOK NOW, BUT…

When it comes to improvisation, I use a gentle,(fun and a little bit sneaky) step-by-step approach, that has nothing to do with reading or jazz.

Pregame: Call and Response- do this with your sixth graders and all newbie players. Let them learn to copy more than notes- also dynamics, articulation, ornaments, even extended techniques like falls, scoops, growls, barking and plunger sounds. Make it a game, and eventually let others lead it, or take turns with different sections on different days. Experimenting with their instruments gives them knowledge of where the limits are, how to make and control unique sounds and the freedom to make funny sounds.

If you have a short day- assembly schedule or other time-suck, do ”Circle Band”, or “Stand Band” or “Scatter Band” and have fun with your noisemakers!

Getting Back to Improv- Jazz or other

1. Learn the melody, preferably in more than one key. If there are words, learn them. This is especially helpful, easy and fun in beginning band. Mary Had a Little Lamb can become an experiment in motivic development if you let it! Make it minor, just for fun. Aunt Rhodie’s Appetite is a great example of theme and variation for 6th grade.
2. Ornament the melody with simple alterations, continue to hear the melody in your head. Don’t forget that simple rhythmic alterations are easy and cool.
3. In that Jazz tune, if there is a written solo, learn it, with the goal of altering it. Sometimes there will be a couple of measures of the solo that have altered chords, or fast moving changes, and borrowing from the written solo can help here.

The advanced jazz group uses 7th chords for a warm-up every day. I teach them using numbered scale degrees, after lots and lots of major scale work, until major scales are easy, accurate and memorized.

Look for altered tones in the melody, analyze how they do or don’t fit into the chord symbols.

DISCLAIMER

There is a certain usefulness to teaching blues scales, and letting students “noodle or barf over a blues scale.” (Yes, I do call it this.) Young players in particular, often find the colors of the blues scale intriguing, safe and “cool.” If it gives them a vehicle to play out and feel good about taking a solo, it’s an okay first step. It’s especially good for call and response exercises with the teacher, and also good when teaching them to limit their solo ideas to two or three notes. Honestly, not enough young players every learn how to play over a blues effectively, so there is no shame in working on this.

Just remember- it should be one of several baby steps, not the first one and not the last one.

AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT A THING…

Here are some tunes I have used to get the kids to improvise without making it a big deal:

6th graders: Louie Louie is a great way to get them pumped up, and to do short 8 bar solos. I do it in the band key- B flat. Any easy song from their method book can be used to show theme and variations, which is all we do when we improvise! If you get inspired, teach about contrafacts, and let them see how easy it is to create a melody. Lower the third and make it minor, add a blue note and make it “cool!” Give them permission to change the music and you will be amazed at what they can do.

7th and 8th Graders: C-Jam Blues, Now’s the Time, St Thomas.

This group can learn 7th chords, which will give them a framework to start from if they decide they like it. We start by numbering all scaled degrees, then find the M7, 1,3,5,7 up and down, from their scale sheet. Lower the 7th for dominant, keep making alterations one note at a time. (I teach Triangle 7 for Major, -7 for minor because the triangle can represent the raised 7th, and the minus sign for minor is easier to be sure of than a big or small M, depending on handwriting. Be sure they know that they will see different ways of marking these in the music.) We also chant major triads in 12 keys, and try to convey the usefulness of enharmonic equivalents. (Every note can have 4 names!)

The first time we use a blues scale, they have to build it from the root up, after they do a couple, I give them a sheet of all 12. My baby jazzers use a blues scale warm-up that Joe Ingram showed me, up and down in whole notes, then half notes, then quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths for folks with buttons and valves. Bones pedal the root after eighth notes.

RHYTHMANING

Entire Netflix series have been filmed about the rhythm section...think Treme...because there is a lot to talk about. Still I don’t want to make folks nervous about tackling this. First, know that the bass parts are usually written pretty well at the beginning and intermediate level, as are the guitar parts. However- drum set parts and piano parts are usually pretty bad- mostly because of poor editing, rushed production and the fact that the editors don’t know your band. You will see very basic drum parts that no drummer would ever play, with bass drum written in on every beat, and spang-a-lang notated several different ways.

