The following is extracted from several interviews on teaching beginning jazz, which I did with educator Curt Sipes who teaches in the York, Pennsylvania area. We cover the teaching of jazz saxophone to a beginning student.
Part 1:Scales, Articulation, Listening & Imitation
Curt asks: I've listed the major areas that I address with my beginning
students with a description of what we have been doing. Could you comment on
these recommendations?
DL: First of all, I start them playing a scale routine from the very beginning. I make them say the scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C), play and sing it on do-re-mi syllables. They must do the scales from the bottom to the top of the horn. If they know ledger lines then they should write them out. Eventually any good book with scale routines will be fine.
CS:That's what I was going to recommend. Go up and down, all the way
below the root and back. How many scales a week do you give? Three major scales?
DL:A few per week depending upon the student’s rate of learning is fine. As they
move on to other majors they should review what they have done each time.
CS:How
do you get their minors?
DL:After they are comfortable with major scales we go to chords. I tell them to
visualize a staff in their mind so they can get thirds a little more easily.
Then we flat the 7th to create dominants for a week. The next week we do minor
by flatting both the 3rd and the 7th.
CS:D minor, D, F, A, C and that type of scale?
DL: I link the chord/scale (dorian, etc.) up a little later. Eventually we do
the chromatic, diminished, and whole-tone scales. My scale syllabus playalong,
which is Volume 24 of the Aebersold series is a good guide.
CS:Legato?
DL:Three ways would be ideal: tonguing every note for obvious reasons,
completely legato for speed and finger control and tongue/slur for the jazz
feel. At the beginning they are not given any speed requirements. When they are
comfortable then a quarter note equals 80 is fine, adding ten clicks a week.
CS:Initially, most of my students don't know what they want. The tonguing
thing can be confusing.
DL:If you’re a general music teacher then ta ta ta ta is fine. But, really, for
what we do in jazz this is getting into the wrong thing right away. They are
open and young and don't know the difference. Why not give them right away
tongue slur/tongue slur? I'm not saying to ignore ta ta ta ta, but as soon as
possible I would get them on the metronome using jazz articulation. At this
point you give them the idea that the eighth notes have a little bit of a dot.
The biggest problem I meet everywhere is the dotted eighth. You try to teach a
kid right away that eighth notes are normally dotted in jazz. So therefore, I
would try to get a kid as quickly as possible into it. That's one suggestion.
The next thing is 2 and 4. You want them to realize as quickly as possible that
2 and 4 are what's happening and that 1 and 3 thing belong to another world,
another kind of music. We're going to use the metronome and explain to them very
simply that when we give 2 and 4 equal stress we lighten up the whole flow. This
is not easy for somebody who's never done it. After a couple of weeks it happens
and good eight notes occur.
The first down beat is tongued and from there on in it's every other one. Adding
an extra note (the ninth or a 1/2 step between any two degrees of the major
scale, 2 and 3, or 6 and 7, etc., gives them an even two bar phrase going up and
down a scale, the 6th and 7th degree) makes the phrasing even for a two bar
length. Do this combined with the complete legato scale from bottom
to top of the horn, again as quickly as possible purely for the sake of speed
and digital accuracy.
After doing some scales I would immediately we have them start
improvising. Get the student to start playing absolutely anything on the C
scale. Explain to him what it is to make up a little melody. Give examples and
have him repeat it to you. Let the kid copy you and then depending on where
you're at with him, have him do a little improvising until the next week. Try to
teach him four and eight bar cycles, if you feel that he can. In fact to
backtrack, by the second lesson as soon as he's playing three notes (G, A, B)
teach him to improvise. Right away he knows that he can play his own thing. I've
never tried this with young kids, but it seems to me that it would work. It all
depends on how you're presenting it.
CS:This is very clear. I have times when I introduce all of this. Your
mentioning it makes it logical.
DL:You know that's the point. It's the logic or the order of events. To go even
further, start getting into the transcription thing. Use ”Freddy the Freeloader”
(from Kind of Blue by Miles Davis) or any other simple blues solo to get
him to start singing and eventually playing along with a record immediately.
What we're trying to accomplish is a couple of things: a looseness of rhythmic
approach from the very beginning with a sense of improvisation. And then tie it
to the masters right away. Say, "Play along with this guy." Give them 8 bars and
let them work on 8 bars for the next month. Or you put it on tape with a
playalong. That's why I did the Scale Syllabus. We did it two ways: every scale
in a simple and a more complex version. I use only the notes in the scale. You
can shut my channel off so it's like a play along. I also have published the
transcription of what I play so that eventually the kid can be playing with me,
copying me, and sort of getting into what I'm into and then eventually play
without me. Whether you use my playalong or not, the point is to copy somebody
and get them playing some blues-type licks right away. So the whole idea of
playing along with records can be instituted at the beginning. What we're really
talking about here, Curt, is the beginning basic pedagogical stances to get the
kid on the right start. If you get those basics started right away within the
first six months, you've got somebody for life. If they don't like it they can
turn around and pick up the ta ta ta again.”
