Jazz Program Questions
Found in: Jazz Clues
Shelly E., Utah
I just watched most of the Jazz program teacher training. I cannot find the answers to some questions in Simpedia. I have a question about using Jazz clue 2.
For example, in the Mirron there is Chord that is just ‘F’ and no 7th. What does the student play here just an F octave without a 7th or just use Jazz clue 1? In Here to Stay in measure 4 there is an ‘A11’ and ‘A9’….so I’m assuming the student would treat those as just 7th and play A and G. Is that right? “If You Call” has a ‘Dsus’, what to do there?
Also, how do you all teach High Five rhythmically with a time signature of 12/8? Counting to 12 would seem too cumbersome and slow and seems that it would not produce that jazzy sound needed for this. With my background I know that I can break down every 3 eighth notes into one beat to give a feel of 4/4 with triplets, but RR program did not prepare a student to necessarily grasp this. So how do you all teach it?
Also, maybe this is answered at the end of the teacher training, but it seems that a goal or end result here is that not only can a student play in a jazz ensemble but also could after a while develop his own arrangements in
which the rhythm in the melody and/or the LH chords become more jazzy with more complex rhythms (LH dropping in) as Neil seems to demonstrate when he plays the pieces as piano solos. Yes?
Dorothy H., Australia
You will find all the answers in Gordon Harvey’s “TW – Jazz 1” which is for sale on the website under the “TTM – Teacher Workshop Series” titles.
To address the specific questions you asked, here are some quick solutions: (although you seemed to have figured these out for yourself anyway!)
1. Use Jazz Clue 1 for the F chord in ‘The Mirron’ (play a 5th)
2. In ‘Here to Stay’, treat the A11 and A9 as A7 to start with.
3. In ‘If You Call’, play a Dsus chord (D-G-A) followed by the full D chord in the LH.
4. Teach the High Five rhythm as a 4-beat rhythm, and use a lot of “Humpty Dumpties” as lyrics! Most of the song can be sung to “and a humpty dumpty humpty dumpty…..”
I use this song as an opportunity to refer to other songs with eighth-note time signatures (starting with Ballade which is in 3/8, and extending from there. Greensleeves is in 6/8 – with 2 beats per bar, as played in the LH for the repeat of verse 1.)
Gordon’s Workshop Series covers all this and has heaps of ideas to develop the arrangement of each song.
Gordon Harvey, Australia
I had nearly finished this reply when I saw one from Dorothy Horn come through. I might as well send this out anyway in case two explanations help.
There is a Teacher Workshop Series title led by me which answers some of these questions. There may be various solutions depending on the student’s skills. Here, I’ll just give the simplest:
For the F chord in The Mirron, you can either play an F octave or revert to Jazz Clue 1. I prefer the octave, but Neil likes JC1.
In Here to Stay measure 4, to begin with, just play Jazz Clue 2. Later you can add the extra notes with the RH.
In If You Call, just play the octave to begin with. There are various ways you can add the 4 later.
Regarding the rhythm in High Five, I teach this in various ways depending on the student. In my opinion, there is no pressure to use every detail of the notation if too much of it is new to the student, because, as you say, they probably haven’t encountered anything like this at this stage. One way is simply to have them listen to the CD and you playing it and see if they get it by ear. One partially reading-based solution is to point out that most of the song is made up of two rhythmic components:
1. when you see a 1/4 note followed by an 1/8 note, that’s “humpty”.
2. if the above is preceded by two 1/8 notes, call that “and-a-humpty”
It’s a good exercise to look for these through the song (remembering that some of them might be obscured by ties – for example measure 7). The student will soon see they can handle the bulk of the song with these two rhythms. The exceptions can be handled by you simply working through them as separate projects, or better still, they might work them out by ear.
Re your last paragraph, the answer is basically yes, although developing arrangements is not actually taught in this level. I have more advanced students apply their Jazz Clue 4 dropping-in skills to their Jazz Clue 2 projects, and that forms a beginning for developing arrangements. And to say that a goal is that a student can play in a jazz ensemble is a matter of degree. They may have to complete the Jazz 2 program (when it comes out) before they could do so at a high level of musical sophistication.