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April 2008 Archives
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You know what? Teaching is hard. I mean it. Teaching is not an easy thing to do. This week's workshop, once again, reminded me of that fact.
We started the evening with the high schoolers (and a couple of adults), and practiced scales, major, and "jazz melodic" minor (ascending form up and down), in two octaves. Most of the students found out that they knew the stuff over a one octave range; however, extending the range to two octaves proved difficult. We drew out on the white board, and examined the modes of the ascending form of the melodic minor scale. Finally, we used the "Locrian #2" (Am7 b5), built a bass line, a vamp, and improvised. They really got into a good groove.
After the younger crowd, came the adults. We started "from the end", learning a typical Dexter Gordon type ending in every key:
dexEnding.mp3
At this point, you might be saying, "Tim, we're going to have to mark you down on this post because the title and introduction say how hard teaching is, and you haven't even cited one example in the paragraphs that follow. Redo, and get back to us". Well, be patient. I'm getting to that.
Finally, we sat in a circle and played the blues in the key of C. We took turns playing solo (no accompaniment) through the 12 measure form. It's amazing how transparent it feels when we play without accompaniment. After about 15 minutes of this, I went around the circle and gave comments. Here is where it got hard. For me, talking about music is similar to trying to tell someone about a dream. The spoken language usually falls short. But, I gave it a try. To a couple, I said "You're solos lack 'intent'. You should mean what you play, and play what you mean." I said to another "You have great ideas, but you're not steady. You should try to keep your body more still". Then, I said to another "Some of what you're playing sounds like 'fluff'," making reference again to not playing clearly with purpose. In the end, I felt like the language I used fell short of the same concept I was trying to address. Teaching, like playing a solo, like writing blog posts, involves a constant search to express ones self clearly and with purpose. I hope that, though I might not always be clear, my intent is still communicated. It is my intent to help. But it's hard!
Out.
We started the evening with the high schoolers (and a couple of adults), and practiced scales, major, and "jazz melodic" minor (ascending form up and down), in two octaves. Most of the students found out that they knew the stuff over a one octave range; however, extending the range to two octaves proved difficult. We drew out on the white board, and examined the modes of the ascending form of the melodic minor scale. Finally, we used the "Locrian #2" (Am7 b5), built a bass line, a vamp, and improvised. They really got into a good groove.
After the younger crowd, came the adults. We started "from the end", learning a typical Dexter Gordon type ending in every key:
dexEnding.mp3
At this point, you might be saying, "Tim, we're going to have to mark you down on this post because the title and introduction say how hard teaching is, and you haven't even cited one example in the paragraphs that follow. Redo, and get back to us". Well, be patient. I'm getting to that.
Finally, we sat in a circle and played the blues in the key of C. We took turns playing solo (no accompaniment) through the 12 measure form. It's amazing how transparent it feels when we play without accompaniment. After about 15 minutes of this, I went around the circle and gave comments. Here is where it got hard. For me, talking about music is similar to trying to tell someone about a dream. The spoken language usually falls short. But, I gave it a try. To a couple, I said "You're solos lack 'intent'. You should mean what you play, and play what you mean." I said to another "You have great ideas, but you're not steady. You should try to keep your body more still". Then, I said to another "Some of what you're playing sounds like 'fluff'," making reference again to not playing clearly with purpose. In the end, I felt like the language I used fell short of the same concept I was trying to address. Teaching, like playing a solo, like writing blog posts, involves a constant search to express ones self clearly and with purpose. I hope that, though I might not always be clear, my intent is still communicated. It is my intent to help. But it's hard!
Out.
