A jazz improvisation curriculum: Junior high through college

ByBret Pimentel

The following is a suggested curriculum for teaching jazz style and improvisation to students from junior high school through college. The materials listed are geared toward the developing saxophonist, but may be substituted or adapted to meet needs of other instrumentalists. The curriculum assumes the student has a basic command of the instrument, and should be used in conjunction with classical study. The layout of the curriculum suggests materials for junior high, high school, and college, but will of course need to be altered to fit each individual student’s needs.

Junior High School

Basic

  • Command of basic instrumental technique
  • Able to play all major scales from memory
  • Able to sightread at a basic level
  • Listening to jazz

Advanced

  • Able to construct and play dorian and mixolydian scales
  • Able to construct and play major, minor, and dominant chords to the 9th
  • Introduced to basic rules of articulation and swing
  • Transcribing heads of simple standard tunes

High School

Basic

  • Able to construct and play blues scales, natural and harmonic minor scales
  • Able to use scales, arpeggios, and simple licks to improvise over simplechord progressions (blues, Impressions, etc.)
  • Niehaus Basic Jazz Conception for Saxophone, Vol. I. Able to identify and correct printed articulation errors. Able to play exercises with consistent style
  • Transcribing simple solos from recordings of great jazz musicians

Advanced

  • Able to construct and play jazz minor and bebop scales
  • Developing vocabulary of digital patterns and II-V-I licks
  • Niehaus Intermediate
  • Improvising over tunes using II-V-I’s (Tune Up, Satin Doll, etc.)
  • Transcribing more advanced solos, able to identify scales, arpeggios, etc. within the solo

College

Basic

  • Able to construct and play whole tone and diminished/half-diminished scales and chords
  • Developing vocabulary for use with altered and minor II-V-I’s
  • Charlie Parker Omnibook using appropriate articulation and style, perhaps at reduced tempi
  • Transcribing solos; learning transcribed licks in all 12 keys
  • Improvising over tunes with diminished/half-diminished chords and/or minor II-V-I’s

Intermediate

  • Able to construct and play altered scales
  • Improvising over blues in all 12 keys
  • Charlie Parker Omnibook
  • Transcribing solos, transposing to all twelve keys
  • Memorizing standard tunes

Advanced

  • Able to play modes of major and harmonic minor scales
  • I Got Rhythm in all 12 keys
  • Charlie Parker Omnibook
  • Transcribing influential players, able to identify and imitate style and sound characteristics
  • Memorizing tunes

Above and Beyond

  • Cherokee in all 12 keys
  • Tunes in odd meters
  • Tritone substitutions, Coltrane changes, etc.

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  • Creativity, hard work, and beginning jazz improvisation

    ByBret Pimentel

    I occasionally teach a university course in jazz improvisation, geared toward beginning improvisers. Sometimes I think prospective students are afraid to sign up because they don’t consider themselves already to be musically creative. On the other hand, I have some students enroll in the class with unrealistic expectations about the results, thinking that they will learn all the tricks and secrets and be ready for some fantasy gig.

    It doesn’t make sense to avoid taking French 101 because “I don’t speak any French”—you’re missing the point of an introductory course. But it also isn’t likely that by the end of the semester you’ll be ready to wow everyone at the smartest dinner parties in Paris.

    Photo, alphadesigner
    Photo, alphadesigner

    The good-news/bad-news is that most of what happens in a beginning improvisation class doesn’t feel creative or spontaneous at all. In my course, we do a lot of drilling of scales, arpeggios, patterns, and “licks,” and then trying to execute them successfully in a pre-planned way over a set of chord changes. The same happens in your first-semester French class: you memorize some basic phrases by rote, and try to use them in the right order in very structured “conversations.” At some point you get some very restricted freedom: you have to say what color le chat is, but you get to pick if he is noir or blanc. Similarly, in my class you might get to decide which of your two memorized “two-five-one” licks to use over the first four bars of the bridge, or whether to start that digital pattern on the root of the chord or the fifth, but that’s about it. Limited options don’t mean you aren’t really improvising (or speaking French), it just means you don’t have a lot of vocabulary to work with yet.

    I know that this rubs some improvisers the wrong way: I shouldn’t be regurgitating pre-packaged licks! I should be developing my own “thing!” For those people, I suggest you read a biography of any great improvising musician and find out what they did in the early stages of developing their thing. Or just try speaking some French: no need for grammar study or vocabulary lists! Do your thing!

