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Introduction
This is something I have been working on since I retired from teaching in 2002. It is a summary of techniques that proved successful in teaching beginning students. My emphasis from the beginning was on tone production. My reasoning was if students liked how they sound, they would practice more and enjoy playing music. If their parents liked how they sound they would be more likely to support their student and the music program as a whole. The ability to enjoy music through performance is one of the greatest gifts that life has to offer. Passing that gift on to others can be a rewarding experience but it carries with it the very important responsibility to give each student the very best possible chance of success...
Articles & Resources
A collection of the" best of the best" contributions by members. Playing, improvising care & repair tips and hints. Contact us if you want to publish an article.
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I was going to put this in the current thread Help with the next step please, but this somehow grew into something that should have its own thread I think. This is one of those things that crop up from time to time in various discussions
My take is that it is now inevitable that mainstream or straight ahead jazz of the 40s/50s (golden era?) is often concentrated on by teachers and learners and is for several reasons:
It may be fair to say that jazz (and its evolutionary forms) as we know it mostly started out in the US (with roots in the slave plantations and ultimately Africa)
It was originally considered as dance music or brothel entertainment (ie way below Classical in terms of "artform").
1940s/50s bebop innovations brought its...