Kerwin 1

This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the School of Music

______

Dr. Matthew James Professor, Saxophone and Jazz Studies Thesis Advisor

______

Dr. Christopher Fisher Director of Studies, Music

______

Cary Roberts Frith Interim Dean, Honors Tutorial College

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DEVELOPING A MELODIC VOCABULARY FOR JAZZ IMPROVISATION: NON- PLAYING PRACTICE ALTERNATIVES FOR TRUMPET STUDENTS

______

A Thesis

Presented to

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Music

______

by

Ryan J. Kerwin

April 22, 2019

Kerwin 3

Table of Contents

Foreword ...... 5

1.0 Introduction ...... 7

2.0 Review of Literature ...... 12

2.1 Studies of Non-Playing Practice Techniques in Instrumental Music Education ...... 12

2.1.1 Mental Practice: ...... 12

2.1.2 Singing: ...... 14

2.1.3 Compartmentalization of Techniques: ...... 16

2.2 Historical Accounts of Jazz Musicians and Pedagogues ...... 17

2.3 Mainstream Printed Jazz Pedagogy ...... 20

2.4 Contemporary Alternative Printed Jazz Pedagogy ...... 26

2.5 Popular Online Resources ...... 28

2.6 Thesis and Dissertations related to Jazz Pedagogy ...... 29

2.7 Jazz Pedagogy in Music Education Research ...... 32

2.8 Conclusions: ...... 36

3.0 Interviews ...... 38

3.1 Introduction and Biographical Information ...... 38

3.2 Interview Discussion ...... 39

3.2.1 Developing Aural Skills ...... 39

3.2.2 Internalizing What You Hear ...... 41

3.2.3 Putting Concepts into Practice on Your Instrument ...... 43

4.0 A Practical Method ...... 47

4.1 Immersive Listening ...... 47 Kerwin 4

4.2 Developing an Intellectual Understanding ...... 48

4.3 Internalizing the Language ...... 49

4.4 Connecting Aural/Theoretical Understanding to Fingering Technique ...... 50

4.5 Applying Ideas in Context ...... 50

5.0 Final Remarks ...... 52

References ...... 53

Appendices ...... 60

Appendix A: Jamey Aebersold Electronic Interview Responses ...... 60

Appendix B: Jamey Aebersold Phone Interview Transcript ...... 62

Appendix C: Hal Crook Interview Transcript ...... 65

Kerwin 5

Foreword

The inspiration for this project was largely borne out of frustrations I was experiencing in my practice during my first two years of college. I quickly discovered that I could not maintain a healthy playing mechanism while trying to improve my ability to play my ensemble repertoire, my classical repertoire, and my jazz repertoire at the same time. I found that I frequently had to choose between giving my embouchure adequate rest or feeling prepared for my rehearsals and lessons.

Under the guidance of my trumpet professor John Schlabach, I began to tackle this problem in my classical repertoire by refining my "sound concept" – in other words, determining exactly what I wanted to sound like before I played. We accomplished this through a variety of practice procedures including singing, audiation, mental practice, and fingers-only practice. After experimenting with these techniques, I found that I was able to achieve an adequate performance result with a fraction of the physical practice time -- sometimes without any physical practice time at all. Further, when developed in this way, my performances would have much more creative intention than if I had simply begun to practice by playing my music.

While this greatly improved my experience of learning classical repertoire, I struggled to find this same level of efficiency in developing my ability to improvise. Though these solutions worked for me in a classical setting, where notes and rhythms were pre-determined, I couldn't see how these same concepts could be applied to a more spontaneous improvised solo. As such, when I practiced improvisation I practiced almost entirely physically, without any of the forethought I would use if I was learning a written etude.

I quickly became frustrated with this method. I was so driven to become an improviser that I exhausted myself on a daily basis and consequently began experiencing a lot of Kerwin 6 inconsistencies in my performance. I transcribed and learned to play and execute several jazz solos but I had trouble applying the melodic ideas my favorite players were using into my own solos. It soon became clear my problem lied largely in my ability to conceptualize melodic ideas in real time, rather than my ability to execute the types of ideas I wanted to improvise.

Consequently, I spent much of the next two years experimenting with different procedures to develop the ability to conceptualize the melodic ideas I wanted to use in my improvised solos without the use of my instrument.

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1.0 Introduction

"Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple."

Keith Jarrett

The performance of jazz music presents a soloist with unique challenges. During a solo, as in an engaging conversation, the performer must listen to what was just played (by themselves or the band), evaluate, and musically respond. In modern jazz music, this process is almost instantaneous: each moment offers unique musical opportunities that evaporate as soon as a soloist stops to think.

How do jazz musicians make these split-second choices? Researchers have proposed several models to attempt to explain improvisational decision-making in jazz. In one early study,

Pressing (1998) suggested a model based on internalized groupings of notes (what a musician might call a "lick") that could be initiated in response to various musical situations. By contrast,

Johnson-Laird (2002) proposed that improvisation is guided primarily by an internalized set of rules, rather than an internalized sequence of notes. Most recently, Noorgard (2014) supported

Pressing's model by using an in-depth comparative analysis of Charlie Parker solos to suggest a significant portion of his improvisational ideas were based on a limited number of discrete interval patterns.

Because of this, one relatively early part of a jazz soloist's education includes assimilating a diverse vocabulary of melodic ideas. In practice, these melodic ideas – also known as licks, clichés, or vocabulary – help inform the student's note choices in the moment of performance (Aebersold, 1992). For an improviser, the development of this vocabulary is crucial because it decreases the amount of time needed to select appropriate pitches in any given situation, allowing them to more easily navigate the harmonic progression of a tune. Over time, Kerwin 8 this allows an improviser to concentrate on other aspects of the improvisation (e.g. articulation, dynamics, rhythmic feel, etc.) which are important to the music's overall effect.

Before this vocabulary can be executed in the moment, several prerequisites must be met: a) the most common types of chords and the corresponding scales must be memorized, b) the underlying harmony and song form on which the player is improvising must be memorized, c) particular melodic ideas and the situations in which they are applicable must be memorized, and d) the technique required to play them must become instinctual (Berliner, 1994). In performance, the choice of vocabulary and its execution take place in a small window of time. Most jazz standards feature harmonies that change every two to four beats, meaning a performer must make these choices in a second or less. Naturally, the development and execution of this vocabulary in context has been and continues to be a significant challenge for most students of jazz music. Generally, almost the entire extent of a student's initial study is devoted to mastering this aspect of improvisation (Berliner, 1994).

It comes as no surprise that jazz education provides hundreds of resources which address the various aspects of this developmental process. A breadth of books exists which explain the rules governing jazz harmony. Several "fake books" have been published, which provide the student with lead sheets helpful in determining the underlying harmony of popular jazz tunes, the most popular of which is The Real Book (editor, 2004). Additionally, hundreds of written resources – transcriptions books such as The Charlie Parker Omnibook (citation) and pattern books such as Patterns for Jazz (citation) provide the aspiring student with rote examples of ideas from master performers and the harmonic situations in which they can be employed. Most of these books explain these concepts in a way that is understandable for the trained musician and Kerwin 9 are very helpful in fast-tracking a learning process which would have otherwise been left almost entirely to a student's ears.

However, fewer resources exist which go a step beyond presenting these concepts to explain how they can be best practiced and assimilated. Some popular materials offer processes by which patterns or ideas can be practiced and memorized. These processes primarily involve extensive physical practice – employing a process of physical repetition to teach the mind and the ears. For instance, the process described in How to Play Jazz and Improvise by Jamey

Aebersold (1992) is as follows:

"Play the scale from root to the 9th and back down slowly, slurred several times.

Then gradually increase the tempo

Play the first five notes up and down several times gradually increasing the tempo.

Play the triad up and down, slurred, gradually increasing the tempo.

Play the seventh chord up and down, slurred, gradually increasing the tempo.

Play the ninth chord up and down, slurred, gradually increasing the tempo.

End by playing up the scale to the ninth and back down the ninth chord.

Or, end by playing up the ninth chord then down the scale. (pg. 7)”

Because these suggestions all require physical practice of the instrument, they can be problematic for trumpet students. Due to the small shape and size of the trumpet mouthpiece which concentrates pressure on a small area of delicate lip tissue, trumpet players are particularly susceptible to performance injuries as a result of overuse (Lewis, 2013). Long bouts of playing and practice must be carefully managed to maintain optimal performance health. For many Kerwin 10 college and high school trumpet students, this reality greatly limits the amount of practice time they have to develop improvisation skills outside of ensemble rehearsals.

For many jazz educators, this is a noted pattern. One such professor, Dr. Sean Parsons –

Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies and Music Theory at Ohio University – notes that over his

10-year career:

"Saxophonists and pianists have so much progression – there's less physical

demand…for bass, trombone, trumpet – I think that the gains are smaller because

of the time limit. That's until they figure out they can spend extra time writing,

composing and thinking deeply about stuff."

One solution for trumpet students in this position would be to become familiar with techniques for developing their melodic vocabulary without having to play their instrument immediately. Although publications offering suggestions for developing melodic vocabulary are extensive, few resources offer techniques for how this might be practically achieved without physical practice. The primary focus of this thesis was to determine what non-playing techniques are useful in a practice regimen to help jazz trumpet students in developing the ability to execute the melodic vocabulary required for modern jazz improvisation. Specifically, this research project sought to answer the following questions:

1) What non-playing practice techniques have shown to be effective in cultivate

music performance skills? Kerwin 11

2) What are the most commonly recommended practice techniques for developing

the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation? Why are these important?

3) What, if any, non-playing practice techniques have been recommended for

developing the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation? Why are these

important?

In order to examine non-playing techniques useful for jazz trumpet players, I first conducted a review of literature drawing on research in instrumental music education and research in jazz pedagogy. I this used this review of literature as a foundation for phone interviews with two leading jazz pedagogues, Jamey Aebersold and Hal Crook, in order to get direct feedback on my findings. I compiled the results of this research into a brief guide to developing melodic vocabulary through non-playing practice techniques. Finally, I conducted a brief, informal self-study in which I applied the recommendations to my own musical practice and discussed the effectiveness of the practice techniques.

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2.0 Review of Literature

The purpose of this chapter is to review literature related to instrumental music pedagogy, jazz pedagogy and the development of melodic vocabulary for jazz trumpet students.

The review will focus specifically on uncovering practice procedures used by both pedagogues and players for the development of instrumental skills while practicing without the instrument.

Because these procedures have been studied much more extensively within the context of

Western art music, the findings of these inquiries will serve as a proof of concept and launch pad from which we can continue this discussion in jazz-specific literature. Then, within jazz pedagogy specifically, it will focus on uncovering the practicing procedures most recommended for the development of melodic vocabulary, with special emphasis given to those techniques which take place away from the instrument. Literature related to the present study includes (a) studies of non-playing practice techniques within instrumental music education, (b) historical accounts of top improvisers; (c) mainstream printed jazz pedagogy; (d) recently-published alternative jazz pedagogy; (e) online jazz pedagogical resources; (f) dissertations/theses relating to jazz pedagogy; and (g) Music education research related to jazz pedagogy.

2.1 Studies of Non-Playing Practice Techniques in Instrumental Music Education

2.1.1 Mental Practice:

Mental practice is the most researched non-playing practice technique in music. Mental practice, defined as practice that takes place away from the instrument generally with the absence of physical movement, has been studied in multiple forms: silent analysis, observation of a model, silent analysis, motor imagery (visualization), and auditory imagery. Several studies assess the effect of mental practice in instrumentalists. Rosenthal et. al (1988) examined five different practice conditions (listening to model, singing, silent analysis, free practice, and Kerwin 13 control) on achievement in performance. After a three-minute practice session, students performed and were assessed. The researcher found listening to a model to be the most effective mental practice technique, with singing and silent analysis being less effective. Similarly,

Fortney (1992) applied identical conditions to elementary students (with the exception of singing which was not tested) and found that modeling and silent analysis were both more effective than no practice. These findings were supported by Brooks (1995), who makes suggestions mental practice and musicians based on sports psychology research.

Gaylen (2006) tested a method of mental practice in high school band students. Students were divided into 3 groups: structured mental practice, mental practice, and physical practice.

The researcher found that the structured mental practice group performed significantly better than the other groups in individual performance, suggesting that structured mental practice can be at least as effective as traditional practice techniques in preparation for performance.