PART
II: SOUND, BREATHING, PHYSICAL WARM-UPS
CS: The sound exercises I start pretty early, after they get comfortable holding
on to their saxophone. I make them do overtones, octaves first, then the fifth.
DL:It's a natural thing. It's
really a connection between brain, ear and body which involves a certain kind of
mental acuity and a sound that has to be there in the ear to hear. Some get it
and some don't. If they play a low B flat and blow a little harder, they will
get overtones. Even though this is not the way they will eventually do it it’s a
good start to give the sensation, so say "over blow". Tell them to blow harder.
It's a natural thing to do first, to over blow. Unless the student is extremely
talented and natural, his ear will say, "I can't get it any other way. I'll have
to force it. I'll use the body." That's their first line of offense. They'll get
the first overtone by overblowing. It'll be a terrible sound, but they'll get
it. We say; "That's what we want, now here's how we should do it."
The octaves are really the first
exercise, from low to high to low and reverse. Start in the middle register
first because the low is hard. Begin G# to G#, then A to A, etc. Then you say
"Okay, now I'm going to go to the overtones." And you'll explain to them why
you're doing B, B flat, C and C sharp only as fundamentals because they are on
the bottom of the horn. Meanwhile, he's actually played the first overtone of
every note by doing octaves. He's been doing it anyway. Now we're going to build
up. Of course, as you know, in my book our goal it to try to get five overtones
off of low Bb, less for the others as we ascend.
CS:It works really good. After they
can get from B flat to D; almost to the top of their horn. Then I get that *Rascher
book. There are seven pages in the middle of that book where you play different
fingertips for the melody. Students like that. They don't mind doing that at
all. (*Sigard Rascher's Top Tones for Saxophone.)
DL:The thing about his book is
that it is very organized. It really doesn't matter, you can almost write your
own exercises. The point is that you're getting them to read something rather
than doing it off the cuff. Just give them something definite to really practice
a half-hour a day.
CS:I have several Jr. high students
that are really on their top-tones. They really like it. Most of my older
students can get a few.
DL:Do you have them play the
mouthpiece alone? I think it is very effective. First of all there is a nice
quirkiness about it and it appeals to the kids. I think it's a good thing to do
right away, because even if a kid can't get the range of an octave, he can get a
second and probably a third. Say, "Take the horn out, take the mouthpiece off,
copy me." The mouthpiece alone is very good because it really is teaching that
the horn is only an extension of your vocal cords. The thing that makes the
saxophone a saxophone is the mouthpiece. That's the bridge between you and the
horn. Let's focus on the mouthpiece alone. You can make music on that. Here I'm
going to do "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the mouthpiece, and "When the Saints
Come Marching In." Any two tunes they want, a Pepsi ad or a McDonalds's ad. Have
them play it on the mouthpiece as if they were playing it on a kazoo. Maybe even
take a kazoo out or paper on top of a comb. I urge everyone to start on the
mouthpiece alone from the very beginning. Try to teach them that this is really
a sound. They'll say that this is weird. But tell them that they are actually
hitting a note. This is an extension of your singing. Now sing the C, then the D
and so on. Eventually little nursery rhymes lead to the major scale and singing
and hearing the pitch in the inner ear. That's good ear training. But there's
more to do at the beginning having to do with good breathing. There is one other
aspect to the saxophone. Did you do anything with breathing?
CS:We talk basically about what
you talk about in your sound production video concerning trying to fill the
bottom area. I always make them play standing up.
DL:Yes, otherwise you're
crushing the abdomen. Again, depending on the age of the kid, the breathing can
get too sophisticated like I do on the video and more so in the book. It's not
necessary. A kid does not need to know this. The technical aspects are not
important at this point. You need to get across to him the difference between
"top part" breathing and "bottom part" breathing. It's very easy, make him run
around the street and then bring him back. Say, "Look at the way you're
breathing. That's top breathing. Why? Because you're out of breath and you need
air as soon as possible. That's not the way we want to play an instrument. We
want slow, even, deep breathing." Whatever rationale you bring a kid in is up to
you. The point is that you want them to immediately realize that they should do
breathing exercises separate from playing the saxophone, especially the younger
they are because they're thinking about something when the horn is in their
hands.