    For those who consider themselves creativity-deficient: you can learn to improvise in a systematic way—it’s not something you’re born with (or without). I’ll teach you some existing vocabulary and some techniques for making your own, and then you can start putting them together in ways that make sense to you. You’re being creative!

    For those hoping to learn some “tricks:” the only useful trick I can teach you is to take the techniques from the class and hit the practice rooms. There aren’t any shortcuts to improvising well. It will require hard work over the course of many years. But the process can be a lot of fun!

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    Advice on multiple-woodwinds graduate degrees and teaching careers

    ByBret Pimentel

    I often have university students bring up the idea of graduate school and a university teaching career, and I have previously given general advice about that.

    Perhaps since my graduate degrees and a teaching career are in multiple woodwinds, my students sometimes wonder if that’s a path they should take. Here are a few thoughts:

    I’ve mentioned previously that, even for talented and hardworking folks, a graduate education is far from a guarantee of employment. Does a multiple-woodwinds degree help? I think it helped me, but I also had some significant luck.

    The year I was on the job market, I applied for a small handful of multiple-woodwinds jobs and got a small handful of interviews. I landed in the job that was the best match. I kept an eye on job listings in subsequent years, and years went by without a single multiple-woodwinds job being listed. If I had graduated a year later than I did, I may well have been unemployed.

    During my job search I also applied for single-instrument teaching jobs, and got zero responses. Having been on the hiring side of things a few times now, I understand why. Faculty jobs get dozens of applicants that need to be narrowed down quickly, and the ones whose qualifications and experience are laser-focused for the job in question rise to the top. Though I felt I had things to offer, my multiple-woodwinds background wasn’t a precise enough fit, and somebody else’s background was.

    So is a multiple-woodwinds education better, employability-wise, than focused study of a single instrument? It’s a calculated gamble. When you’re on the job market there might happen to be a windfall of single-instrument jobs, and if you’ve been focused on multiple woodwinds instead, you may be out of luck. However, there are fewer multiple-woodwinds graduates, so if a multiple-woodwinds-geared job opens, your background might prove very valuable.

    Multiple-woodwinds teaching jobs tend to be common at smaller schools with smaller music departments, and that may or may not affect your decision. I have a mixed but mostly positive relationship with my small-university job. If your heart is set on teaching at a major university, then most of the jobs won’t be multiple-instrument jobs, and your competition will mostly be highly-specialized, highly-focused single-instrument players.

    One other factor to consider is what kind of multiple-woodwinds education you want to get. Do you want to have a “primary” and “secondary” instruments, or study them in an equal way? Do you want to do a masters degree and a doctoral degree both in multiple woodwinds, or one in multiple woodwinds and one in a single instrument? How you focus your studies will affect which theoretical future jobs you will or won’t be a match for. (Each degree program is a little different, so check with the schools you’re interested in to see how their programs are structured.)

    Graduate study in multiple woodwinds can be valuable preparation for a career in higher education, but the job opportunities are limited and hard to predict. I suggest pursuing that path if you have additional reasons or motivations for doing so, like a fascination with the woodwind instruments and woodwind doubling.

  • Mindset shifts for college music majors

    ByBret Pimentel

    Here are some mindsets that I find can hold college music majors back from reaching their potential—or can launch them to the next level.

    From “This is how I was taught” to “I’m here to explore new ideas.“

    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve suggested a better fingering option to a student who resists because they already know a different fingering and would rather not have to remember a new one. But my most successful students are curious to learn new things and try them out. Someday you’ll have the option to choose your own path, but you’ll do so from a place of experience, not habit.

    From “I have to practice for hours” to “What can I get done in ten minutes?“

    Mastery takes time, but the quality of that time is what really gets results. I’ve had students suffer alone in practice rooms all week with nothing to show for it. But if they can set a few small goals and spend a few minutes pursuing each of them in a focused way, by their next lesson they have measurable progress, the confidence to show it off, and a grade that reflects it.

    From “I’m never going to use this” to “I’m building a versatile skill set.”

    My students often have very clear ideas about what they will and won’t be doing in their careers. But working in music and/or education can mean wearing a lot of different hats, and broad knowledge and experience can have surprising advantages.

    From “My teacher my is judge and executioner” to “My teacher is on this journey with me.”

    Rather than playing your assignment for your teacher and nervously waiting for a verdict, let your teacher be a guide and consultant. Be ready to outline and demonstrate your successes and frustrations from the week, and ask for help and advice on what’s holding you back. It’s not you versus your teacher—it’s the two of you versus the technical and musical challenges.

