Learning jazz the hard way

Too many students struggle with playing what they should not play and too many

teachers teach what should not be taught. When students struggle with learning music, there are

two possibilities: the student himself is doing something wrong or the teacher is doing something

wrong. From my experience, mostly it is the fault of the latter, especially when the student

himself is dedicated, but finding it hard to evolve in his practice. I come from Latvia, a small

Eastern European country and there are only around thirty people who know and teach Jazz

music. And even tough they are really great players and teachers in our country, they come

nowhere near the professionalism and teaching level of bigger countries like USA, Russia,

Germany etc. First words that come to mind are: “Big fish, small pond”.

Music is all about communication, especially improvised genres like jazz. How can you

practice improvisation? You play with other people. How can you play with other people? You

have to have the right environment where you can find other musicians with the same interests.

That doesn’t stop there. Having the right environment doesn’t just mean having people with the

same interests. Of course that’s good, but in order to truly grow, learn and advance, you have to

have the RIGHT people around you. Musicians who are better than you, musicians that can teach

you something, musicians who can enlighten your way because they have went through the same

difficulties in their own life.

The problem with less populated places on earth is that there are just a handful of persons

actually interested in the art of jazz improvisation. It is even more rare that any one of them is

able to play his instrument on the level of world-renowned professionals. Therefore it is not a

surprise that most well-known artists at least once in their life have moved to a bigger city to

experience massive amounts of culture, exposure to the art they want to learn and most

importantly get involved in the scene. Every jazz lover knows that New York is the Meca of

jazz, Chicago is the go-to place for blues; if you wish to experience authentic afro-Cuban music,

you go to Cuba instead of a small village somewhere in Alaska. And these are just some of the

places you just might want to go to to truly get immersed in the life of the art form and learn it.

When I started out, most of the teachers I knew of were just good enough for their own country.

Of course they have been exposed to the “real deal” through recordings, magazine interviews

etc., but in the long run, that really does not substitute for actually going to a live performance or

a jam session, talking to a person who has played with some of the greats or knew someone who

has played with the greats. The teachers I had didn’t get exposed directly to anything new or

more advanced and therefore either taught that they are on top of their game or just did not care,

cause there’s no competition anyway. They are the best musicians in the region and they do not

really have the need or will to become better.

The reason why these people turn out to be so is quite simple. If there are not a lot of

good musicians around, most probably there’s also not a lot of listeners who could appreciate

that certain style of music. That leads to artists not having any place to play concerts and earn

money. What happens is that these musicians, often without realizing it themselves, develop

complexes about not making it in the big world, not having a blasting career with fame and

wealth. So all they can do is to become a teacher, mostly not by choice, but by necessity. And

who suffers from this the most? It is the students who are young and full of fire and drive hoping

that these teachers will help them on their way to success.

The advantage of a jazz student in the 21st century is that thanks to the world wide web,

there’s tons of material, videos, recordings available with just a push of a button. Also, the world

is much more open travel-wise, so more popular musicians come to perform at less popular

locations. Thus the student experiences much more of great jazz music than their teachers have

ever had the chance to in their past. This also means that more non-musician people are starting

to understand and appreciate this genre, therefore creating performance opportunities for

musicians. While the teachers are too stubborn to accept the fact that things have changed, the

young musicians are eager to finally perform live and they take any chance they have. This is not

as good as actually going to a place where the jazz tradition has been practiced for a long time,

but it is anyway better than what was happening previously. There is just one major thing still

slowing the students down – their teachers.

The teachers are stuck in their own musical development, they have no will to change

anything and they get jealous when the students are doing better than themselves. They might not

show it, but you can feel it. You can feel it through their teaching, through their playing and the

way they look at you. Of course I am overreacting a little bit, but the fact remains, that a lot of

students suffer from this. This behavior makes students less motivated, less ambitious, it lowers

their confidence and in the end it can impact not just their playing but their general life choices

as well. Even if the student is motivated enough to keep learning, he might not realize all the

possibilities of different techniques, methods available, because his teacher either does not know

that or just does not mention it thinking that if he himself went through hard times figuring this

out, the student should too. This can turn into a big problem for even newer generations. The

teacher can easily influence the student to become a similar example of personal disappointment,

suffering and broken dreams. And so it happens all over again in the next generation.

There is really nothing much you can do about this. It is all in the hands of the student to

realize and decide what he wants to do. He might figure it out himself, he might meet someone

who points him in the right direction or he might read this essay, but somehow he has to become

aware, that he is not learning, performing and living to his full potential. You can learn jazz in

such environment, but you will never be able to learn to PLAY jazz in such environment. And

guess what, if you can’t “learn to play” jazz, you won’t be able to actually play it. In other

words, you will not be able communicate, express yourself, actually say something with your

music, when you go up on stage. As I mentioned before, these are things you can learn only by

actually being present in the jazz scene, being exposed to true masters of this art form and/or

studying with a teacher who has experienced all of that himself.

Improvisation has always been about discovering, reacting, experiencing something with

other human beings. And you just can’t do that in isolation or in a society where you are put

down for your ambition, eagerness, musical taste and opinion. And if you can’t create or bring

this kind of environment to where you are now, you might never experience the true beauty and

mastery of improvisation.