Researchers have studied the effects of mental practice in specific instruments, such as trombone (Miksza, 2005; Ross, 1985), piano (Highben and Palmer, 2004) and guitar/voice

(Theiler and Lippman, 2004). Ross (1985) studied the effect of combined mental and physical practice on college trombonists' performance. The researcher found that mental practice, focused on feeling and hearing the ideal performance, combined with physical practice is the most effective practice procedure. Similarly, Miksza (2005) studied the use of mental practice techniques, such as emphasizing attention to ideal performance sound, ideal performance motor skills, and self-evaluation in trombone performance. The researcher found that each type of mental practice, when interspersed with physical practice, was as effective as physical practice alone in post-test scores. Kerwin 14

Highben and Palmer (2005) examined the effects of auditory and motor mental practice in memorized piano performance. The researcher found that "specifically auditory forms of mental practice aid performer's learning of unfamiliar music." (pg.64). In addition, Theiler and

Lippman (2004) examined the effect of continuous physical practice, alternated mental and physical practice, alternated modeling and physical practice, and alternating motivational activities with mental practice. The researcher found that all mental practice conditions improved performance more than control conditions. Most recently, McHugh-Grifa, (2011) examined three mental practice strategies (silent motionless practice, singing, and playing "air" instruments) on cello performance. Although the results showed that physical practice led to greater mean gains than any of the mental practice conditions, the differences between the physical and mental practice groups were not significant.

2.1.2 Singing

Though singing practice for instrumentalists has been briefly addressed as a practice technique in (Rosenthal et al., 1988) and (McHugh-Grifa, 2011), it has been the individual subject of research in several other studies (Bernhard, 2003). Numerous researchers have assessed singing practice as an instructional tool and practice tool for and found significant gains in performance (Elliot, 1974; MacKnight, 1975; Grutzmacher, 1987; Lee, 1996). Elliot (1974) sought to determine if singing on neutral syllables during band rehearsal could improve students sense of pitch, and thus their intonation in performance. After one year of study, the researcher found that students who used the daily vocalization procedure improved their ability to discriminate pitch and relates sounds to musical notation. Similarly, MacKnight (1975), compared the effect of solfege practice and note-identification practice in the sight-reading abilities of beginning instrumentalists. The researcher found the practice of singing tonal patterns Kerwin 15 to be significantly better at sight singing skills than simply learning to read and identify notes. In a nearly identical study, Grutzmacher (1987) found singing practice with solfege to be more effective than technical practice in improving melodic sight-reading in beginning instrumentalists. Lee, (1996) studied the effect of singing tonal patterns with solfege on phrasing and articulation in instrumental performance. The researcher found that students exposed to singing practice as a supplement to their instrumental instruction performed significantly better in these areas than a control group.

Other researchers have examined the effect of singing practice as an instructional tool for instrumental performance and found it did not improve performance (Schlacks, 1981; Dunlap,

1989; Bennet, 1994; Coveyduck, 1998). Schlacks (1981) examined the effect of neutral syllable singing and interval training on intonation in instrumental performance. He did not observe any differences in the performance of the experimental group. Dunlap (1989) compared the effect of instrumental practice and singing practice with lyrics on instrumental performance. The researcher found no significant differences between the groups. Bennet (1994) studied the effect on humming on the intonation of band students in performance. The researcher found no significant difference in performance when compared to control. Coveyduck (1998) assessed the effect of singing practice with neutral syllables on intonation in beginning band students. The researcher found that her singing practice procedures had no effect on intonation. However, the researcher later discovered that students with prior vocal training did score significantly better in intonation performance, than their less experienced peers. Though research in this area appears to present conflicting conclusions, Bernherd (2003) explains that the discrepancies in academic literature related to singing practice were likely because the singing exercises used in these studies did not contain "tonal-verbal reference" (pg. 33) (e.g. solfege). Singing on neutral Kerwin 16 syllables, he explains, limits the students' ability to identify patterns among learned examples, and transfer knowledge.

Beyond the realm of academic research, singing has played an important role in pedagogy for instrumentalists. In beginning instrumentalists, Schlueter (1997) recommends students first learn music through learning to sing tonal and rhythm patterns and emphasizes the importance of singing in the classroom. Brass pedagogy, in particular, has long endorsed singing practice as a means by which to improve performance. DeYoung (1977) is an example of the numerous articles in music periodicals that emphasize the importance of singing skills to brass performance. Arnold Jacobs, one particularly influential brass pedagogue, is noted for emphasizing the practice of both solfeggio and singing to determine pitch (Frederiksen, 1996 p.138-140; Stewart, 1987; Lubriel, 2011). These practices facilitate ease of playing by encouraging a brass musician to begin with a final musical concept before he or she begins to learn it. Modern brass artists and teachers also advocate for singing practice as a way to improve instrumental performance. One important example is Wycliffe Gordon, who wrote his method book, Sing It First, that recommends trombone students learn to sing their music before they attempt to play it (Gordon, 2009).

2.1.3 Compartmentalization of Techniques

Musicians will often break the complex task of instrumental technique into components during practice sessions. This concept, henceforth referred to as compartmentalization of techniques, can encompass a wide array of practice techniques. Brass pedagogy, again, provides an excellent example of this principle in the form of 1) breathing practice, 2) mouthpiece practice, 3) articulation practice, and 4) fingers/slide alone practice. For example, Pilafian and

Sheridan (2007) recommend exercises for brass players to develop breath control and support Kerwin 17 away from their instruments. Similarly, Thompson (2001), recommends developing embouchure efficiency by practicing the mouthpiece away from the instrument. In the same way, Johnson

(1981) recommends students practice articulation by pronouncing it away from the instrument first, then incorporating the instrument (Pg. 70). Likewise, Schlabach (1997, 2002, 2016) and

Gordon (2007) recommend the practice of fingerings or slide positions away from the instrument before attempting them in a performance context.

2.2 Historical Accounts of Jazz Musicians and Pedagogues

Clues to understanding the best practice techniques for acquiring melodic vocabulary may be found in historical accounts that examine how exceptional improvisers developed their own skills. One of the foundational sources in this area is Thinking in Jazz by Paul Berliner

(1994). In this text, Berliner performed an ethnomusicological study to discern a common pedagogy among jazz musicians. He cross-referenced the learning experiences of famous musicians to uncover a common pedagogy. One chapter of his book deals exclusively with how jazz musicians develop their initial melodic vocabulary.

Many early improvisers learn their initial vocabulary by copying records of skilled musicians. Commonly, they learn to sing the solo and transfer this knowledge to their instrument (Pg. 96 – 97) by learning to play the solo. According to Berliner, "many complement their aural understanding of the relationship between harmony and melody by theoretical analysis of patterns" (pg.104) Many soloists take these learned solos and isolate individual passages that serve as the basis for their own solos (pg. 101). In sum this means that the general procedure for learning new vocabulary is a linear process including 1) learning to sing a solo, 2) learning to play that solo on their instrument, 3) analyzing the solo theoretically, and 4) isolating individual ideas and using them as the basis for new solos. Kerwin 18

Much of the chapter deals with the teaching practices of noted jazz pianist Barry Harris who advocates for several non-playing practice techniques. In his improvisation workshops,

Harris teaches basic vocabulary through composing ideal phrases and solos for the participants through verbal dictation (Pg. 109). After this process, "Harris also instructs his students to master vocabulary on physical terms" (pg. 110). By this, Harris refers to practicing fingerings without making a sound on the instrument until the finger patterns are so comfortable that their movement resembles a dance. Finally, Harris would instruct his students to be able to understand this vocabulary on "sound alone" by singing or whistling the phrases in different keys (pg. 110).

The combination of all these practices benefits the students by training them to be

"versatile in handling different forms of music conceptualization" (pg.114) while increasing their retention. According to Berliner, "jazz musicians achieve this mastery [of their vocabulary] from every conceivable standpoint, including sounds, shapes, musical symbols, and physicality"

(pg.114). This versatility helps "[facilitate] fluid thinking under the pressures of performance"

(pg.114).

More recently, Scott (2004) elaborated on Berliner's history, by providing his own account of Barry Harris's "jam sessions". The author uses his personal experience with Harris to paint a picture of the learning strategies employed in his clinics. Scott added new details to our understanding, noting that Harris encouraged his students to "repeat, revisit, and expand upon this musical phrase—he [stressed] the triumvirate pedagogical maxim: imitation, assimilation, and innovation" (pg 288). In other words, Harris encouraged his students to learn verbatim musical ideas, revisit them, and apply various techniques to the ideas in order to develop fluidity and an original voice. Kerwin 19

In a similar style, Jago (2014) brought a new depth of understanding to the pedagogical practices of jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The research reviewed literature related to Tristano's work as a jazz pedagogue and provided a brief defense of their efficacy by drawing on research related to mental practice. Interviews with Ted Brown illuminated the practical considerations which inspired Tristano's practice methods and served as a study in their application. This article cites several techniques that Tristano and his students used to practice musical ideas away from their instruments. Among these were visualization (a process by which students imagined playing their instruments), audiation (a process by which students imagine the sounds of specific musical ideas), self-quizzing with flashcards, and composition exercises that took place away from the instrument. Just as important as the practice techniques themselves are Tristano's reported reasons behind advocating for this approach. According to Jago:

"Tristano's emphasis on musical practice that took place away from one's

instrument both stemmed from and reinforced his belief that in order to truly

improvise, one's aural imagination had to be both fertile and precise. The

cultivation of the aural imagination also served to free the musician from the

habits and techniques of muscle memory linked to a particular instrument.

Knowledge of intervals, scales, keys, and harmonic progressions were often best

worked on away from one's instrument and were meant to be tied to the voice as a

means of expression. The ability to sing intervals, scales, and harmonic movement

in a variety of keys ensured that the aural imagination was able to correctly

conceive of the appropriate pitch relationships and that the voice was able to

translate those pitches into sound. A visceral understanding of pitches and pitch Kerwin 20

relationships divorced from instrumental technique ensured that such musical

information had meaning beyond the specific confines of a particular instrument

and began to form the basis of an ‘internal reservoir' of ideas (Sarath 1996: 7).

This embodied pitch knowledge could then be easily transferred to one's

instrument in a manner that emphasized playing ‘by ear' through the navigation of

pitch relationships rather than the named notes. (pg. 189)

In other words, Tristano's mixture exercises forced his students to develop an understanding of these concepts and their application through visual, aural, kinesthetic, and theoretical modalities before acquiring the technique to produce these ideas on actual instruments. Practicing the jazz language in this way not only solved the limitations on practice time that many of his students faced, but gave them a complex understanding that would allow them to manipulate their vocabulary to fit different musical situations.

2.3 Mainstream Printed Jazz Pedagogy

Though not widely known, written jazz pedagogy is nearly as old as the music itself. As early as 1934 the magazine Downbeat was offering "how-to" columns so that readers might begin learning to play like their heroes (Wittmer, 1988). As the study of jazz became mainstream, jazz education became unified and began offering a more comprehensive approach.

During the late 1960s Jamey Aebersold, David Baker, and Jerry Coker emerged as popular pedagogues and in sum published hundreds of instructional books on improvisation. This approach, based on technical mastery and theoretical understanding of harmony, is frequently called the chord/scale approach, so named for the common teaching practice of associating Kerwin 21 specific scales and modes with specific chords. Once the student had acquired this foundation, they would practice soloing by playing along with recordings of rhythm section without a soloist.

Their instructional materials agree on the importance of developing a melodic vocabulary and many offer comment on topics related to its development. The authors agree on several important procedures for acquiring melodic vocabulary such as 1) practicing these ideas in 12 keys, 2) transposing these ideas by various intervals 3) practicing these ideas at varying tempos.

These procedures are said to improve the student's aural understanding of the material and to help internalize the combination of finger movements required to execute it.

For example, consider the most overwhelmingly popular of these materials, Jamey

Aebersold's A New Approach to Improvisation Series. This series has provided students with instructional materials, methods of practice, and recordings of elite rhythm sections with which to practice soloing since its first volume was published in 1967.

One extremely important volume of this series is How To Play Jazz and Improvise

(Aebersold, 1992). Some of the chapters of this book deal with developing vocabulary, such as

"Patterns – Ten Basic" (pg. 62) and "Practicing Any Scale, Chord, Pattern, or Idea" (pg. 7).

Aebersold suggests first learning the patterns in chunks, breaking them down and adding pieces on as you get more comfortable. Once you can play the full pattern, he suggests gradually increasing the tempo and beginning to transpose the exercise into other keys. He suggests practicing in this way informs our ears, and establishes coordination between our mind, fingers, and ears. These techniques are reiterated in his more recent publication, Jazz Handbook

(Aebersold, 2013). Neither publication (Aebersold, 1992; Aebersold, 2013) recommends non- playing practice techniques for learning patterns or ideas. Rather physical practice techniques are recommended to teach the ears and the mind about the concepts being studied. Kerwin 22

Jerry Coker's materials (Coker, 1970; Coker, 1980; Coker, 1990a; Coker, 1990b) offer a very similar approach and emphasize the importance of practicing melodic vocabulary. In his comprehensive book, How to Practice Jazz, Coker (1990) suggests that 15 minutes and 20 minutes of a 2-hour daily routine be devoted to patterns/licks and the jazz language respectively.

Coker recommends that this time should be spent studying examples provided in such books as

Patterns for Jazz, but provides no clear indication of what procedures should be included.

