Jazz School UK
JAZZ LANGUAGE
Are you a Keen Recreational Player or an Aspiring College Student?
Keen Recreational Player
There are many workshops, rehearsal bands, summer schools and short courses to meet your needs, wherever you live in the UK. Please see over on the Jazz Workshops and Links tabs for some suggestions. If you know of some others that you would like to recommend, please Email Me with the details.
If you are a beginner, and new to jazz improvisation, things are not quite so straightforward. Most Jazz Courses are aimed at levels between the Improver and the Advanced student. Some courses accept beginners, to make up the numbers, but it always ends in tears! Few students, however robust of temperament, can cope with a week of sessions in which they are relentlessly asked for answers to questions that they cannot understand. There are a small number of courses aimed at beginners (see over on the Jazz Workshops tab). If you are unable to travel to these, one solution is to seek out an experienced professional player/teacher who can give you the necessary information and skills and practical experience that you would need to cope with a short course.
Here's an example of what I mean. Piano players will not be able to function on a course without a working knowledge of rootless left hand voicings. These are available in books and in online resources (see on the Links tab for some suggestions).But you may not get very far with these without a teacher who can show you exactly how and when they are used, and, ideally, provide a practical playing framework to try them out. In my own private teaching, for example, I frequently accompany my piano students on the double bass, so that they really get a chance to put the theory into practice.
I also recommend a period of individual study with a teacher for intermediate and advanced players. It is an ideal way of consolidating your knowledge, identifying problem areas, and getting positive input about your developing skills.
At Jazz School UK, and among all our team members, there's an uncompromising belief in the value of Jazz Improvisation, and in the ability of our students to address their playing issues and make real progress. We believe that there is no greater buzz.
If you're serious about your music, and want some serious fun, come and see us!
Aspiring College Student
Please read the adjacent column for some important information about the gap between what you have learned at school and what will be expected from you at audition. Being part of a great Big Band and being able to scramble together 16 bars of blues licks for the occasional solo will not prepare you for entrance to College any more. The standards are too high. You will need to have a good basic command of Jazz Language on your instrument, ie be able to play a number of jazz standards that you know by heart, and improvise with rhythmic fluency, harmonic description, good sound, and some degree of inventiveness.
Some colleges have Junior Jazz Programmes that operate at weekends. (See Links tab for details). This is the best way of getting pre-College training.
MEhrClef has a Jazz Week in the Summer for younger players. Tutors are great, and the standards among the better players here meet the level that Colleges are now looking for.
Trinity College of Music now has its own Summer School. This is a great way of checking out the marvellous facilities and tuition on offer in this historic campus.
Otherwise, get a teacher! Get in touch with a teacher of your instrument at one of the colleges you are considering, who therefore knows the standards required, and sign up for a course of private lessons. They will be more expensive than those offered by your local teacher, and you may have to travel some distance to get them, but it will all be worth it if it brings you closer to your goal!
One last thing. Don't leave it until the last minute. A Summer Course, or a couple of private lessons just a few months before your December Auditions, will not leave you enough time to absorb the new skills and information, You're young, you learn quickly, but give yourselves eighteen months. At least.
Good Luck!
The standard of all-round musicianship being achieved by Music Services all over the UK is quite exceptional, and is quite rightly the envy of music teachers all round the world. British sight-reading is legendary! However, what is not so well known is that the Audition Panels for Jazz Degree Courses are exclusively interested in the ability of students to improvise, to function with in a small ensemble, and to exhibit the beginnings of an understanding of the idiom of improvised jazz.
Successful candidates will typically have undergone a period of specialist training involving a combination of individual lessons, Summer Schools, and often a spell with one of the Junior Jazz Organisations of the top colleges.
At the very least, they will have had some sessions with players brought in by their Music Service to complement the normal provision of Big Band and Orchestral experience, to ensure that they are aware of the nature and demands of the skill of improvisation.
It is not widely known, for example, that the only certain way of acquiring tha ability to improvise idiomatically within Jazz is by learning by heart the standard songs and tunes of the repertoire, and by transcribing the solos of the masters of improvisation. If students get this information soon, and are able to begin this essential journey early, they will save themselves many hours of frustration and failure.
Having outside professionals come in to work with your students is a great way of injecting new levels of energy and expertise into your existing programme.
It is also a crucial step in ensuring that students have the necessary information in plenty of time for their College auditions. Many of the skills required at entrance need to bed in for two or three years before they begin to show through.
If any of your teachers are themselves nervous about their own improvising skills, our visits will give them confidence and reinforcement, ensuring a better jazz experience in the future, for them and their students.
Typically, the Jazz School team would spend the day in tutored playing sessions, leading up to a student performance. For larger, or better-funded events, we can come as a self-contained playing group (eg from a duo to a sextet), and can then offer a concert performance. This is also particularly useful when we are working with younger, or non-playing students, when rather than coaching, we may be aiming to give an introduction to jazz improvisation, by our own example.
Please see over on the Our Team Tab for a guide to pricing.
Whether you are an individual, a band or a music organisation, Jazz School can provide you with the expertise to further your aims.
If you have your own group, perhaps a working or rehearsal band, it is often useful to have someone come in to work with the band as a unit. Often there are specific issues within the band that are hard to see, and even harder to address, from the inside. Resolving these issues is often quite a simple job for an expert, and can result in dramatically improved performance levels!
Band Residentials (complete with Gourmet Cooking) are another good idea, available at Nick and Andra's amazing Shoefactory home!
Nick Weldon's Plum and Almond Tart
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