The first thing you should do is the breathing exercise alone. At least
you and him do it, even if it's just once a week. When he comes in to you before
you take the horn out, do a couple of deep breaths just to calm down. Tell him
to copy you, put your stomach out, pull your stomach in and put your hand on his
stomach. Push him against the wall, put him on the floor, that whole thing I do
in the video. Have him do that for at least five minutes and tell him that this
is what deep breathing is. This will be something that he will intrinsically get
anyway. He won't understand it now, but later on he'll understand what deep
breathing is.
Another thing to
do is stretches. I'm talking about the top part of the body. I would have them
normal things such as loosening up the shoulders, crisscrossing, pulling the
shoulder blades back rotating the arms, etc.….all the basic exercises. Get the
shoulders to feel good. That's number one.
Number two is the neck by doing neck rolls. Then we concentrate on mouth
movement. We make faces and try to get some blood to go through this area,
especially to the lips. Stretch them. Then the tongue sticking out to touch the
nose and down towards the chin… a real stretch. Feeling the inside rim of the
lip and teeth with the tongue to just get some sensation in the tongue. The
tongue is a muscle. In fact what we are doing is sensitizing the kid's whole
upper body. Then go to the breathing exercises in the first ten minutes. If you
have a class with 10 to 15 kids, it's basically like going to the gym. I try to
explain to them this is a physical thing you're doing. Music is cerebral which
is true. It's inside us, but playing an instrument is physical. The saxophone is
a very physical instrument, maybe not as much as the drums, but more than the
guitar. We have a lot of stuff going on and I want that part of the body to be
stretched and warmed up, just like a runner would do. You are using certain
muscles. That's why the breathing exercises. My point is, make the kid aware of
the physical parts of the body involved with the saxophone.
PART
III: EAR TRAINING, READING, PHILOSOPHY
DL: Now ear training. What
do you do?
CS: Solfegge singing. I try to get them to sing
every scale that they have. After that, maybe do a couple of tunes so that they
understand that concept. I really have difficulty getting them to transcribe
things. That seems to be a real weak area.
DL:Okay, let's back up a
little bit. One thing about the solfegge deal. You've got to play Ella
Fitzgerald for them or Joe Williams, somebody who scats. Say, "This is called
jazz and this is called scatting." Now I can't see how a kid would not find this
thrilling, cute and appealing. It sounds like fun. So, la, ti, do is not fun. It
has nothing to do with our life. Why not have them do bip, de bip, de bip. Then
have them do a simple little melody like "Twinkle Little Star" and "How High the
Moon." scatting. Have them get right away into jazz syllables, because jazz
syllables are more natural and rounded.
Let them know right away that notes can be sung with a soft sound syllabication.
As far as what material to use, try scales and repeating back some notes. Here
you can really use the aid of a teaching tape. You can make up your own tape
right there in front of the student and tell them, "I want you to be able to
come in next week and play that melody." In other words, this transcription
thing has to be done gracefully for a young person. It can't be over-the-head
the way I teach it for older students telling them that they have to do it
because of the time and nuance and there's no other way to teach you about the
feel. You already know what jazz is about. You already know your chords, yet you
don't sound good. You don't because you don't know how to swing, and I can't
teach you to swing. There's no pill, no book, there's no clothes to wear. How are you going to get ga-ding, ga-ding,
ga-ding, ga-ding (sound of the ride beat on the cymbal)? But a 12 or 15 year old isn't going to
understand what imitation is and how valuable it is. So, you have to start him
off with: "We're going to do a little exercise and you are going to play it back
to me next week.” Give them some
simple blues stuff. It's okay to use melodies he knows from TV or whomever he's
listening to. Say "Why don't you come in next week and we'll try to play that."
Show him how you do it. Put the tape on and show him how to figure it out on the
horn. Let him try to sing it and see how it works. There's no other way to get
him into it. He's got to like doing it because it's fun and he will get a good
sense of accomplishment. Meaning, he's got to get something down quick. Give him
a simple melody. Let's hope he can sing "Twinkle, Twinkle" or "Mary Had a Little
Lamb," nursery rhymes that are very simple. I think that is the only way to do
it.
CS:This is a crossing into one of my
own personal issues. Before I went to music school; this was a long time ago, I
didn't have teachers. I just played along with the radio. I played along to
everything. When I got to college and I took ear training class ...it was a bit
of a drag!
DL:Those kind of teachers are coming from another standpoint where
accomplishment of certain materials is considered part and parcel of being
educated, whether it's relevant or not. That's the problem. They don't think
whether it's relevant. You're just supposed to be fabulous. That's the old way
of thinking which could damage your spirit. They made it so hard and ridiculous
and irrelevant for you to be singing Bach cantatas. It's not what you wanted to
do. What good is that going to do you in the long or short run? You might as
well sing something that you relate to. This is my biggest point about
transcription. It's got to be something the kid relates to. If the kid likes to
listen to the radio, then you're going to have to deal with the radio. It
doesn't matter, just that they've got to like it. Get something that they relate
to and suddenly they're transcribing and they don't even know it. To avoid what
happened to you, make them like the material. Relate it to them.
