Blog Entry 12.6.17: Sandy Evan's 2014 jazz work "Big Swell" inspired by Indian Carnatic music is my main focus for this unit. This amazing work provides so many areas across Jazz and Indian music that can be explored in the classroom....where to begin!
My initial resources for this piece included developing a Jazz lead sheet for Big Swell that could be taken into the classroom for students to learn, follow and improvise as a way to recreate this piece. I also wanted to use the Raga scale Sandy based her piece on as a first step into this work. Discussing various improvisational ideas with Sandy, I also came up with the idea of developing an improvisation scaffolding resource for students to use. This helps people who are very new to improvisation not be too daunted about where to start with blank bars. Sandy provided some great improvisation tips and exploring a how you may use register and ornamentation in improvisation. Plus different ways of practicing the Raga, in addition to welcoming the idea of the lead sheet also.