In Patterns for Jazz, one of the most foundational publications in his catalogue, Coker

(1970) presents a method for developing a vocabulary of patterns suited to jazz harmony. Each chapter presents exercises which transpose a different small pattern through all 12 keys. Each exercise is accompanied by goal tempo markings, and chord indications which indicate the underlying harmony. Coker recommends students develop melodic vocabulary by playing these exercises diligently in 12 keys. This way the student may start to be acquainted with their sound, and their fingers develop habits which will be useful in performance. In this publication, Coker does not recommend any non-playing practice procedures. He does, however, recommend diligent listening to masters of jazz improvisation outside of practice in order to inform the student's ideas in performance.

Similarly, in Complete Method for Improvisation, Coker (1980) presents materials for the student to practice and master a variety of modern improvisation styles. The book is divided into chapters which focus on different jazz styles (e.g. bebop, modal). Within each chapter, a brief history and theoretical explanation of the style is presented followed by recommended drills. As in Patterns for Jazz, Coker suggests developing vocabulary by playing patterns in 12 keys and then applying them to tunes. Coker adds to this, recommending that students trying to expand their vocabulary learn ideas through listening to and transcribing ideas from the best players or Kerwin 23 through studying pattern books. In this book, Coker places little emphasis on non-playing practice procedures, however, he does note the importance of playing the piano to inform the student's ears to the sound of common harmonies in jazz. He also reiterates the importance of listening and transcription originally stated in Patterns for Jazz. Though some books and teachers recommend non-playing procedures for transcription, teachers advocate various approaches, therefore, it's unclear what procedures Coker recommends.

In his most thorough book on the development of melodic vocabulary, Elements of the

Jazz Language, Coker (1991) presents the 18 most common devices that improvisers use when playing solos. Each chapter presents a device, followed examples of its use in famous recorded solos and exercises for assimilating the device. Echoing his earlier works, Coker suggests students develop this melodic vocabulary, stating "Practice the patterns in all keys, learn to apply them to fit different types of chords, play them with the exercise tracks, and apply them to tunes." (pg. 16) Expanding on his previous suggestions, students are also encouraged to search for new examples or invent examples beyond those which he has presented. Like Coker's other work, this book does not emphasize any non-playing practice techniques.

In a similar vein, David Baker's materials offer a variety of materials that emphasize the importance of practicing melodic vocabulary. In his most comprehensive publication,

Improvisation, Baker (1983) presents a variety of materials intended to help the student improviser in developing his/her skills. Each chapter discusses a different concept relevant to improvisation (e.g. Developing the Ear, Developing a Feel for Swing, etc.). The chapter "The II

V7 Progression and Other Widely Used Formulae" (pg. 26) presents examples of common melodic vocabulary. Here Baker, like both Aebersold and Coker, recommends playing written examples in all keys and at various tempos. Kerwin 24

Along those same lines, Baker (1985), in his short series, How To Play Bebop, presents materials to help the student learn to improvise in the bebop style. In the first volume, Baker presents scales most commonly used in the bebop idiom: bebop dominant, bebop major, whole tone, and diminished. The book presents rules governing the development of the melodic line and then exercises for internalizing the scales and the manipulations. However, this volume is primarily intended for technique development and does not focus on developing melodic vocabulary. Similarly, the third volume of this series presents procedures for learning and practicing common tunes of the bebop era, rather than emphasizing the development of melodic vocabulary.

By contrast, the second volume of the series deals entirely with developing the jazz vocabulary. It is divided into chapters, each corresponding to one of the essential chord progressions of bebop (e.g. II, V7; III, VI, II, V). Each chapter presents numerous examples taken from recordings, which represent common practice jazz language, noted by Baker to be understood by all players. Once, again Baker recommends the student practice the patterns "in all the keys, at all tempos, varying all factors (rhythm, articulation, meter, volume, root movements…" (pg.1). Similar to Coker, he also adds that the patterns be memorized and used as

"points of departure" (pg. 24) in the student's own solos, implying that students should be creating their examples or improvising based on the presented ideas. In this volume, no non- playing practice techniques are recommended for learning the bebop language.

In Modal and Contemporary Patterns, (Baker, 1980) presents foundational materials for modern styles of modal jazz. Baker presents several chapters of materials including "Daily Jazz

Calisthenics" and "IIV7 Progressions". Unlike many of Baker's other volumes, Baker offers suggestions for how to best use these materials in the opening pages of the book. In his words, Kerwin 25

"1. Take one page of calisthenics each day and play through in different keys…

2. Play through various iiV patterns, choosing different one to commit to

memory…

3. The… modal patterns should be memorized as blocks and used in various

modal compositions" (pg. 4)

Additionally, he adds that students should begin trying to play solos in a manner similar to the exercises once they have established familiarity with the material, echoing his advice from

How to Play Bebop. Comparable to Baker's other publications, he does not present any non- playing techniques for developing melodic vocabulary.

Unlike many of Baker's publications which offer pages and pages of ideas without direct reference to source materials, his Jazz Styles series presents concepts drawn directly from transcriptions of famous musicians. In this short series, Baker, (1990) "provides a modus operandi for studying, analyzing, imitating, and assimilating the idiosyncratic and general facets of the styles of various jazz giants throughout the history of the music." (pg.2) Each book contains biographical information about each featured improviser, followed by chapters which present a transcribed solo and subsequent analysis.

In this series, Baker suggests students assimilate the jazz language by first learning to play a solo transcription, taking various patterns from the solo and move them around various keys until completely comfortable, then begin applying those patterns back into the tune of the original solo. This in-depth illustration of the transcription process, which details a comprehensive method for assimilating the jazz language from recordings, is unique for this era Kerwin 26 of jazz pedagogy. Additionally, Baker briefly suggests several non-playing practice methods.

Baker suggests students complete an in-depth analysis of each solo transcription, extracting ideas and patterns that the soloist employs. Baker also suggests that being able to compose a solo in the style of a famous artist is an important exercise for the student in developing an understanding of an improviser's style and vocabulary, but does not focus on this process, nor does he provide details about how a student might approach this.

2.4 Contemporary Alternative Printed Jazz Pedagogy

By the end of the early 1990s, with the emergence of countless jazz studies programs across the United States, jazz pedagogy became less centralized. This, in combination with criticism of the seemingly universal adoption of the chord/scale approach, led to the creation of many updated, alternative methods from a wide array of sources. Rather than conduct a detailed survey of all printed material, this review will examine a selection of publications which have proven to be either exceptionally influential or which begin to point towards non-playing techniques for developing melodic vocabulary.

One widely influential book from this era is How To Improvise by Hal Crook. Crook

(1991) sought to present students who already have developed a basic vocabulary with a book which would allow them to develop the ability to manipulate theoretical concepts when they improvised. Each improvisational technique (e.g. chord tone soloing, and over-the-bar line phrasing) is presented in its own chapter. Chapters are organized roughly from essential to non- essential concepts.

Though at first glance this book is intended for students who have advanced beyond developing a melodic vocabulary, much could be gleaned from the practice procedures Crook recommends for approaching improvisational techniques. For instance, Crook often recommends Kerwin 27 breaking skills down into their component elements (e.g. when addressing syncopation, students should address rhythm-only first and then add notes). Similarly, Crook recommends a student develop a skill by first composing an example using that skill (e.g. Embellishing guide tone lines) and then learning to play it. This is useful in helping divorce technique from creativity so that the student can focus on what to play, rather than how to play it. Though Crook doesn't recommend many non-playing practice techniques in his book, his method of breaking complex improvisational tasks into individual, approachable components may open the door for the use of many other non-playing practice techniques considering the development of melodic vocabulary appears to be multi-faceted, requiring the development of imaginative, aural, and technical skills.

Another alternative approach, published the following year, is Melodic Structures by

Jerry Bergonzi. Bergonzi (1991) sought to help improvisation students in developing their ability to play jazz tunes by systemically applying preconceived melodic patterns to chord progressions.

Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a new concept or approach and concludes with an assignment that allows students to test out their skills.

After establishing this basic approach, Bergonzi recommends that his students learn new ideas through visualization, a non-playing approach in which the student spends time picturing the notes and chord symbols related to the ideas they are perfecting away from the instrument.

For Bergonzi, this process is important because it reverses the process of the body teaching the mind and allows the mind to teach the body. This helps the students absorb new vocabulary at a faster rate and organize their technique after they develop their ability to come up with improvisational ideas.

A more recent approach to developing melodic vocabulary is presented in the Brass

Player's Cookbook (Amis, 2006). The author collected and presented short written master classes Kerwin 28 from many of today's leading brass professionals. In one piece, Wycliffe Gordon, one of the leading trombone players in contemporary jazz, presents an 11-step process by which students can begin to develop improvisational ideas through singing. Gordon suggests several non- playing approaches for developing melodic vocabulary. He suggests students begin developing their vocabulary by creating their own backing track – a practice tool which provides the soloist with harmonic accompaniment -- using a piano, recording themselves scat-singing, listening to and internalizing these ideas, and learning to play these ideas. In this way, students learn to hear the foundation of the tune and use what they naturally hear as a starting point for developing improvisational skills.

Gordon (2009) develops these ideas further in his book Sing It First. Here Gordon extends his concept and recommends many ways non-playing approaches can be applied to learn how to execute trombone technique. Specifically, he recommends students then learn to sing and audiate their ideas accurately, then work out how to play them. Further, Wycliffe recommends practicing trombone slide technique away from the horn by miming the motions with your hand.

According to Wycliffe, learning to sing first before you play allows students to develop ideas and the ability to play them at any time.

2.5 Popular Online Resources

One additional place to find information about practice procedures for developing melodic vocabulary is online resources. Though the concept of online music education is relatively new, resources abound through various websites, blogs, and YouTube personalities.

Despite the wealth of information available online, few sources appear to present a unified pedagogical approach similar to those found in older method books. Kerwin 29

One popular website, learnjazzstandards.com, provides students with a guide to practicing designed to help students get the most out of their jazz practice time, The Ultimate

Jazz Guide to Practicing (Vaartstra, B., n.d.). The e-book presents some general advice on practicing divided into five chapters covering topics from initial inspiration to the individual topics that should be addressed in a practice session. The specific practice procedures involved in developing a jazz vocabulary are not discussed. However, the author asserts that transcribing jazz solos by ear is an important practice activity that can help a student who wants to develop his/her vocabulary.

In a similar vein, jazzadvice.com, presents a guide for practicing based entirely around the development of melodic vocabulary, What Should I Practice? A Language-Based Approach to Practicing Improvisation (O'Donnel, E. & Wernick, F., n.d.). They suggest students divide the task into three steps 1) discover jazz language, 2) develop jazz language, and 3) apply that language to tunes. The authors present many non-playing practice procedures for each step of this process. These include: 1) in-depth listening, 2) singing an idea before you try to play it, 2) compositional-style development exercises, 3) playing chords at the piano, and 4) visualization.

The authors claim that these processes, which take place without an instrument, speed up the learning process. These procedures echo those described in Thinking in Jazz (Berliner, 1994), but they are presented in a guidebook format that is much more practical for the learner.

2.6 Thesis and Dissertations related to Jazz Pedagogy

Since the early late 1970s jazz pedagogy has been a research topic within the music education community (Bowman, 1988; Herzig, 1995). For this review, a selection of doctoral and master's thesis/dissertations and research articles which address the topics related to the development of melodic vocabulary in jazz will be considered. The dissertations published in Kerwin 30 jazz pedagogy can be divided clearly into 2 groups: 1) evaluations of existing teaching techniques, 2) proposals for new teaching techniques (Herzig, 1995). Though this category is dominated by the latter, this review will first consider the evaluative research.

In one of the earliest studies evaluating jazz pedagogy techniques, Bash (1983) compared the effectiveness of three different teaching methods: 1) technical (patterns; chord/scales), 2) technical supplemented with vocal exercises and transcription methods, and 3) technical supplemented with performance techniques. In a comparison of 60 high school students Bash found methods 2) and 3) to be most effective. However, Herzig (1995) and Bowman (1988) both critique the study for its flawed experimental procedure, noting Bash's lack of documentation of exercises presented in method 1 and his experimental biases toward the latter two methods.

In a similar study, Coy, (1989) sought to determine if middle school band students could be taught the fundamentals of jazz improvisation through a multi-sensory approach consisting of training in aural perception, eurhythmics, verbal association, symbolic association, and synthesis.

Sixty students were divided into two groups, one of which received coaching and one which received only materials. These students were then evaluated after a six-week period. The results of the comparison indicated that students in the coaching group performed significantly better than those who received only materials. Like (Bash, 1983), this study was dismissed by Herzig

(1995) who cited several methodological problems.

In a more recent study, Flack (2004) evaluated the effectiveness of play-along recordings as a practice tool for improvisers. Thirty-four college jazz students were split into two groups: 1) those who practiced with play-a-longs, and 2) those who practiced with no accompaniment. The students gave a pre-practice performance and were allowed to practice for four hours over the following two weeks. The students then gave a post-practice performance. The performances Kerwin 31 were evaluated by two expert judges. Their ratings were averaged and statistically analyzed. The results revealed the play-a-long practice group improved significantly more than the unaccompanied group.

Though this study does not directly address processes involved in the development of melodic vocabulary, it reveals that using an accompaniment can increase the acquisition of skills related to improvisation. It follows that any student attempting to develop more melodic vocabulary will be aided if they practice regularly with a play-along recording.