Piano-

There are students in your school who are not in your band program that play piano- if you don’t have a pianist in the band, try to recruit from the rest of the school. Piano is an instrument that is interesting in the jazz band- the parts are mostly written to help with voicing, and are usually not what any professional big band player would play. Written with tons of half notes and the obligatory shout chorus and then there is a huge solo-so your pianist may look at their music and be overwhelmed. I like to teach them the form first, their solo section second, and see where the band needs them last. The best way to check this out is with listening to professional players on your tune. Watch Basie and Ellington- how much do they play with the band? Not so much- they play between the band, when you can hear it. Learning where the piano can sit out will really help clean up the sound and give you an opportunity to teach the use of space and balance. Piano can be good for some punch in a shout chorus, but not every note on every line. Listen to your band- use the piano to create the level of sound density that you want. Remember that with beginning bands, the piano can help them to find the pitches in the cluster chords, or it can highlight pitch discrepancies.

SITTING AT THE KIT

Starting them on the drums- there are at least two schools of thought- One is to teach “4 on the floor” (bass drum on every quarter note) at the beginning, the other is to teach it later. If you teach it sooner, the thinking is they learn to keep time and can eventually “feather” the bass drum. My approach is the opposite- teach them to avoid the bass drum at the beginning, unless it is for fills or kicks and set-ups. I like the quarter note feel to be on the ride first. You can teach them “4 on the floor” later, for specific styles, but if you start off that way, I think it is hard to wean them off of it.

Start with Hi-hat on 2 and 4. The Hi Hat should be the dominant sound on the kit, and the ride cymbal after that. Teach them solid quarter notes on the ride first, and cross-stick on the snare on 4. When that is super solid, add the “Spang, Spang-a-Lang”or Duck, Donald Duck, on the ride. Fills, hits and set ups will come, but should start off very simple. Simple fills and set-ups help the band, and busy drumming usually will not. In our band the drummer focuses on 3 jobs- and surprising to them-keeping time is not one of them. The bass player does more for keeping the time than the drums. Playing in time is a requirement before they get to the kit, once you’re there here’s what is needed from them:

1. Form- show the band and the audience where we are in the chart
2. Dynamics- if the drums are big, everyone is big, if the band is soft, then...
3. Set-ups- more important than fills are set-ups- helping the band to enter after any length of rests, particularly off-beat entrances. (Sneezes)

ALL ABOUT THAT BASS

Electric Bass is fairly easy to learn and if you don’t have a bass player, find your best flute player in the concert band and teach them how to play. If that is daunting for you, consider getting a couple of lessons and learning how to read beginning jazz bass lines yourself- I promise it’s not hard, it’s really fun and you will struggle to get the right feel in your band if you don’t have a bass player. I have seen people use keyboard bass, and if that is really the only option, it’s better than nothing- but not much.

Acoustic bass is a wonderful mix of attack and decay that can really help a band to swing. It’s perfectly fine to start them on electric, and if they seem to have more aptitude than attitude, see if you can move them to acoustic. If you are a beginning electric player yourself, your students will need a few lessons with an acoustic player to make the switch. Remind them to keep the left elbow raised, left hand like a letter C. Right arm pretty straight, and dig in to the strings with the side of the finger. Make the whole instrument vibrate. Make sure that they are playing with enough energy that the sound of the bass is louder than the sound of the amp. The amp is there to boost the sound of the instrument, not create it.

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Guitar- my guitar skills are very limited, and jazz guitar is not the same as “Country Roads” so I ask my students to get private lessons, so we can get the chords right. That being said- you can help to get a good jazz sound by doing a few things: make sure that they have the right instrument in their hands, a semi-hollow body. There are some very affordable instruments out there. Use the right pick-up and amp sound- not too bright, and turn the sound on the guitar up almost all the way, but the amp all the way down, so you get more of a percussive sound. Remember that the big bands of old had no amp, but a guitar with a really big box, and the guitar player was “chopping wood” pretty energetically. Also, the left hand gives a little squeeze on each chord beat, to mute the sustain. Be sure to have them listen to and watch (YOUTUBE IS MAGIC!) Freddie Green, Kenny Burrell and other jazz players to see what each hand is doing and to hear the sound to copy.

