Hii,
Ive been playing flute for around five/six years and just passed grade 4.
I have been looking into getting some of the jazz books and trying some of it out. I just want to try something new.
Whats the jazz syllabus like?
Is it easy to teach yourself?
Any pointers or just any stories about your own experiences with jazz?
Much appreciated
x

It's really fun! I did grade 1 this session, plan to do grade 2 next session.

I did a jazz workshop one afternoon, some time ago now, with Violinia who posts here.

From this I got lots of ideas and had been improv-ing on stuff before the syllabus came out.

Personally (your mileage may vary) I started on grade 1 partly because I didn't know what would be expected, partly because all the music looked fun so I wanted to do each grade, partly for the sake of a positive exam experience (having fun in the exam room is to be recommended!) and partly because I wanted to do it thoroughly rather than jumping in at a higher grade.

How easy it would be to teach yourself will depend where you're starting from. Have you done any jazz improvisation before? How fluent are you scales? Do you do any improvising outside jazz? (ie I improvise harmonies in church) How happy are you playing by ear/picking things up by ear? (as good aural skills will help IMO)

There is, or is going to be, a companion book to the "Jazz Piano from Scratch" for melody instruments apparently. If the piano one is anything to go by, the melody instrument one will be very good.

The tunes are really attractive, and there's masses of scope for inventive improvisation.

I don't recommend trying to cheat by writing out your "improv" or trying to learn something from memory - learn to really improvise instead.

Erm. I will attempt to write something more concrete/helpful when I am less exhausted!

Do you listen to much jazz?

If you don't I'd advise that as the first step before buying books, music, looking into the syllabus etc.

If you enjoy listening, find yourself humming along little improvised snatches etc then listen some more and go for it. If you can't really see yourself doing much listening then it may be an idea to give it a miss. So much of jazz is about phrasing and feel that can't really be written down or notated, you can only really get it by listening and immersing yourself in the music, so if that's not for you then maybe you'd be better off looking for another direction for your fluting.

^^ listen well to TSax, she knows her stuff (much more so than I do!!) (and I really should have thought of that *slapped wrist*)

if you have DAB radio, theJazz is a good station to get you started listening without having to buy CDs, may give you a taste for it!

I would add to that - listen to jazz from all the different eras - early jazz, swing, bebop, modern, avant-garde, all the new Norwegian jazz - until you find what really 'grabs' you. Then listen to more of that until you've really immersed yourself. Only after that start thinking about learning to play jazz yourself, otherwise you'll not be able to approach it from the inside, so to speak. None of the great players started playing jazz until they'd fallen in love with jazz themselves, and nor should anyone - there really isn't a lot of point.

For the record, my own journey into jazz began with the discovery of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli; I started listening, discovered I loved it, went to the library and borrowed every single Django/Grappelli record they had and listened till I drove my family round the bend. I then bought a book called Jazz Violin, learnt a few solos and then started working out my own improvisations. This was 25 years ago before jazz education really took off, so I was a bit at sea at first and didn't know much about jazz scales so I had to make it up as I went along so to speak.

The listening sort of evolved over time - after Django/Grappelli I listened to Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti but discovered I preferred Django and co. Then I started preferring Django's later period when he brought in horns. Then I fell in love with Louis Armstrong's swing period, followed by Bille Holiday (mm!!). Then I got into Miles Davis and from there it spread out really - I'm now listening to the Norwegian stuff like the Tord Gustavsen trio - a long way from Django but for me it still has the same passion and soul, which is what rocks my boat!

I'll post a couple of links to what makes me go weak at the knees:

This is an amazing little video of Django and Stephane from their very early days; it's only recently surfaced and is the longest clip of Django in existence (there are only 2 or 3):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6rBR0ujRmA

This is an extraordinary clip of Bille Holiday surrounded by the most talented, fantastic jazz players of the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tNSp7MaADM

and here's a lovely clip of Miles Davis playing 'So What':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4FAKRpUCYY

Enjoy! And good luck with your forays into jazz.

I have been to a sort of jazz workshop, it wasn't a proper workshop but it was really fun. We did improvising and stuff and all play two bars together and then different people improvised two bars. I really really enjoyed it!

I too would probably just start off with some tunes and then do grade one I want to do it for fun really nothing else .

I havn't really done any jazz improvisation except at that workshop thing. But I improvise harmonies when me and my friend and playing piano/singing together and when I am at my drama group. I also sometimes just pick up my violin or sit at the piano and randomly do little tunes, but i don't think that counts!
I'm not very good at playing by ear but its something I really want to improve on and have been working on! My aurals skills aren't brilliant but neither are they absolutely rubbish they are sort of medium lol!

The "Jazz Piano from Scratch" sounds good so I might wait for that to come out before starting anything. Or I might get the piano book and try that as well.

I listen to some jazz but unfortunatly not much. But I absolutely adore watching jazz musicians live, i always end up tapping my foot and humming along. Okay don't laugh, whats a DAB radio? (I'm rubbish with technology!)

Thank you all for the advice! x

Well then listen to more! You can always borrow jazz CD's from your local library for free - or you can order second-hand jazz CD's from Amazon for very low prices. Start building a collection and really get absorbed in jazz if you're serious about playing it.

I just downloaded absolutely loadds this morning and raided my dads CD collection to find some haha
Thanks for all the advice!
x

YAY! Go for it!

Thank you SO much for this. I've admired Django for 35 years and never seen this clip.



Wow! What a line-up!



Sooooooo cool...