Tarr (2016) published a thesis which aimed to identify the practice procedures employed by expert improvisers when developing improvisation skills. The author first reviewed literature from music education research pertaining to studies of effective practice procedure. Then the author collected interview data from prominent jazz musicians in Australia in which they elaborated on the important aspects of their practice. The results of the interview were then synthesized and extrapolated into recommendations for the practice of improvisation. In conclusion, the author determined that 1) the early musical education of the aspiring improvisers should be primarily aural rather than written, 2) results of practice are affected both by quantity of time and procedures employed, 3) a high level of technical proficiency and therefore technical practice is required for improvisation, and 4) the use of aural materials is preferred to written materials.

Though these conclusions do not suggest new practice procedures for developing melodic vocabulary, it follows that any jazz-related practice process should be rooted in aural rather not written materials for maximum effectiveness. The researcher underscores the importance of this notion, noting, "All of the participants spoke about the importance of listening to other musicians either live, or on recordings, to inform their knowledge of the music and the language. In terms Kerwin 32 of language familiarization, this is akin to moving to the area where a language is spoken in order to immerse oneself in the sound of a language and it's everyday use, as opposed to referring to a textbook version of how the language is spoken." (Pg. 112)

In contrast to these studies, many dissertations aim to present alternative pedagogical methods which emphasize one aspect of jazz pedagogy the researcher believes has lacked attention (Paulson, 1985; Marcus 2004). In one of these earliest dissertations, (Paulson, 1985) reviewed literature related to jazz pedagogy and imitative learning to recommend a pedagogical method that emphasized transcription and learning from imitating model soloists. In a similar study, (Re, 2004) reviewed jazz research and pedagogy literature and proposed a course with a stronger concentration on transcription.

2.7 Jazz Pedagogy in Music Education Research

A related and recently-developed source of information regarding the development of melodic vocabulary is music education research on jazz pedagogy (West, 2015; Noice, 2008,

Cahn, 2008; Watson, 2010; Watson, 2015; Mikasa, 2018). Though few studies pertain directly to the development of melodic vocabulary, several which address processes related to the development of improvisation ability have been included in this review.

In one such study, Noice et. al (2008) sought to investigate the memory strategies of jazz musicians. The researcher videotaped a jazz pianist practicing to memorize an unfamiliar bebop- style tune. The videotapes were paired with verbal statements and well as copies of annotated sheet music and then analyzed. The results showed that the pianist memorized the piece using techniques similar to those used in the practice of Western art music. Specifically, "he used the musical structure as a retrieval scheme and practiced using performance cues to elicit knowledge of upcoming passages from long-term memory." (pg. 63) Kerwin 33

While this process does not reveal any new information about the improvisation process of a jazz pianist, it does reveal what kind of musical landmarks jazz musicians rely on when they play a piece from memory. Understanding how jazz musicians encode discrete musical figures may be helpful in determining the most efficient way to memorize (and consequently assemble) an effective melodic vocabulary.

Watson (2010) sought to determine if there was a difference in the effect of written materials or aural instruction on a jazz student's development of improvisation abilities. The researcher enlisted 62 collegiate music majors to attend three 70-minute presentations on jazz improvisation. Half of the participants were given instruction through notated examples, the other half were given instruction through aural examples. After the sessions, the players were asked to perform an improvised solo. The solos were assessed and the results of the aural instruction group and the notated instruction group were paired. The results showed that the aural instruction group improved significantly more than the notated group in the final improvisation performance.

Though this study deals with the broad category of improvisation achievement rather than the subcategory of melodic vocabulary, it contributes some insights into what practice and learning procedures are most effective within the jazz idiom. When teaching jazz improvisation, the importance of aural instruction is apparent, as the researcher suggests, because aural instruction encourages learning through imitation. Consequently, in constructing any method seeking to develop skills related to jazz improvisation, the researchers suggest it is important to consider presenting information through various modalities.

In building on the results of this study, Watson sought to "examine the practice strategies that collegiate music majors chose to employ in preparing for a jazz improvisation performance, Kerwin 34 and the relationships among selected practice behaviors and achievement in instrumental jazz improvisation." (pg. 1) The researchers asked music majors with little to no jazz experience

(N=62) to participate in three taped coaching sessions on jazz improvisation. These sessions were followed by 10-minute improvisation practice sessions in which students had their choice to participate in a number of prescribed activities. Following the sessions, students were asked to perform an improvisation which was evaluated by a panel of judges. Subsequently, the researchers analyzed the practice tapes to determine how much time each student spent on each activity. These results and the results of the "improvisation performance" were then statistically analyzed to determine if any particular practice procedure correlated with higher performance scores. The results showed that the most popular practice procedure was improvising with a play-along recording followed closely by silence. Further, the results reveal no statistically significant correlations between any practice procedure and achievement score in the final performance.

The lack of statistical effect of practice procedures on improvisation achievement may have some alternate explanations. Considering that master improvisers develop their skills over several thousand hours of practice, one might consider that any practice procedure would need more than three 10-minute sessions to have any significant impact. It is possible that differences in the efficacy of the prescribed procedures could have been revealed if the sessions were longer, giving the students more time to apply what they had learned from the coaching. Therefore, the results of this study should not necessarily rule out the use of practice strategies that are more strategic than freely improvising with a play-along recording.

Recently some studies have assessed the effect of mental practice strategies on achievement in improvisation. In one of these studies, (Mikaza et al., 2018) sought "to examine Kerwin 35 the effects of mental practice, physical practice, and mental and physical practice combined on the ability to create melodic jazz solos within chord progressions, possessing relatively simple or complex harmonic characteristics" (pg. 40). Fifty-two jazz majors were assigned to one of 3 groups: physical practice; mental practice; or mental practice and physical practice. They were then asked to prepare to improvise melodic solos over both simple and complex chord changes.

The participants' solos were graded by two expert judges. The researchers then ran a statistical analysis to determine if any practice conditions correlated with higher achievement. The results showed no difference in achievement based on practice conditions. All practice groups performed at comparable levels.

Though this study does not directly examine the development of melodic vocabulary, it leads us to consider that a variety of practice procedures may be useful in helping to achieve improvisational competence. Combinations of mental practice and physical practice may be just as effective as physical practice alone in developing abilities related to improvisation, especially if the students already have a significant degree of experience in jazz.

In another study, Cahn (2008) examined the effect of varying ratios of mental and physical practice on the ability to apply melodic patterns to a jazz chord progression. Sixty undergraduate students who had completed at least one semester of jazz improvisation training were divided into 4 groups: mental practice, physical practice, mostly mental practice, and mostly physical practice. Subjects were asked to apply a tonal pattern to two different chord progressions of varying difficulty. Subjects were given a pre-test, a three-minute practice session, and a post-test. The results of the performances were quantified and statistically analyzed. The results showed that there were no differences in performance between groups, that performance on the easy progression was significantly better than performance on the hard Kerwin 36 progression (regardless of practice method), and that the physical practice groups performed better on the hard task than the mental practice groups. The results of this study clearly indicate that mental practice may be an effective method for learning to apply melodic vocabulary to chord progressions, though its efficacy may be limited by the technical difficulty of the chord progression.

2.8 Conclusions

A review of literature related to non-playing practice techniques for developing a melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation seems to indicate a need for greater focus in this area. Studies of non-playing practice techniques within instrumental music education have shown that students of Western Art music can benefit from non-playing practice techniques such as singing practice, mental practice, and compartmentalization of specific performance tasks. Though these studies indicate promise, few current studies examine these procedures in the context of jazz performance and pedagogy.

Historical accounts of top improvisers suggest that for several prominent teachers and players, notably Lennie Tristano and Barry Harris, the techniques and procedures used for assimilating information away from the instrument were central to developing the ability to improvise. While these anecdotes serve as a proof of concept, limited information and no organized pedagogy exists regarding specific, practical procedures for students wishing to employ these practice techniques. An examination of mainstream printed jazz pedagogy shows a move away from non-playing practice techniques and an emphasis on physical practice strategies for the development of technique. In instances where non-playing techniques were mentioned

(e.g. singing practice), directions for students remained somewhat vague and difficult for students to interpret without context or a background of experience. Alternatively, recently- Kerwin 37 published jazz pedagogy has shown more emphasis on these techniques. Players/teachers such as

Wycliffe Gordon and Jerry Bergonzi emphasize the utility of procedures such as singing or visualization in developing early melodic vocabulary. While these are promising developments and useful insights, the decentralized nature of more recent pedagogy suggests that such practices remain alternatives.

Similarly, online jazz pedagogical resources have advocated for the use of in-depth listening, singing, compositional exercises, playing chords at the piano, and visualization as ways to efficiently develop jazz language though more work remains to be done in order to formalize these approaches. Both dissertations/theses relating to jazz pedagogy as well as music education research related to jazz pedagogy, have examined pedagogical procedures for developing improvisation skills, but few have focused directly on the development of melodic vocabulary.

In sum, this review indicates that non-playing practice procedures for developing the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation remain largely unexamined. Though several techniques (e.g. singing, visualization, playing the piano) have historical precedent, there does not seem to be a consensus within the jazz education community that these procedures are worthwhile. Most importantly, among the techniques hitherto discussed, almost no approachable, practical methodologies exist by which a student would be able to apply these concepts to the development of their abilities. Because approachable and practical non-playing practice procedures would benefit trumpet students with demanding playing requirements, the following review was supplemented by semi-formal conversations with Jamey Aebersold and Hal Crook, two of the leading jazz pedagogues, in an attempt to address questions which remained unanswered.

Kerwin 38

3.0 Interviews

3.1 Introduction and Biographical Information

In an effort to receive further clarification and direct feedback on my conclusions regarding non-playing practice techniques, I sought out conversations with two of the most respected jazz pedagogues: Jamey Aebersold and Hal Crook.

Jamey Aebersold is an internationally respected saxophonist and jazz educator. Recently,

Aebersold has been awarded the title NEA Jazzmaster for his revolutionary approach to teaching improvisation and his inexhaustible advocacy for the art form through his teaching and famous

Summer Jazz Workshops. As a forefather of modern jazz education, Aebersold has published extensive teaching materials addressing every aspect of the development of jazz improvisation skills ("Jamey Aebersold Biography", 2019; "National Endowment for the Arts Announces the

2014 NEA Jazz Masters, Nation's Highest Honor in Jazz", 2013)

Correspondingly, Hal Crook is a highly sought-after composer, based in Boston. In addition to his performing credentials, Crook has had an extensive teaching career, most notably serving on faculty at Berklee College of Music for 30 years. During his career, Crook has had a large impact on the curriculum at Berklee College of Music and has mentored students who have become noteworthy musicians in their own right, including Esperanza Spalding and Antonio

Sanchez. ("About Hal Crook, 2019)

Due to the semi-formal nature of these discussions, each conversation took a slightly different course and touched on different material. Despite this, both pedagogues seemed to agree on the order of skill development with regard to melodic vocabulary and improvisation in general: 1) develop advanced aural skills, 2) internalize specific ideas that you can identify, 3) then apply on your instrument. Consequently, the presentation of these conversations has been Kerwin 39 framed by topic and has been organized to reflect the learning process that readers hoping to apply the concepts to their own practice can do so easily.

3.2 Interview Discussion

3.2.1 Developing Aural Skills

For both Jamey Aebersold and Hal Crook, non-playing practice for developing vocabulary and general improvisation skills begins with the development of advanced aural skills. For Jamey Aebersold, this means developing the ability to hear and to understand what musicians do in intellectual terms, starting with the basics of melodic intervals:

JA: "I think the main thing, at least for me, was getting a pitch pipe and starting to

just listen to everything on the radio way back there when I was younger, twenty

years old and so forth, and checking pitches and intervals, listening to melodies

on tunes and while I am listening to them and enjoying them, thinking about,

"How far was that? What was that distance from the first note to the second note

of ‘Misty'? What was the distance of the second note to the first note?"

As the student begins to understand this, they should advance to understanding how to recognize the most common types of harmony instantaneously:

JA: "The student must memorize the SOUND of major, minor, dim. dom.7th, etc.

and instantly recognize them when heard." Kerwin 40

Similarly, Hal Crook places a substantial emphasis on ear training in his own practice. In fact, Crook suggests the entire reason to practice improvisation is to develop the ears to become more familiar with certain sounds so that they can be recognized while listening to improvisers:

HC: "When I hear [an improvised solo], what happens is each time, everything

that I hear said- says to me, "This is the sound of this and this is the sound of that

and this is the sound of that and this is the sound of this."

Like Aebersold, Crook suggests the real training for a jazz musician comes when they are able to attach labels to specific sounds:

HC: "Your training only happens when you're holding both the sound and the

label of that sound in your mind's ear at the same time."

For Crook, developing this familiarity comes first by playing different ideas. In his words,

HC: "Before they're able to hear that they usually just have to start playing it."