CS:They made me feel like I couldn't
hear anything. Until that point, I didn't have that. I'm still wrestling with
that issue. Sometimes I know what the changes are and sometimes I don't ...
sometimes I just play the note that I like next.
DL:That's the other thing. The real deal here is if the note
isn’t right, you have to go a half step up or down. That kind of makes it easy
for the kids. It's not that simple of course, but in a way it is. I'm not a good
singer. I don't hit everything I sing. Some kids are going to be good and some
aren't. You do the best that you can. You try to get the kids to do a second and
then a third. Make up your own little system for the first five weeks. As long
as it has some relationship with their world, I don't see how it could miss.
There's this point in the transcription video which is, if you're going to do it
you better love the thing you're going to do because you're going to spend a lot
of time on it. It's going to become a part of your life forever. You're going to
be singing and humming it. It has to start there. You want them to say, "I love
it, I want to sound like that. I would love it if I could sound like Miles and
his twelve bars. I would love to sound like him. Boy, my friends would say that
I'm a really great player." They've got to love it. You're doing the right
thing. At the same time you’re going to say, "Let's listen to Slide Hampton and
Curtis Fuller." And it will knock the kid out. He'll say, "What's going on?" and
you'll tell him that this is what we're working towards.
CS:You've covered everything
but reading. Reading, I start as a standard kind of thing. I make them say it,
make them play it and do ta's and ti's for rhythm.
DL:There is no short cut to reading
except reading
CS:One thing that I've found is
that when I teach the kids reading, I make them do 3 or 4 methods at the same
time. So they go back with a whole bunch of stuff and they get to practice
longer. I know they practice longer.
DL:You've got to remember that
reading is familiarity. It's habit. Really what you're doing is getting somebody
familiar with the rhythms. Repetition, over and over again. There are two
things: pitches and rhythm. I would almost take rhythm separately. For example
use any book that has snare drum stuff. It could be a classical book with crazy
notes that nobody would ever play for an instrument. Let's just read the
rhythms. We'll try to separate the situation into two parts: one is reading
notes, the ability to see the pitch quickly and know the fingerings. Secondly is
reading rhythm, the ability to recognize it and immediately spit it right back.
So separating the two might not be harmful. I'm not sure, but I think it might
be good to just do rhythm alone. You know you could play it and say, "Play this"
and right then you would say, "You did it and this is what it looks like on
paper. This is you copying me." This is the whole idea of copying. You do and
they copy, you do and they copy. Then intellectualize it. Show the kid this is
what you just played, Two sixteenths and a triplet. Say. "Let's go now, let's
really read this. You've got 3 or 4 lines of all those rhythms on only one note.
Play a G, try to sing and tap the rhythms only on that note." Then more complex.
Sometimes taking the rhythm out of the picture helps the pitch. What I think
about practicing in general is that one should be specific about what the goal
is. If it has more than one major point and a minor point, you're doing too many
things. Why are you doing long tones? Certainly it isn't for fingering. It
certainly isn't for rhythm. When I make a point I try to give them a big goal
and maybe a minor one. No more than one or two because it's confusing. So using
rhythms only without pitches is good. Reading can be daunting when you have to
know rhythm and pitches. A kid could easily get discouraged otherwise.
CS:Can
you think of anything that I should be doing that maybe we haven't covered?
DL:I don't think so. It's
the whole idea of breathing, ear training, reading and
basic scale work. Then the whole concept of imitating you, the teacher,
then next a master like early Miles, or 'Trane, whomever. It is all oriented
towards jazz. Underneath we're getting the student to hear the swing feel
without even telling him: "This is jazz articulation". When you're talking about
a kid who has an empty blackboard, you're printing deep without them knowing.
Meanwhile you're re-enforcing it with listening, encouragement and your love of
jazz. So I say lay it right out for them as early as possible. The other thing
is to make them understand what they hear on the radio and what they see on MTV.
You can say to that kid "Hear that, that's improvisation? Did you hear that
little saxophone riff in the back? That's not written, that's improvisation.
That's from jazz. They got that from us. We all got it from blues, from somebody
in the Delta.” The truth is they are improvising even when you put on "that
music.” That's a riff. That is improvisation. You've got to train kids to see
that these categories exist outside of reality. Jazz is not something over there
in the corner for eccentrics. It’s the real deal!!