A school Jazz Ensemble has the unique necessity of teaching Music Theory skills if they want their students to be able to play more authentically. A more advanced, and indeed more authentic, jazz ensemble rarely has the notes given to the rhythm section, and typically features a great deal of improvising. For the educator that wants to get their students past the written bass lines/voicings, you might consider using your warmup time to get your students moving in the right direction, even if it’s slow going. I’ve included some sample warm-ups, which should be transposed into different keys below. The warmups are designed to be used flexibly, and should reflect your goals for the ensemble. If your focus for the rhythm section is for them to become more tight as a unit and more stylistically accurate, they should read the included harmony, and begin to improvise style changes, bass lines, and voicings. If your rhythm section has a harder time reading notes, or coming up with lines for improvising, perhaps they should play the written lines. Starting on the third page, I’ve included the first 4-measures to “Autumn Leaves.” The samples included expand in their range from |1 2 3 1| to include the 5th of the given chord. The last few examples attempt to outline the “common tones” between the harmony, hopefully conveying the relationship between the harmony and the Bb Major scale. Just like in Concert Band, your warmups should be geared towards the pieces you’re working on and I would urge you to write your own goal-oriented warmups.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Jake Daniels Archives
March 2023
Categories |