It is important to clarify here that while playing ideas does help the student become more familiar with certain types of sound, this is only half of the equation. Most importantly, the development of listening skills comes from a process in which students record and evaluate their practice on a daily basis: Kerwin 41

HC: "And the hip thing about recording [your practice] and listening to it every

day is as you listen to yourself more and more on recording, you become a better

listener. And then you bring that listening skill with you to the bandstand the next

time you play, and all of a sudden, you're noticing things that you never noticed

like the drums or like the beat."

3.2.2 Internalizing What You Hear

After developing the ability to identify what is being played, the next step in developing melodic vocabulary is to internalize sounds and connect them to practical understanding.

For Aebersold, this step is the main focus of improvisation and improvisation practice:

JA: "Being able to intellectually HEAR and understand the relationship of the

symbols to scales and chords in order to transfer that understanding to your

instrument is what soloing is all about."

Per Aebersold's suggestion, one way to begin to develop this connection is to mentally practice mapping pitches on a keyboard:

JA: "I strongly advise everybody to memorize the keyboard. To use the keyboard

in concert key, just looking at that keyboard in order to identify intervals and the

quality of sounds. Extremely important."

Kerwin 42

In this process, students hear a sound, identify it, and then imagine what it would look like played on a mental image of a keyboard. This process gradually helps turn aural identification skills into practical knowledge.

Another approach is for students to begin singing ideas that other improvisers play or that they hear in their mind:

JA: "Sing what you hear in your mind and then play those ideas."

This process encourages the student to move beyond simply listening and instead create from their own internalized understanding of the music.

On the contrary, Crook is more skeptical of the use of singing to begin recreating ideas you can aurally identify:

HC: "Well, you're only gonna' sing what's in your head to produce, right, to sing?

[But what if] what's in your head is confused or is incomplete or it isn't grounded

in the fundamental of the sound of the chord?... So even if a horn player wants to

start singing, I guess I have to hear what it was they were producing before I

could say "Yeah, keep doing that" or "no".

In other words, if singing is inaccurate harmonically, melodically, or rhythmically, students won't be able to develop the level of ear training they need from their practice sessions.

Instead, Crook suggests perhaps singing with carefully defined rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic restriction to ensure clarity and accuracy: Kerwin 43

HC: "I would say spend time singing chord tones... if we're gonna do anything.

And that might be a good way or sort of in an additional way of shedding the

material... take a C major 7 chord for starters and just put it in the octave where

your vocal range is comfortable -- so any major 7 chord which your vocal range is

comfortable -- and then give yourself a pitch on the piano, or just maybe play the

chord on the piano so that you're hearing all the notes at once."

When initially asked about learning vocabulary away from the trumpet, Crook immediately asked if I had received any piano instruction. It seemed clear that for this step in the development of melodic vocabulary, Crook prefers students playing concepts on the piano over singing and recommends that students -- horns players in particular-- play the piano for at least an hour a day. For Crook, this is especially important because by playing the piano you can get accurate reinforcement of what concepts sound like against underlying harmony. After all, in

Crook's words:

HC: "It's not just the sequence of notes that you're trying to learn. It's the sound

[that] you wanna focus on and give emphasis to."

3.3.3 Putting Concepts into Practice on Your Instrument

After the student has developed both an aural understanding and a practical theoretical understanding of the melodic vocabulary they are trying to develop, the final step is to connect this to the technique required to play the instrument. By in large, this means connecting the understanding to fingering patterns. For Aebersold this is a skill that develops through a linear process: Kerwin 44

JA: "Analyze what you are thinking and singing, then transfer those musical ideas

to your instrument"

While for many students this may seem like the long way around, Aebersold insists:

JA: "The more you can memorize and conceptualize phrases in your mind the

stronger the connection between your mind and fingers will be. And it grows the

more you practice this way."

According to Aebersold, insisting that students think, sing, and audiate before they play musical ideas is one of the most valuable things a teacher can do to ensure a beginning improviser's success:

JA: "If you get them to visualize what they are thinking in their head to play and

then actually ask them to sing it, just a couple notes. Then that puts a relationship

between fingers and your brain before you blow the first note. And I think the

good thing about that is if they do that a little bit and the band director insists on

that for a while then they are gonna have more success and they are not gonna be

so afraid to try and improvise."

Reinforcing this line of thought, Aebersold says: Kerwin 45

JA: If you don't give them this kind of guidance, then they are just gonna start

playing. And, wow, they might be lost by the third bar! You know they can't

count and play. And it's depressing to them"

In a practical example of this, Aebersold discussed teaching a student basic melodies by ear and quizzing students on how they relate to a key center.

JA: "You intellectually tell them okay now Mary Had A little Lamb, what note of

the scale does that start on? Well, they are probably gonna say the first because

they think it's one. And you say "Well it doesn't start on the first, it starts on the

third note of a major scale." Then we quiz over that. "Oh, We're in the key of F

major, what note of the F major scale would Mary had a Little Lamb start on?" So

you are getting them to think before they play."

Crook reinforces the importance of this foundation and suggests that a deep understanding of the sound of harmony before you play is essential for helping students to eventually create ideas on their own, rather than copy others:

HC: "The players who don't have that foundation [who]haven't internalized the

fundamentals of harmony of basic four parts chords or even triads – they're at an

extreme disadvantage. I mean it's so hard to help these people because the

melodies that they're playing, you might transcribe some Charlie Parker licks or

Dizzy Gillespie licks or Freddie Hubbard materials, whatever, you may be Kerwin 46

playing it, but the likelihood that you're gonna be able to generate it on your own,

out of deep understanding of the inside of the chord, is really remote."

In essence, Crook seems to be suggesting that if students simply copy and immediately regurgitate the ideas of famous soloists without taking the time to understand these ideas conceptually, aurally, and within the context of the harmony, they will struggle to ever improvise ideas of their own creation.

Kerwin 47

4.0 A Practical Method

The purpose of this research project was to discover non-playing practice techniques for developing melodic vocabulary and to present a practical system for their use. Specific research questions included:

1) What non-playing practice techniques have shown to be effective in

cultivating music performance skills?

2) What are the most commonly recommended practice techniques for developing

the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation? Why are these important?

3) What, if any, non-playing practice techniques have been recommended for

developing the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation? Why are these

important?

After reviewing the relevant literature and seeking further clarification and insight by conducting interviews, it appears that the development of melodic vocabulary is best conceptualized in a five-step sequence. The student must:

1) Engage in immersive listening

2) Develop an intellectual understanding

3) Internalize the language

4) Connect theoretical and aural understanding to fingering technique

5) Apply ideas in context

4.1 Immersive Listening

Though this may seem obvious, the first step in developing the melodic vocabulary for jazz improvisation is to listen extensively to players the student wishes to emulate. This essential step is laid out in almost all relevant literature. For example, (Berliner, 1994) provides an Kerwin 48 account that many important jazz musicians developed their vocabulary exclusively through repeated listening and copying of their favorite records. Extensive listening is also recommended in almost all reviewed jazz pedagogy books by Aebersold (1992, 2013) Coker (1970, 1980,

1990a, 1990b), and Baker (1980). Further, all of the reviewed online resources concur that in- depth listening provides an important foundation for developing melodic vocabulary

(jazzadvice.com; learnjazzstandards.com).

4.2 Developing an Intellectual Understanding

After immersing themselves in the jazz language, the crucial next step is to develop skills required to listen with intellectual understanding. In practice, this means being able to listen to an improvised solo and attach conceptual labels to sounds as they are played in real time.

How does one develop such aural skill? For teachers such as Aebersold, you start with basic melodic intervals and harmony. In each portion of the interview, he recommended students listen to melodies or solos and check the notes with a pitch pipe. Over time, as students learn the notes and intervals behind the melodies they listen to, their ear becomes trained to discriminate melodic construction and distinguish basic chord types.

On the other hand, Crook recommends a more complex process of practicing, recording, and self-examination. In Crook's view, one of the best ways for students to establish listening skills is to practice improvising with restrictions (e.g. play seven-note phrases with only chord tones) and then to critique what they themselves played. Over time this process of self- examination improves the student's ability to listen to themselves critically and discern the ideas of other musicians.

A more advanced, yet universally recognized process involves solo transcription – the act of writing out in musical notation what a soloist played on a recording. For example, Baker Kerwin 49

(1980) recommends a process in which the student writes out a solo and extensively analyzes it theoretically. The effort required to accurately write out a transcription forces the ears to develop both pitch recognition and rhythmic recognition, as well as subtler details such as articulation.

4.3 Internalizing the Language

After students develop the ability to aurally dissect the content of what they listen to, the next step is to internalize specific ideas they wish to incorporate into their solos. In practical terms, this generally means the student must learn to recreate what they hear through one of the following modalities: visualization, audiation, or singing.

Several pedagogues recommend the use of visualization as a means to internalize vocabulary, and each offers a slightly varied approach. In the interview with Aebersold, he recommended that students develop the ability to picture what they hear as it would be mapped out on a keyboard. This skill takes the student's aural identification ability and turns it into practical knowledge. Similarly, Bergonzi (1991) recommends students imagine what they hear as it would look in written musical notation. This same advice is reiterated by the authors of jazzadvice.com(citation).

Other teachers, such as Lennie Tristano, insisted students develop the ability to accurately hear melodic ideas they wished to implement through audiation (Jago, 2014). In practical terms, one method to establish this ability is to compose new ideas while away from the instrument and imagine how they sound. In this way, students develop an internal relationship to the music that is divorced from instrumental technique.

Singing is an extremely popular method for internalizing new melodic ideas and is recommended by many pedagogues. Lennie Tristano advised his students to sing in order to test the accuracy of their audiation skills (Jago, 2014). Additionally, both Aebersold and Gordon Kerwin 50 advocate that students should sing ideas to ensure accurate understanding before attempting to play their instrument (Gordon, 2007) Despite the seemingly universal use of singing, some pedagogues, like Crook, insist that singing is only useful for a student's development if it is entirely accurate in terms of pitch and rhythm.

4.4 Connecting Aural/Theoretical Understanding to Fingering Technique

Once a student develops an accurate internal concept of the language they are trying to assimilate they must connect their aural, theoretical understanding to their fingering or slide technique. For teachers such as Aebersold, this connection develops gradually over time if students take the time to theoretically and aurally understand what they are playing before they try to play it. Other teachers, such as Barry Harris, recommend developing this connection by practicing fingering technique without actually producing a sound (Berliner, 1994). In this way, students can focus on training their fingers to move accurately and in good time as ideas come into their head, without concerning themselves with the technique required to produce a tone.

Further still, other teachers such as Bergonzi and Tristano recommend students develop this mind/finger connection by visualizing playing their instrument (Bergonzi, 1991; Jago, 2014) In this way students develop the mind/finger connection while developing a capacity for focus helpful for improvisation performance (Bergonzi,1991).

4.5 Applying Ideas in Context

The final step in this sequence involves applying the discrete musical ideas developed in previous steps to jazz tunes in real time. Several pedagogues offer variations on this process.

Harris, Tristano, and Baker recommend a process by which students compose and learn to play ideal solos, incorporating the ideas they wish to use (Berliner, 1994; Baker, 1980). In this way, the student is able to take as much time as they need to consider how and where to best apply Kerwin 51 discrete ideas they have learned. More generally, Berliner suggests that many jazz musicians develop this skill simply by using learned ideas as the basis for their own new solos in real time.

Over time, repetitively forcing an idea into solos allows it to feel more natural and spontaneous in performance.

Kerwin 52

5.0 Final Remarks

Though no research has been previously conducted into non-playing practice techniques for developing melodic vocabulary, it seems clear after a review of research that non-playing practice techniques can be employed at each step of the development process. Furthermore, when we consider that most authors and teachers who recommend these techniques to their play an instrument other than the trumpet professionally, it is plausible that these practice techniques should be of benefit to all jazz students, not merely trumpet students.

After applying all of the practice procedures discussed in this thesis to my own practice regimen over the previous two years, it seems clear that it is possible to develop your ability to learn and apply melodic vocabulary with relatively little use of your instrument. I suspect that this is possible because practicing away from the instrument isolates the conceptual component of jazz improvisation rather than forcing the student to juggle both creating and executing ideas simultaneously. This makes practicing improvisation much easier for the student to manage and leads to much less haphazard, inefficient practicing.

Though I am still perfecting the applications of the practice procedures recommended in this thesis and creating new ways they can be implemented, I have already seen significant improvement in my own performance while simultaneously maintaining much better performance health. In fact, many of these procedures made such a difference for me that upwards of 90% percent of my practice for my graduate school auditions and my recital took place away from my instrument. In the end, what started as a workaround during the days when I was confronting issues with overuse ending up being an asset -- moving more of my musical process away from the trumpet and into my mind continues makes my choices more informed, deliberate, and personal while taking only a fraction of the physical practice time. Kerwin 53

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Appendices

Appendix A: Jamey Aebersold Electronic Interview Responses RK - In your opinion, what are some of the most important skills young improvisers should be developing? How important is developing an initial melodic vocabulary?

