JAZZ LESSON NO. 2: Learn how to improvise jazz (without... strument!) S

2nd edition
January 2014
DEAR FRIENDS,
First of all: best
wishes to all of you for the year
2014! Because of the holidays, this newsletter is a bit
later than expected. A new year means new chances, also
for the Groningen Student Big Band. That’s why we
kicked off 2014 with a brand new website! Take a look
at www.groningenstudentbigband.nl! In this newsletter,
we’ll give away some tips and tricks for musicians
who’d like to learn how to improvise. Furthermore, this
newsletter edition contains an interview with David
Rosenstock, our drummer.
There
are a lot of things to work on this year. Getting
funds for the band, for instance, has the highest
priority right now. We rely upon the help of sponsors
in order to promote the band, acquire new music and develop new projects. This is what brings us to our next
goal: the music projects. By the beginning of March,
we’d like to start with a project called ‘Swing night’,
a monthly gig at a Theatre in cooperation with a dancing school in Groningen, where people can come and
dance to our swing music. Another project we’re working
on is the ‘Cinema nights’ project, a series of gigs
combined with old movies. We’ll keep you posted about
these projects and its progress in the next newsletter.
Please note: a lot of gigs haven’t been confirmed yet,
so hopefully we have more upcoming gigs to announce
next time!
Facebook likes
at this moment:
245
UPCOMING GIGS
Thursday, 22/05
Music Matters Lunch
concert @ Harmonie
building RUG (Gron)
Time: 12:00
Info & tickets
Deze nieuwsbrief liever
in het Nederlands? laat
het ons weten via de
mail!
JAZZ LESSON NO. 2: Learn how to improvise jazz (without your instrument!)
Simply put, improvisation means making something up as you go along. In jazz, it is
when musicians perform a different interpretation each time they play the same
tune. A tune is never played the exact same way twice, whether played by the same
musicians or an entirely different group; the improvisation becomes its own musical
dialogue between band members without any preconceived
notion of what the final outcome will be. It’s a musical
conversation.
When jazz musicians improvise, they are playing the
notes that they “hear” (imagine) in their mind; they
“hear” these notes just a split second before they play
them (just like when you are talking, you “hear” the
words in your head just a split second before you say
them. It happens so fast and so naturally that it seems
simultaneous, but in actuality, the thought occurs a microsecond before the action).
If
you’d like to learn how to improvise Jazz, there’s so much information out
there, that knowing where to start is a complete nightmare. That’s why we made a
checklist to get you started learning a bit of jazz improvisation. Just simply go
through the checklist, click on the text and images for more info and
you’ll be well on your way to becoming a fluent jazz musician. This month, we’ll
discuss the things to do without your instrument. Next month, we’ll pay attention
to the things you can practice WITH your instrument.
Things to do WITHOUT your instrument:
1.
Listen to jazz. This sounds simple, but how much have you really listened? With
the advent of Ipods that carry gigabytes of music, there’s no excuse not to be
listening all the time.
2.
Understand the jazz culture. There are many myths
about jazz, and even more mysterious than the music
are the players themselves. Pick up some autobiographies of some great jazz musicians and you’ll begin
to understand what life was like for these people
(for example: Miles Davis’s Autobiography, Count
Basie’s Autobiography). Reading about jazz musicians
is always fun and entertaining.
3.
Understand chords, chord progressions, and chordtones from a theoretical and aural basis. You hear so
much about how complicated jazz theory is that when
people start to learn jazz, they think they have to
learn a ton of theory. In actuality, there’s only a
minimum amount of music theory required to understand
jazz lines and progressions and the bulk of it has to
do simply with chords. You need to understand how chords are built (major, minor, dominant, half-diminished, and diminished). A firm understanding of how to
build these chords will allow you to branch out to modifications of these
chords, including dominants with altered 5s and 9s. Make sure to think of each
chord tone as a number in relation to the chord. A great way to start ingraining the structures of chords into your mind is visualizing them in your spare
time. Again, this is all stuff you can start doing today even without your instrument! Equally if not more important to understanding chords, is to learn to
actually hear chords and chord tones. We’ll come back to the understanding of
chords later in the Jazz Lessons sections.
4.
Understand ii Vs (two-five progressions) and how important they truly are. The
ii V progression makes up the vast majority of chord changes within the jazz
standard repertoire. Much of the successes or failures as improvisers come from
being able to navigate this deceptively simple progression. They are extremely
important to study.
Next month we’ll continue the improvising lessons with the ‘Things to do WITH your
instrument’ checklist.
AN INTERVIEW WITH... David Rosenstock (DRUMMER)
This month we interview David, our drummer from Germany. He studied at the Prins
Claus Conservatory in Groningen and is currently pursuing his career in different
bands and in teaching.
You’re
from Germany but you speak excellent Dutch. Where did you learn how to
speak Dutch so fast?
Thanks, besides a two-week language-course I tried my best to avoid using English
and just learned on-the-go. I find it very rewarding to learn the local language
and it makes many things much easier so I tried hard to
learn it. Some Dutch friends were helping me a lot and
correcting my mistakes.
You
just finished your studies at the conservatory. What
do you do now?
I am just continuing to practice and learn music. I like
teaching so I am happy to have some drum students and I am
looking for more. Besides the Groningen Student Big Band,
I am playing with some other bands, both jazz and funk. At
the same time I am looking for future options like master
classes a and workshops or Master programs.
Are
there any bands or artists that inspire you musically?
Well there are probably too many to name, but certainly the biggest influences are
Michael Jackson, Keith Jarrett, The Roots, Sting, Jamiroquai, James Brown, WDR Big
Band, Herbie Hancock, D'Angelo and so on...
The
GSBB is a semiprofessional band. What is your motivation to play in this band
with not only professional musicians?
When I was playing the first rehearsal I immediately liked the atmosphere in the
band - everybody is really involved and there is a very good energy. I liked how
the band and the conductor interact, always in a very productive way, being nice
but at the same time focusing on real improvement.
For me, the main thing
about music is having a good atmosphere and people who are involved
with the music and doing their best. Besides that, this band is very well organized! I was really impressed how this band sounds after only a few months and decided to contribute from my part- I am very much looking forward to future projects and many nice concerts!
What
is your musically guilty pleasure?
“Gettin' Jiggy with it”
If
by Will Smith.
you had to change drums for another instrument, what would that be?
Probably the Bass – it has so much power to move the music but is yet subtle. I
also love the Baritone sax.
What
is your favorite GSBB tune?
The Peanut Vendor – because of the trumpet parts :)
Who
do you want to be interviewed next?
Rob Spelberg, because I want to know his musically guilty pleasure.
DID YOU KNOW…

Warner Music collected over US$2 million in royalties in 2008 for public usage of the "Happy Birthday" song.

None of The Beatles could read music.

Barry Manilow didn’t write his song called ’I write the songs’.

Leo Fender, the inventor of the Telecaster and Stratocaster, could not play
guitar.
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