    From “I don’t play well enough to perform in front of others” to “I have something to share.”

    My students perform frequently for other music majors, for faculty, and for public audiences. It’s pretty normal to feel inadequate to the task or to feel outclassed by others. But our audiences, even when they are our peers or teachers, want us to succeed. If you see your performance as a gift rather than a test, you never know who you might impress, inspire, or uplift.

    Which of these mindset shifts feels the most uncomfortable to you? Often the one that scares us the most is the one that offers the biggest breakthrough. Let’s do this!

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    Q&A: Instrument purchases

    ByBret Pimentel

    Here are some of the questions readers sent me in celebration of this blog’s 10-year anniversary. I have edited, combined, and otherwise adapted some of them but hopefully there are answers here for those of you who were kind enough to inquire.

    What starting models do you recommend as an entry point for each woodwind?

    Hi! What brand of clarinet would you recommend for an intermediate high school clarinetist who plans on majoring in music education?

    I suspect that you’re both looking for specific brand recommendations, which I mostly avoid doing on the blog, for reasons I’ve highlighted previously (tl;dr: equipment recommendations tend to outlive their usefulness—people cling to them while the market changes around them). Sorry. What I’ll do instead is offer some general advice that applies to beginners, college music majors, woodwind doublers, everybody.

    If you’re buying an instrument on a budget, because you’re a beginner, or because you’re a doubler picking up a secondary instrument: buy the highest-quality student-model instrument you can afford. Get good, current, targeted advice from your private teacher (contact/hire one before you buy your instrument!).

    If you’re in, or about to be in, college: consult with your professor. Period. Head off to college with the instrument you already have, and let your professor guide you through the process of buying what you need.

    As far as I’m concerned, that’s what most woodwind players need to get through their complete formal musical training: a good beginner instrument, and then an instrument suitable for college-level study. “Step-up” or intermediate instruments generally aren’t worth it—they cost most of what a college-suitable instrument costs, but don’t play much better than a good beginner instrument. If your budget is bigger than necessary for a student-level instrument but not big enough for a college-appropriate one, buy a good student model and save up the rest for the next purchase.

    For clarinetists, saxophonists, and oboists, often the college-level instrument is a true professional model, and you won’t ever need anything fancier. Professional level flutists and bassoonists may have more of a need(?) for a nicer instrument beyond their undergraduate degrees, and these can sometimes be in the price range between a new car and a new house.

    How do I deal with the cost of buying all of these woodwind instruments for college?

    If you’re thinking of studying multiple woodwind instruments as a college undergraduate, firstly I recommend that you think that through carefully, and get in touch with the music faculty at the school(s) you are considering. I think for most undergraduate students (including my past self), it makes sense to major in just one instrument, for reasons I’ve addressed previously, and at many schools high-level undergraduate study of multiple woodwinds is impossible or impractical. I think that for most aspiring doublers, graduate school is a better place to dig deeply into it.

    To address your question, though: college-suitable woodwind instruments are expensive, but almost certainly less expensive than tuition or room and board at an American university or maybe even a few semesters’ worth of textbooks. If you’re college-bound in the USA, a pro-level clarinet or oboe is probably the least of your financial woes.

    If you’re planning to pay your way through school with scholarships, then that might not be money you’re able to access for things like instrument purchases. Depending on your personal financial values, it may be worthwhile to get student loans to cover the cost of a new instrument, and pay them off at relatively low interest after you graduate.

    Depending on the instrument and the school, you may be able to borrow or rent a suitable school-owned instrument while you make arrangements to purchase your own.

    Thanks for the questions! Good luck with your instrument purchases.

    More 10-year anniversary Q&A

  • Advice on graduate performance study and university teaching careers

    ByBret Pimentel

    My university students are mostly undergraduate music education majors, but many at some point inquire about graduate school, including a performance degree path and eventual university teaching. Here are some things you should know about graduate performance studies if you’re an undergraduate music major. Read More “Advice on graduate performance study and university teaching careers”

  • Doctoral multiple woodwinds exams

    ByBret Pimentel

    I am starting what hopefully will be my final year in pursuit of a doctoral degree in multiple woodwinds performance (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone). Today I kicked off five days of written comprehensive exams. In addition to a musicology exam and a music theory exam, I have been preparing for woodwind-related test questions such as these: Read More “Doctoral multiple woodwinds exams”

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