JA - Ear Training is extremely important. Develop relative pitch. Also, being able to intellectually HEAR and understand the relationship of the symbols to scales and chords in order to transfer that understanding to your instrument is what soloing is all about. Melodies are made of bits and pieces of scales and chords. We also use repetition, sequence, chromaticism, leaps and rests. The student must memorize the SOUND of major, minor, dim. dom.7th, etc. and instantly recognize them when heard. Memorize the keyboard and keep it mentally in your forehead all the time. Use that mental keyboard to find answers to various musical questions. Ii V7 licks and patterns are the life blood of jazz. You have to have a vocabulary of ideas that can fill in the spaces when you aren’t creating NEW ideas. And, when you play those ideas you play them like you just discovered them!

RK - What are the best practice strategies for developing the ability to execute and implement melodic vocabulary in improvisations?

JA - Sing what you hear in your mind and then play those ideas.

RK - Much of my research has indicated that many teachers recommend singing as an exercise for beginning improvisers. Is this something that you recommend to your students? If so, what is its importance?

JA - Yes, it helps build the mind finger connections. Analyze what you are thinking and singing, then transfer those musical ideas to your instrument.

RK - Much of my work has focused around the ideas of Lennie Tristano, who advocated his students master different forms of mental practice. For instance, he recommends visualization, audiation, composition, and self-quizzing using flashcards. Do you feel these or similar techniques can be valuable in learning skills related to improvisation?

JA - All are excellent and needed. Listening to jazz and analyzing what others play is very helpful.

RK - Other sources I have read suggest that learning vocabulary through a variety of modalities –visual (as it would be written on sheet music), aural (as it would sound when played by an instrument), tactile (how it feels to play ideas especially in the fingers) -- is beneficial to young students. Is this an approach you recommend with your students? If so, what makes it important?

JA - Yes. You need all resources possible to get to the point where improvising is fun and natural.

RK - Are there any drawbacks to learning and developing improvisational ideas away from the horn?

JA - Not that I can think of. As jazz has developed over our 115 year history we need everything we can get hold of to keep up with the flow of the music. It’s not static. The more you can memorize and Kerwin 61 conceptualize phrases in your mind the stronger the connection between your mind and fingers will be. And it grows the more you practice this way.

RK - Why do you suppose that until recently, away-from-instrument practice techniques seem relatively underemphasized in written pedagogy?

JA - Musicians are often trained from an early age to read music off the written page. Eyes are on the page and not mentally seeing and hearing what they are playing. They often play and can’t sing back what they just played because they are not LISTENING to themselves. The jazz musicians are listening FIRST and then checking to make sure what they PLAYED was what they were THINKING. Jazz needs all information to be internalized in order to be useful.

RK- In your opinion, should non-playing practice strategies be given more attention by improvisation students?

JA- ABSOLUTELY!!! This is due to lack of actual practice time. I visualize much of what I play right before I play it. A split second before. I also visualize and HEAR internally whole songs with piano chords, drum beats, bass notes, etc.

Kerwin 62

Appendix B: Jamey Aebersold Phone Interview Transcript JA – Hello

RK – Hi Mister Aebersold? Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today and to answer all the questions on the email.

JA - Okay.

RK - I had a couple of follow up questions. Just to get a couple specifics. You mentioned the importance of developing relative pitch and connecting that to theoretical understanding – is there any specific [learning sequence] that you use with your students to develop this?

JA - Okay, hang on. Let me get what I wrote. Okay, now which question are you on now?

RK - This was the first question.

JA - Okay now say your question again.

RK - Is there a specific sequence of learning – theoretical or aural first – that you recommend for helping students connect the two?

JA - Okay now I’m losing ya. You said is the re a sequence of something, then I could’nt hear what you said.

RK - Okay – Is there a sequence of learning that you recommend to your students to connect their relative pitch and their theoretical understanding?

JA - I think the main thing, at least for me, was getting a pitch pipe and starting to just listen to everything on the radio way back there when I was younger, twenty years old and so forth, and checking pitches and intervals, listening to melodies on tunes and while I am listening to them and enjoying them, thinking about, “How far was that? What was that distance from the first note to the second note of ‘Misty’? What was the distance of the second note to the first note?” That type of thing, just intellectually thinking about it and all the the time my relationship is to something I answered later in the questions, which was I strongly advise everybody to memorize the keyboard. To use the keyboard in concert key, just looking at that keyboard in order to identify intervals and the quality of sounds. Extremely important.

RK - Okay. With that key board skills in mind – to what extent should young student be developing their key board skills?

JA - I think they need to start right off the bat. You’re talking about keyboard skills… I’m not really… I’m not talking about keyboard skills. I am talking about being able to visualize a keyboard and intellectually know the distance from one note to the next note and then eventually getting to the point where you can actually outline the chord – “Is that a major chord? Is that a minor chord?” You do that because you could tell the intervals from one to three and three to five and five to seven etc. This is all… you just do it over and over and you sing it and the pitch pipe that I use, a little round one… I got three pitch pipes all the same. And I don’t use them much any more because I have my relative pitch under control but I think young people and musicians that’s… and this is something they can do away from their instrument which is so nice, because when you go in the practice room you think you should be playing you know. This is stuff you do when you’re walking down the street or waiting for a bus or maybe even lying in bed at night trying to get to sleep. Kerwin 63

RK - That makes a lot of sense. So it’s more about the concept than the actually skill of being able to play a keyboard.

JA - Exactly. And the more you do it and you’re constantly listening to music through out the day and you’re thinking about “What is this person doing?”. You might be in concert band and you got a little scale or something and then all the sudden you see it with your eyes but you hear it and your brain (left brain) says “Hey that’s a C minor scale,” you know. Or whatever.

RK - In general, when students are listening it best for them to have some sort of active role in listening? Never background music, but always considering “What did I just hear?” “What does that mean?”

JA - Yes. Exactly. Once they start to take an interest interest intellectually about certain stuff – theoretical skills, chords, distance from one note to the next, the quality of the chords, is it major or minor, dominant 7th, diminished, whole tone, or whatever. Once they get to thinking about that and know what it is, my experience has been, once they have it, they have got it…. If you play a whole tone scale, you do it a couple times and tell them it’s a whole tone scale. You don’t need to say it’s a C whole tone scale or an F. That comes a little later. But once they get that sound in their head and they know the name, in my experience, they seem to remember it forever, which is great.

RK - Yeah that really useful. Without a doubt.

JA - It’s like memorizing the name to somebody. You know what the name is after you’ve seen them a couple times.

RK - Yeah of course. Related to this question – you emphasized in your answers the importance of hearing ideas in your head. But how do students begin hear ideas in their head? Let’s say they are new to jazz improvisation and they haven’t don’t a lot of listening and the have little experience. Where would we start?

JA - I think a good starting place for something like that is to ask them to sing and then play Mary Had a Little Lamb. Or old Mac Donald. Something simple. Or 3 Blind mice. And when you do that, you intellectually tell them okay now Mary Had A little Lamb, what note of the scale does that start on? Well they are probably gonna say the first because they think it’s one. And you say “Well it doesn’t start on the first, it starts on the third note of a major scale.” Then we quiz over that. “Oh, We’re in the key of F major, what note of the F major scale would Mary had a Little Lamb start on?” So you are getting them to think before they play.

RK - Right.

JA - And that’s very important because… I would suspect that the average band director around they country, when they are beginning to teach their kids how to improvise and so forth, they probably just have the kid look at this scale and the kid – If it’s a C minor scale, they are probably gonna start on C – and go up the scale. But if you get them to visualize what they are thinking in their head to play and then actually ask them to sing it, just a couple notes. Then that puts a relationship between fingers and your brain before you blow the first note. And I think the good things about that is if they do that a little bit and the band director insists on that for a while then they are gonna have more success and they are not gonna be so afraid to try and improvise.

RK - Because they will be leading with their ears and their understanding rather than their technique?

Kerwin 64

JA - Exactly – if you don’t give them this kind of guidance, then they are just gonna start playing. And, wow, they might be lost by the third bar! You know they can’t count and play. And it’s depressing to them and then the ego gets into the picture and says ‘Now, I told you you couldn’t do this. You know so why don’t you get out of jazz band, or don’t volunteer for a solo anymore. Period. Because you can’t do this.”

And that happens to just thousands and thousands of people.

RK - Right whereas the whole problem could be solved, ironically, if they just thought about it instead of going immediately to their instrument.

JA - Mmhmm.

RK - A couple more questions, in your opinion, how has jazz pedagogy changed over the last 30-40 years and what what would you like to see improved?

JA - I think, number one, if you are gonna be a teacher of this, you can be a band director teaching elementary school like you know say grade school or five and you got a jazz band going or you could be a college professor trying to lead a jazz band and encouraging maybe a junior or senior level in college or maybe even grad to learn how to improvise. Maybe for the first time or maybe they’ve been doing it for a while. I have found if the teacher themselves don’t improvise, the rare exception has enough knowledge to guide their students and the end up being decent improvisers. But I think too often, the band director either doesn’t have time or wasn’t taught at school, or just maybe thinks they can’t do it, and they don’t improvise themselves so they don’t know what the process it like exactly so they can’t guide the students. I always thought that was part of the problem with jazz education – that the colleges do not insist that every student that graduates with a music ed degree knows something about improvise and has actually played in a combo for at least one semester with a qualified teacher. So they understand exactly what it takes to do this and they are having to go through their egos and their fears and this that and the other and they’re gonna get a grade for it to so they have to do this, this has to be done if they are gonna be a music educator. But our colleges do not insist that they do that so consequently we got this kind of out there. We got a bunch of people in jazz band very few improvising, and often times you have a teacher who really knows nothing about improvising or teaching blowing and they are kind of scared to death.

RK - Right yeah.

JA - So I really don’t think it has changed too much over my life time. And I’m really disappointed, because I can remember way back there in the seventies when me Dan Hearle , David Baker and Jerry Coker were doing these jazz camps out in the summer time. We naively envisioned us teaching ourselves out of summer jazz workshops because their wouldn’t be any need for them because we would have had so many band directors come through our camps, learn how to do it, they tell the kids how to do it. There’s no need for people to come to a summer jazz workshop to learn how to improvise because they are learning it in their curriculum at their school. Well – never happened.

RK - Right things definitely have not moved that quickly.

Kerwin 65

Appendix C: Hal Crook Interview Transcript

RK: I didn't start studying jazz formally until I got to college, I had the feeling that I had a lesser foundation than a lot of my peers and what I found was that I couldn't practice as much as I needed to on the instrument due to endurance issues and technique issues. I couldn't practice as much as I wanted to develop my improvisation technique so, I started doing this research project where I focused on things that players can do away from their instruments to develop their improvisation skills in particular things like their initial melodic vocabulary and things like that, like how to play 25's and your turnarounds and all your different chord progressions and everything.

HC: Do you play piano at all?

RK: Yeah, I do

HC: How long, How much piano training do you have?

RK: Uhh about 3 years.

HC: 3 years?

RK: uhh-hhmm

HC: Okay and do you cope on chord changes like from the standard song? Can you manage to do that on the keyboard?

RK: Yes.

HC: In time or you know,fairly accurate?

RK: Yes

HC: Okay, continue then.

RK: The first question I wanted to ask was In your opinion, What are some of the most important skills that young improvisers should be focusing on when they practice?

HC: What? I'm sorry, there's something going on like a glitch in the-- yeah, Do you hear that? I'm not really getting--yeah, What is that clicking going? Is that important?

RK: Yeah, I don't know I don't have any clicking things on my end.

HC: Oh, let me try this, hold on. Can you hear me now?

RK: Yeah

HC: Yeah, okay, I have you on speakerphone. I think mine's a bit-- no, there is it again. So, Are you recording?

