Beginning Blues Improvisation Pedagogy for the Non-Jazz Specialist Music Educator

Abstract

W h e^ Shen I hear great jazz soloists, I can appreciate that they are making beautiful music-improvised music that transcends the choice of notes and rhythms and communicates with the audience on many levels. With this in mind, I have always questioned why the typical jazz improvisation lesson or college course has focused almost exclusively on scales and chords at the expense of logically and beautifully expressed musical lines. This is not to say that studying chords and scales is without value. Quite the contrary-disciplined practice of these rudiments of jazz is the best context for m) own approach to teaching improvisation. I have developed this method and used it for more than ten years in private lessons, workshops for high school students, and college courses. This method has worked consistently with students aged twelve and up, although this article focuses on the beginningand intermediate-level improvisation student. This method is most effective when used with popular play-along recordings, such as Jamey Aebersolds jazz improvisation series, or computer applications like Band-in-a-Box (see Selected Resources on pg. 18). Both the teacher and the student must have access to these types of materials during lessons and for practice outside of lessons. for teaching