Jazz From The Start

Why Improvisation and Why This Curriculum

I’m not a scientist, nor do I play one on tv, so if I miss some of this don’t get upset at me. Improvisation is composing “on the spot”. It excites areas of our brain that might usually be asleep. It creates new connections in our brain, thus helping us in other areas of our lives - especially in areas in which we use creativity.

In my 26 years of teaching, some of my brightest, best, most creative, most well-rounded young people were those in my jazz band. Cause and effect? I don’t know!

Many music teachers don’t feel comfortable with jazz, or maybe they have never played or studied jazz. Many music programs are not large enough to have a separate jazz band, yet don’t those students deserve to study jazz as well?

Jazz is part of our heritage. It’s America’s only original art form. It developed when people of many nationalities, many ethnicities, many music styles converged in New Orleans and created something totally new.

This curriculum might be for you if...

• You want to teach jazz to everybody as part of your own music curriculum
  
• You don’t have a jazz band (and probably won’t have one)
  
• You do have a jazz band and want to start them improvising more
  
• You teach elementary students who are just starting on their instruments
  
• You teach middle school students who have 1-3 years experience
  
• You teach high school students and want to get them outside their comfort zones

This curriculum has been field tested with several classes of my own students. I named it Jazz From The Start because you can use this as soon as students know their first 5 notes. You can adapt it for orchestra by changing the approaches of what notes to use. You can use this curriculum for full class sessions, or you can use parts of it and turn it into a 20 week instruction for part of the class.

Many video examples are included. Use the videos as an idea of what you can demonstrate yourself, or you can use the videos as they are. Click the links to view the videos on Youtube or download them from the link after purchase and save them to your computer.

Learning jazz and improvisation will help your students develop better out of the box thinking, gain more confidence, and overcome fear.