RK: Yes, Sir

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HC: Okay, I guess that to me you know, I teach a lot of students at multiple levels of development. Improvisation, they help me to get that you know, the most-- best results, you know, usually comes with - - you know, no matter what instruments you play -- a good knowledge with the keyboard -- since, you know, so much of the work is involved in fitting melodies to harmonies and if you play keyboard, you're gonna be exposing your ear to, you know, development that comes from a harmonic source rather than just a melodic source. So, That's my number one, you know, advice, top of the list advice just to make sure that different horn players, drummers, bass players, even guitar players, play piano, start take maybe an hour a day practice if they have time available for it. And if I switch from there to the-- to address the actual question, I think you have to be, well, let's put it this way the more one you are with the inside of the harmony, the chord tones of chords on your instrument -- on your melodic instrument – The easier it’s gonna be to shape those notes into melody that you hear in your head. So I have all my students, even the most advanced ones, addressing improvising from the standpoint of playing chord tone solos were you improvise on a sequence of chords -- or it could even be modally (one chord) which means that you're restricted to just the use of basic chord tones (the root the third the fifth the seventh -- and because of that restriction on the player, the player learns to be resourceful with those inside sounds, those inside notes and the ears starts to get exercise that it would never get if you're allowing yourself to play all the notes at the scale and whatever passing tones you like, or are capable of using. So, the restriction, It's a lot like restrictions builds chops. It's like rules of the game like for instance: well, any athlete goes to the gym and he pumps iron to build up these muscles so that when he gets on the playing field, he throws the ball and it goes somewhere but he needs a strong body to be of an effective athlete. So, to me an improviser needs a strong musical body in the same way and so I go to the gym and I practice with restrictions similar to what the athletes do when they lift weights, weights, all weights are restrictions and the athlete builds his muscle by lifting the weights. The weights do the work well, in a sense, they do the work but you know the athlete has to lift the weights to build the muscle so I look at it as if I want to get more control over what I hear, the ability to play what I hear in my head, I want to put in my head, something that's basic and fundamental -- the more basic and fundamental in the beginning the better cause' that's forms your foundation. So, I practice chord tone solos and I have this special way of dealing it that really maximizes the amount of benefit that I get out of that and that's what I teach my students. So for example, the first thing I'll have them do is practice playing on an individual chord. just take c major 7 for example and I give them a rhythm motif to control the rhythmic content of the music in every measure that they play in, so if they play a measure then rest a measure, they play this rhythm motif in every measure and it's just this-- a 7 note motif (that’s six 8th notes in a quarter note in 4/4 time). So beginning on beat 1 it's 1,2,3,4 da da da da da da da, da da da da da da da so, you have to play 7 notes in every measure using just the chord tones. You're gonna get exercise and ear training using those notes than various configurations or sequences that you would never get if you were free to play any rhythm you wanted and just like you're, you know, imagine you're developing your biceps by just going through your day to day life without lifting weights and compare that to if you went into a gym and for 20 minutes a day you're just lifting weights to build your biceps – who’s gonna' have bigger muscles?

RK: Right

HC: Or in let's say, would you have more control or more muscle to work with? Let's put it that way and then what happens, of course, is why you're playing these chord tone exercises with the rhythm motif, you're-- The restriction can be whether, whether you want 7 notes or 6 notes or 5 notes or whatever you can handle. The important thing though is it-- you get yourself time in between each measure for a while to start to hear ahead to what's the next measure could, could be, that would compliment what or balance what you just played in the previous measure. so, I combined this with a kind of pacing restriction which has the player playing one measure, resting a measure. Playing one measure, resting a measure. and then go—then he advances to playing 2 measures, rest in one measure. Playing 2 measures, resting one measure -- cause' I don't want the students to fail in the practice room, I don't want the melodies to come out incorrect or inaccurate and I don't want the-the shapes (the curve of the melodic line that they play to be too repetitive. Kerwin 67

So, these types of restrictions is what builds chops, they're like kind of rules of a game, you know, like a baseball and 3 strikes you're out. right? So, what if it was ten strikes you’re out? The players wouldn't be as good, right?

RK: Right

HC: Anybody could get a hit 10 shots but if there was one strike you're out? you know they'd be hitting the ball I mean there's-- you know the players would develop their skill to hit the ball but the game would be over too soon. So, the point is that the nature of the restriction that you apply to a certain contact, the certain situation such as letting other play what you hear in your head as you're improvising on chord changes, whatever restriction you put in place there determines the level of skill of the player and in the beginning it's mostly skill you know. I mean some players, everybody brings their own unique situation to each you know, to the idea of improvising. So, some people are gonna be able to hear with very little exercise, more and more lyrical musical sounding material or lines. And other people you know, the exercises may not produce results as quickly but my goal as the coach is to try to get people to understand that-- you know -- what and how to practice to give them the skill that they need to start exploring the material creatively and that really takes a lot of skill. I mean, to be honest with you, if you're talking about learning to improvise at a, you know, at an A-string level, I mean it's no different from learning brain surgery or something. I mean, you can do it at the level of brain surgery or you can do it at the level of a, you know, something like falling down a flight of stairs [laughter]. You know you can do it in any level and so my job as a coach for my students is to try to, you know, remove the blinders, the mystery of it, and make it, you know, their progress as guaranteed as possible, as clear and obvious as possible so there's no mystery to it. It just takes a lot of skill to really do it at a level cause' when you're talking about doing it, is taking someone who's, who has the ability to-to hear internally, say a melody line comprised of-of say 7 notes in a measure that are just restricted to the chord tones now, before that happens, before they're able to hear that they usually just have to start playing it. In any of configuration and then configuration or arrangement or sequence of notes but just restricting to the chord tones and if they do it enough, it's just like that -- the athlete works the muscles enough and the muscles start working for the athletes. So, if you treat your ear like in this stage of th game kind of as a muscle, you want your ear to receive the information of the chord's sound, the chords, sound of the chords so, the chord tones only. and this sort of a, establishes a harmonic understanding of – a harmonic grasp of melody -- of what melody can, how it relates to the chords, without that, it seems like the soloists are playing-- maybe they're able to move around on their instrument a little easier because it's, if their playing scales, the things you know, to play step wise movement and then it is to play leaps that chord tones require. So, the control for playing up and down a scale is much less demanding than the control for playing our arpeggios, up and down and can broken arpeggios too and different configurations of the leaps, where you could, when you're talking about moving to a chord, the chord tones of a—even a triad, you can go step wise through the triad or you can skip notes, we call ‘em steps and skips. For example if you're in a C major chord and you work from C up to E that would be a step but if you work for C major chord and you went from C up to G that would be a skip because you skip the third. So, this requires a lot more instrumental control of skill and because it requires it, it develops it. It's almost like it's not like it re places by any means a scalar approach to improvising but what it does is it gives peaked up the players ear -- even if they restrict their playing in one measure to just the notes within one octave, I mean, you don't even beyond that octave you just have to be more or less content to use only the notes within that octave. so for example, you're on a C major 7 chord, you use the notes C, E, G and B and C of the octave and then to extend from that one octave, you can move up to the third and go from the third to the third so, E,G, B, C, E going up and coming down and then go to the fifth G, B, C, E, G for example, up and down and that gives you a chance to cover the chord in a much more restricted way, where you're just taking the notes from the root to the root an octave higher, the third to the tenth an octave higher, the fifth to the twelfth, and the seventh to the fifteenth of an octave. And then what you've gotten familiar with where those notes are, the fingerings for them and everything and the sound of the melodies that come Kerwin 68 out when you restrict yourself just to the notes within one octave (using just the chord tones), now you're ready to expand and play a 2 octave, give yourself a 2-octave melodic range to choose the notes and now you can start exploring more compound intervals wider than an octave. and so this, and all of the, all the time, you're getting completely much more valuable ear training on what the chords sound like versus if you were to play a scale. Playing a scale, improvising other notes of the scale gives you the freedom to do a tune either mark the chord or mark something very other than the chord sound wise, but if you're just playing chord tones, you're just gonna hear that chord. I mean that feeling that's gonna be coming out of your horn melodically is the notes that form the inside of fundamental of that sound. And once you've got that established even a little, to a little small degree of, then it's much easier to play with scales, to form decent melodies because your ear is already hearing where home is. Home is the chord tone. You know, it can tune and everything are sounds that whether you bring them to chord tones or not, you should certainly hear the difference between a chord tone or a tension when you're improvising so that you could decide to play more inside or more colorfully or more outside. The players who don't have that foundation of-of, they haven't internalized the fundamentals of harmony of basic four parts chords or even triads – they’re at an extreme disadvantage I mean it's so hard to help these people because the melodies that they're playing, you might transcribe some Charlie Parker licks or Dizzy Gillespie licks or Freddie Hubbard materials, whatever, you may be playing it, but the likelihood that you're gonna be able to generate it on your own, out of deep understanding of the inside of the chord, is really remote. That was a long answer wasn’t it?

RK: That was a lot of good info.

HC: I could keep going too. I wanted the-- [laughter]

RK: You know a lot of the stuff that I read has talked about how teachers incorporate singing and advocate for singing to develop, that sort of hearing. Is that something that you also think as important?

HC: Well, you're only gonna' sing what’s in your head to produce, right, to sing? but that's it what's in your head is confused or is incomplete or it isn't grounded in the fundamental of the sound of the chord? See this is why piano players and guitar players have this advantage in a way over horn players because they're playing the chords all the time, piano players -- comping the chord sound with their left hands so, they're getting ear harmonic training all the time and so their right hand is free to either play the chord or play on top of the chord, inside or outside the chord. Horn players that don't have that harmonic background or exposure or exercise, they're gonna do everything with the melody themselves. So even if a horn player wants to start singing, I guess I have to hear what it was they were producing before I could say "Yeah, keep doing that" or “no”. I would say spend time singing chord tones so as if we're gonna do anything. And that might be a good way of sort of in an additional way of shedding the material would be take a C major 7 chord for starters and just put it in the octave where your vocal range is comfortable -- so any major 7 chord which your vocal range is comfortable -- and then give yourself a pitch on the piano, or just maybe play the chord on the piano so that you're hearing all the notes at once. If it all was your range, enables you to play a C major 7, you play harmonically C, E, G, and B together, you know, concerted so that you'd hear the sound and then the magic in this approach that I've experienced as a coach is that the rhythm motif forces a player to play 7 notes, let's say in each measure that they do play in, So, this is much more activity than they would probably ever play if they were allowed to play without a rhythm motif. So, I first practice with the rhythm motif as a restriction and I used pacing in order to guarantee success in each measure with accuracy so that if a certain player like I said, can't play 2 measures in a row without making a mistake He plays one measure and then you rest a measure and then you advance to playing 2 measure in a row and rest one measure. But I think of it, I mean that's playing 7 accurate good notes in every measure, I mean the curve of the line and the sequence of the notes could maybe be better and they will be better the more you practice this way, they'll improve, but at least they are accurate.

RK: Mm-hmm. Kerwin 69

HC: --and you're getting a kind of ear training and uhm- and an exercise that involves seven notes per measure. And my point that I've already made, I'll make again though, is that once you practice say on a C- major chords for five or ten minutes using that rhythm motives and then take that rhythm motive away and say, okay, to the student play your same- the same uhh- notes but whatever rhythm you want.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: You know? Now, you're more like uhh- this is a step closer to the bandstand now, where the student is still playing chord tones solos but he's playing any- any rhythm he wants and he's got all these muscles like he's just been to the gym.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: This is more like the sport that it is uhh- 'cause you're improvising not only the sequence of the pitch levels but you're also improvising the rhythm that you’re gonna play it with.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And when I demonstrate, for example, me playing a chord tones solo on the piano uhh- using just the notes of the chords but any rhythm I want as the result of the skill that I've got from playing with the rhythm motives. I take that rhythm motive away and play a solo with just the chord tones but any rhythm I want, they can't believe it.

RK: Uh-huh.

HC: I mean it's, it's just-- it doesn't sound like it's restricted to chord tones at all.

RK: [laugh]

HC: It doesn't sound like it's a bland basic fundamental solo because the rhythm got a lot of the work of generating interest now.

RK: Mmm, it makes all sense.

HC: You see the reason the ear gets good at controlling melody with the rhythm motive is because you're- you're musicianship is recognizing that you're not generating any interest at all through rhythm cause it's the same in every measure.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: So the ear figures out, "Well, that has to do it with melody." And it rises to the occasion because it's challenged by that rhythm motive. When the rhythm is the same in every measure, there's no interest coming from the rhythm cause it's the same. Interest comes from change in music, not repetition. So, uhh- in this case, anyway.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: So the- so at the- if the rhythm is the same in every measure, the melod-- the ear starts to realize, "Oh man, I-- the melody is gonna do all the work."

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RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: And it starts getting better and better at shaping melodies using those chord tones. Then when you take that rhythm motives away and gives the ear freedom to generate the rhythm and the melody. Well, its got all it's extra effortless control over the melody now the melody notes cause it's- it's been working on just the melody for a long time cause the rhythm has been fixed--

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --so it's been all about melody for a while. Now when you take away that restriction, now the ear doesn't have to concentrate hard with nearly as hard on the melody cause it already owns that. Now I can concentrate on sitting the melody to decent rhythms--

RK: Ahhh.

HC: --it's kinda like, let's say your right hand was weak but your left hand was strong?

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And you tied your left hand behind your back for a week.

RK: [laugh]

HC: You just use your right hand. What would happen to your right hand?

RK: You just get better and more coordinated.

HC: It gets better and better and better, right?

RK: Yeah.

HC: It gets stronger and stronger and then you untie your left hand and you got two strong hands now.

RK: Ahh.

HC: So it's the same principle with melody and rhythm. The restriction of rhythm to make it the same in every measure develops melody.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And likewise, if you were to restrict the melody of your solo to one note, only one note say the root of the key to the song you're playing in.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And just play rhythm, rhythm is gonna go through the roughage. It's gonna- gonna have this how-- the only way you can generate interest is to play something interesting rhythmically, so the way to advance your rhythmic control and imagination and ability is to restrict the melody.

RK: Mmm. Mm-hmm.

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HC: Just play one note solos and I do this to students all the time and I play that by prior recorded that I play them back the rhythms that they played. I make them transcribe it. And now I put-- I tell them to put chord tones to those rhythms as an exercise.

RK: Ohh.

