Csus4

This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

Scrawled across the blackboard are some bar lines, a few ticks indicating rhythm and a chord symbol: C-sus4.

"How would you go about teaching a 13 year old pianist in your 7th grade jazz band how to read that? He's pretty good, has some Bach - a few 2 part inventions under his belt." 

Cmaj7 (sus2)

"How about that one? It's just gibberish to him. 'Where are the notes?' He asks."

The blackboard slowly starts to turn into a jazz chart and my hands get a little clammy.

School's back in session, and my "Instrumental Literature" course starts off by dropping me into the deepest end of the pool as far as my experience goes. We're looking at building a strong rhythm section in a junior high jazz band. At this level, the horns already know what they're doing, but how do you get the kid on the drum set to set them up properly when he barely reads music? Or the guitar player who maybe has Stairway to Heaven memorized but doesn't know that the term "comp" is actually short for accompaniment and not another word for "solo." How do you teach kids to swing eighths? Most of all, how can I lead them if I don't have a grasp of the jazz charts myself.

I'm out of my league, and I'm excited. If I was back taking structural geology classes or linear algebra, I'd be panicking, but those days are behind me. I paid my dues, got my degrees, and now every class I take has a direct stake in my future. And tackling an issue I've worried about constantly over the last few years, and doing it head on is kind of refreshing.

I come into work every day during fifth period and get to sort, file and copy to an awesome soundtrack of a full big band. I get all the administrative crap my director needs out of the way so I can work with the "real" bands during the following two periods, but I've never been put in a position to work with the jazz students.

Nor should I though. I play the tenor sax, but couldn't solo to save my life. Being self taught on your instrument in a department of performance majors is really intimidating and I never took the chance to stand up and take an improv class in front of them, something I almost regret. I suffer from a bit of performance anxiety - it used to take monumental courage to step up to the podium at a concert, and I still have trouble leaving the score behind and directing the ensemble even in rehearsal. As far as performance goes, as long as there is music in front of me, I had the confidence to keep up and even take a solo in the wind ensemble, but give me a lead sheet with chords and I'll fall apart.

Now however, that's all I have. I get to draw up parts for a rhythm section based off the lead sheet to Autumn Leaves and decide on which instrument I'd rather make a fool of myself  - trombone or saxophone - when I solo in two weeks. We'll see how long my excitement holds out.

I'm now wrestling with a more pressing question: what else about a jazz program might be an even bigger hurdle for me when trying to build one.