SO MANY "DRUMMERS..."

About the rhythm section- you may find that you have too many players. Put extra percussionists on either aux. Percussion, vibes or another suspended cymbal or hi- hat. If you have extra bass players, I let them all play at the same time, but only one is plugged into the amp for that tune. If more than one is playing, the drummer doesn’t know who to direct the stink-eye at! (No- seriously. The drummer and bass have to lock up- so the drummer pretends that they are playing the bass as they hit the ride and the bass player pretends they are playing the ride with their right hand. Pianists also can learn vibes, or use flute parts from the multi-flavored sets. Don’t be afraid to put that F horn kid on the first trombone part in the back of the folder- they need a chance to learn to swing and lead a section with some higher notes.

I LIKE BIG BANDS- I CANNOT LIE

I am a big fan of the “Big Tent Band” for the first year or two. Let anyone who is ready and motivated be in the jazz band.

Buy the charts with the extra flavors already in the set.

Flutes can bolster a young trumpet section, tenor saxes can replace the tessitura of trombones, euphonium plays faster and more in tune, so let them in.

Clarinets can read trumpet parts until they decide to get a sax…

You may need to rewrite the bass part for the tuba kid, or teach them how to read an octave down. Kids will rise to a challenge if they like the music and get a little guidance.

I’D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING

Make everyone sing in band every day- it will speed up the learning process and help with improv anxiety. It’s also a great way to save chops and hear if they are really understanding the rhythms or not. Sing syllables, sing numbers, whatever you do, make it okay to sing in your band. If you listen to Bruce Pearson sing on the SOE Jazz 1 recordings, it is so goofy, I tell my kids that he does it to make sure that they know will sing better than him! Do the 1, 1-2-1, 1-2-3-2-1 game with your band, so they learn part independence.

HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS SOUND BETTER?

Lastly- don’t be afraid to adjust the arrangement to fit your band. Add another chorus if you want to feature more soloists, teach the band how to compose their own backgrounds, cut out a section that just isn’t working, as long as you don’t wreck the form. Give the tenor solo to the lead trombone, or have them play it as a duet, if it sounds good. Let the kids see and hear you make executive decisions about the chart, and even better- ASK THEM what they hear, what they like, what you could change to make the chart more like Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, or Count Basie’s band. This is a journey- it’s not about arriving, it’s about how we got here.

PLANK Library of Resources

Real Easy Books

Cutting the Charts - drumming with a big band

Standard of Excellence Jazz Method, Bk 1

Jazz at Lincoln Center Jazz Academy Videos!

Steve Owen’s Jazz Builders, Step One

Essential Elements- The Standards

Essential Elements- the Blues

Warner Bros, First Year Charts for Jazz

Apps

Turbo Scan

Metronomics and Harmonomics- John Nastos’ apps

iRealPro practice app

Tonal Energy tuner app

Wavepad

Live BPM

Soundbrenner

Motiv Audio

Improv help

Yazinitsky Improv books

Chop Monster

Kendor Music- Publisher

Smart Chart Music- Publisher

Media

Jazz at Lincoln Center- Jazz Academy Videos!!!

YouTube

https://www.wwbw.com/the-music-room/starting-successful-jazz-program-school

OPTIONS FOR JAZZ SOLO DEVELOPMENT

• Quote the Melody (memorize it in at least one key!)
• Ornament the Melody
• Repetition
• Motivic Development
• Sequence
• Silence! (Space) Listen and Silent use the same letters...
• Dynamic Contrast
• Quotes from Other Tunes
• Chromatic Voice Leading
• Rhythmic Displacement
• Accents
• Articulation
• Diminution
• Call and Response
• Augmentation
• Inversion
• Retrograde
• Fragmentation (of melody or motive)
• Play the bass line
• Extended techniques- falls, scoops, growl, sing
• Add your own ideas here! CPlank- 2020