HC: And then they start playing some shit, you know.

RK: [laugh]

HC: You start hearin' some shit, you know.

RK: That's- that's really, really something.

HC: It’s fail safe. It works like a charm all the time. It's like if you can figure out how to do one thing at a time, a little bit of one thing at a time, the brain loves to learn like this. It does really good when the- when there's- uhm- small amounts of material that it gets to repeat over and over.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Yeah. It soaks up this information and then it becomes one with it. Quickly because it's so uhh- non- challenging or- or- not over the top challenging.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Like most improvising situations that are way too hard.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: So my job as a coach is to try to figure out based on each individual students I have is “How do I restrict the- the overwhelming nature of improvising in a way that this particular individual player with his strengths and weaknesses is gonna be successful of one uhh- moment to the next in the practice room?” Cause then if the practice--

RK: Oh, okay.

HC: --room and fail, you're gonna fail on the bandstand.

RK: Right.

HC: No, if you fa- eh- eh- if you succeed every- every to- all the time in the practice room and if you could figure out a method in a- in a- and a restriction of the materials that will guarantee more or less success uhh- in the practice room, you're gonna succeed uhh- on the bandstand as well.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: And you know, as we practice so do we play, so if you practice, feat uh-- uh-- uh-- targeting say melody exclusively, you're gonna develop that skill on the practice room uh- at a skill uhh- in the practice room.

RK: Mm-hmm.

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HC: And so when you get on the bandstand, melody is gonna be more effortless and the only way you're gonna be able to develop uhh- to put 100% on your attention on melody is if you restrict rhythm.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Because if you've gotta do both, your attention is divided between melody and rhythm, you're screwed.

RK: Mmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: You're only screwed. You're never gonna do as well as if you were to work on one of those-- e- each of those subjects separately, by themselves--

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --without any concern for the other.

RK: Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

HC: And that's what happens when you tie your hands behind your back, you know? The other hand gets strong. I- it- it's just nature.

RK: Mm-hmm. Can you tell me a little bit more about uhm- the- the process that you used with your students in encouraging self-analysis and transcription?

HC: Well, uhh- my deal with my private students is if they don't re-- they have to record their practicing.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And listen to- listen to the- a few minutes of each act-- or minute or so or- or some of each exercise, because a lot of the players are making mistakes because of awareness issues that uhh- I mean, imagine if you're a photography student and you took pictures all day and never developed the film.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: I mean, you wouldn't do that, you know?

RK: Right.

HC: Cause a- and- and when you do develop the film, suppose the contrast is off. well, you don't need a teacher to tell you that. You can see that. Or the angle is off, well, you can-- you don't need a teacher to tell you, you're cutting off the heads of the subjects. You can adjust the angle, so there's so much that- that uhh- is necessary that the student can be aware of in the practice room if they record their practicing whether it's an etude or transcription of technical arpeggios, scale-pattern practice, or improvising. I make them agree to record it and practice uhm- uhh- and listen to some of it. Uhh- each uhh- each practice session or I don't teach them because it's too hard to help them.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: It's just too hard to be effective as a coach if every day, if they only come to me once a week or once every other week for critique and then not critiquing themselves in the practice room. I mean, I tell them Kerwin 73 all, "You've gotta be both a student and a teacher in the practice room." And I'm not going in that practice room uhh- helping you.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And without a recording of what you just played, you're not gonna observe deeply enough what you did, positively and negatively, to benefit from it.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: I mean, it's like shooting a gun at a target. Uhh- would you shoot a gun at a target all day and then go home? Oh, or would you check the target to see how you did?

RK: [laugh] Yeah.

HC: You know, you can't possibly hope to ex- to ex- to uhh- observe deeply enough the results of your improvising.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: When you're uhh- on the fly, you know while you're playing it.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: My god. Most people they-- you know, they have no energy to reco- to really observe deeply what it is. So I have them play the exercise that the feature's restriction or I just have them play without any restriction at all. And then I have them, you know, uhh- listen to the playback and- and use the criteria of the exercise to critique the-- I mean, use the uhh- exercise itself, the material of the exercise, the restrictions- -

RK: Okay.

HC: --to uhh- critique their uhm- themselves. So they're being not only the student in the practice room, but they're also being the teacher.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Cause you know when you've got a recording of what you just played, you can now apply some analysis to the results by just, you know, now you're not busy playing, you're- you're just sitting there listening to the recording and you've got the exercise restrictions written in front of you. So yeah, you can examine what you played and come up with kind of a teacherly kind of critique of- uhh- of evaluation of- of whether you did good, bad, or- or whatever.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: But without that recording in that experience, you walk in our practice room and you walk out an hour later, you don't know if you did good or bad.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kerwin 74

HC: I mean, with the recording you know you did good or you know you did bad. And knowing you did bad is it's just the first stage of knowing you're gonna do better.

RK: Right.

HC: But without- without that experience, you know, without the student being the teacher as well as the student in the- in the practice room, I notice they did-- the improvement is so slow that I don't even teach people like that. The first question I ask a student after a lesson is did you record your play- your practicing? Did you listen to it? And if the answer's a no, I get another student.

RK: Uh-huh.

HC: I just let them-- I just say, "It's not gonna work. You're gonna be too hard to help. You're not meeting me halfway and--

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --there's no way I can help you uhh- if you don't, you know, try to getting-- get engaged, get proactive in trying to help yourself. It- with the ways that I'm trying to- that I'm telling you is gonna work."

RK: Right.

HC: But some people personality-wise, you know, they're-- there's-- they have too many doubts about themselves so I have to teach them in a less-- that I take a lesson, and I have them play something and then we record it and then we play it back and I had- and I make them critique themselves in front of me so I can correct what they-- I can hip them to what they- how they did. And that gives them confidence to continue to do it on their own.

RK: Oh, okay.

HC: You know, I mean uhh- some pe- some people tha- that- they- they record themselves and they- when they listen back to what they say, "I don't hear anything. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about." You'll be very [laugh]

RK: [laugh]

HC: Oh, like I'm talking another language. So I have to point out to them, and I- and I may have to play them a couple of mesures over and over several times before they're capable of recognizing by ear the point I'm trying to bring- uhh- address.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: There are some people's listening skills are so uhh- undeveloped, so inferior, that how can you advance as a musician if you don't have good listening skills? And the hip thing about recording and prac- ehh- your practice and listening to it every day is as you listen to yourself more and more on recording, you become a better listener.

RK: Mmm.

HC: And then you bring that listening skill with you to the bandstand the next time you play, and all of a sudden, you're noticing things that you never noticed like the drums or like the beat [laugh]-- Kerwin 75

RK: [laugh]

HC: --or the time or something, because now you can hear it because you've been studying yourself, you know?

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: You've been using your ear to recognize these elements of the music on a recording of you playing and this educates your listening.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: It makes you a better listener and let's face it, the best listeners make the best players.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: The best players make the best jerks. [laugh]

RK: [laugh]

HC: If you ask me. [laugh]

RK: [laugh]

HC: Am I right? [laugh]

RK: Yeah, you're right. [laugh]

HC: Can you think of really great players that are just real assholes? [laugh]

RK: Yeah. [laugh]

HC: Now, did you get what I'm saying?

RK: Yeah. So, it seems to me after this whole discussion that the most important thing that a student can be doing is mostly not playing or at least taking the time after they're done playing to reflect really deeply on what they just did.

HC: Well, they can't reflect that without a recording, or let's put it--

RK: Right.

HC: --when they're recording of it, they don't have to reflect on it. They can just play or press rewind or- or whatever and- and then- and then start listening to it. And if they have a specific exercise that they can use uhh- as criteria to evaluate what they played, they're gonna start listening more and more specifically, you know--

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --more and more focused listening. Kerwin 76

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And they're gonna develop a- uhh- it's very important that every exercise that you practice uhm- becomes a sound to you because we're doing music, it's not math.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: It's not theory only, right? So every exercise whether it's the chord tone solos or uhh- playing an upper structure triads or using pentatonic scales, every exercise that you- or restriction that you uhh- uhh- uhh- set up as a goal uhh- produced as a certain sound in music. And when a student goes in the practice room, his goal is to walk out understanding that exercise as a sound, not just a bunch of words that says do this and do that, but it's got to--

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: --it's got to be an aural uhm- uhh- cut- uhh- account- uhh- uhh- uhh- aural, a-u-r-a-l is what I mean. Uhm--

RK: Right.

HC: --component, you know?

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Of the experience.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And that's when it turns into music.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: You know, uhh- ehh- so you think about- you think about the music for- uhh- of the exercise a little bit probably more, in the beginning, uhh- of practicing it, but then as you get as the uh- accuracy of your playing gets more and more effortless, it requires less and less thought to achieve the success.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And now it becomes the sound. So my job- my co- what I coach, how I coach on this, I'd say, "Okay. Now you gotta- now you're at the point where your effort-- your accuracy is more effortless. Now, you- now, the work of- of turning it into music begins here. Now you have the uhh--

RK: Oh, okay.

HC: --the skill and the accuracy." Now, you're gonna start shaping this shit into great music, as great as you make it or as satisfactory to your taste as- as you can. And this means that the exercise has to be a sound like when I hear a- uh- uh- uh- an improvised solo, what happens is each time, everything that I hear said- says to me, "This is the sound of this and this is the sound of that and this is the sound of that and this is the sound of this."

Kerwin 77

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: I hear them at sounds.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And I recognize in label because I've practiced them.

RK: Mm. Okay.

HC: So likewise it- it- you know, if you're practicing uhh- chromaticism, let's say. Chromaticism has uh- you know, whether it's at- at- at the first, second to your fourth level of control or of application, you know, your uh- your experience in the practice room has to turn that in consciously into uh- a sound so that when you hear Joe Henderson do it or Keith Jarrett or somebody do it, you recognize that and say, "This is chromaticism." This is uh--

RK: Mmm.

HC: --upper structure triad or this is the altered scale or whatever.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: Without the uhm- uh- ex-- the conscious labeling of the uh- experience in the practice room as the sound, you're only going halfway.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: It just stays a bunch of thinking and uhm- sometimes that- that becomes sound without the student even realizing it.

RK: Mmm.

HC: You know, uh- if you get enough ex- e- experience with the particular restriction or a certain exercise, then uh- it automatically becomes a sound to you and you recognize it when you or someone else do it. And when you do it, you start to recognize it. This is the sound of uh- sharp nine [laugh] or whatever.

RK: Okay.

HC: But uh- it helps to sort of point that out to- you know, to- to- the practitioner that the goal of this exercise is- is really to understand it as a sound and the only way you can do that is if you play it and what helps is if you record it and listen back to it and- and label it.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: I mean, that's what your training actually is. It takes a sound and it takes a name of that sound and the two things together form a link that bridge uh- knowledge. And knowledge can be then turned into ability.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: But like you gotta C-major triad, it's just a nice sound if you're not labeling it. There's a major triad--

Kerwin 78

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --and if you spell a major triad on a- on a blackboard or manuscript page and don't play the sound, well, all of this is a bunch of scratchings on the piece of paper.

RK: Right.

HC: And you may understand the theory of it but you have no sound to equate it to so your training only happens when you're holding both the sound and the label of that sound in your mind's ear at the same time.

RK: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: There's no such thing as ear training without sound, without the sound of the thing you're learning.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And this applies to as much to an individual chord. Uhm- or as much to an- an improvising exercise that it does to an individual chord or an interval.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: You know? I mean, you know what a perfect fifth sounds like? Well, you- you know the word perfect fifth and now- and you held the- the sound of perfect fifths and the name of perfect fifth together in your mind's ear enough- long enough for that to be recognizable.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And the whole reason that's important is because once you recognize it and can label it, you can work with it. You can do things with it. You can create with it and you can build on that and go further. Same thing with the improvising exercises.

RK: Mmm. Mm-hmm.

HC: So they have to become uh- sounds in your life. You know, like days of wine and roses is a sound--

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: --in your life.

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: And any exercise you practice in the- uh- that has to do with uh- a two-five lick, let's say, that's a sound. You know, I- uh-

RK: Mm-hmm.

HC: I mean, it's not just the order of notes.

RK: Right.

Kerwin 79

HC: Right? It's not just the sequence of notes that- that you're trying to learn. It's the sound of that, that you wanna focus on and give emphasis to.

RK: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I- I don't know how much time you have left, but uh- I've gotten a lot of good information out of this and I appreciate you taking the time to answer a lot of my questions today.

HC: Great. Well, listen. If you're ever in the uh- Boston area, uh- whatever, give me a holler and if we could set up uh- a lesson. I'd love to prove this to you in person. [laugh]

RK: [laugh] Yeah, that sounds like it would be fun. [laugh] Thank- uh- thank you very much. This will be really helpful for my- my final project and I'll be sure to send you a copy of my manuscript when it's finished.

HC: Okay. Sounds good, then. Sounds good.

RK: Yeah. Thank you very much and uh- have a good new year.

HC: You too, Ryan. You too. Stay in touch.

RK: See ya.

HC: Okay. Bye-bye.

[End]