Teaching Improv In Your Jazz Ensemble

MENC: The National Association for Music Education

Improvisation is a boundless and exciting way to experience music, especially for students. Teachers increasingly agree that improvisation is an essential skill for students to learn - however, many are unsure how to productively incorporate it in the classroom. Furthermore, most improvisational practices are centered around jazz, with very little to help even classical and vocal ensembles let alone the general music classroom. Now, in this new book, Daniel Healy and Kimberly Lansinger Ankney offer a practical volume aimed at busy music teachers. Recognizing educators' desire to balance the standard curriculum with improvisational activities, the authors provide 36 activities to incorporate into their everyday music classes and ensemble practices. All activities are flexibly designed in styles ranging from modern classical to pop. Teachers can spend anywhere from 5 minutes to an entire term on a single activity, in a variety of environments and ensembles - concert bands, orchestras, choirs, jazz ensembles, and music technology classes alike can benefit from the practices of improvisation. Aligning improvisation practices with the constraints of the classroom, the lessons focus on key music learning principles (melody, harmony, rhythm, texture/timbre, articulation, and dynamics), allowing students' basic performance skills to develop in conjunction with their improvisational ones. The book also comes with a companion website which provides helpful resources for teachers, including recordings of actual K-12 ensembles performing the improvisation activities. Designed for a wide range of ages and experience levels, Music Discovery: Improvisation for the Large Ensemble and Music Classroom is the first practical guide of its kind, and gives teachers a long-awaited jumping-off point to introduce this playful, thrilling, and vital musical practice to their students.

DVD provides over three hours of audio and video demonstrations of rehearsal techniques and teaching methods for jazz improvisation, improving the rhythm section, and Latin jazz styles.

Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment teaches fundamental concepts of jazz improvisation, highlighting the development of performance skills through embellishment techniques. Written with the college-level course in mind, this introductory textbook is both practical and comprehensive, ideal for the aspiring improviser, focused not on scales and chords but melodic embellishment. It assumes some basic theoretical knowledge and level of musicianship while introducing multiple techniques, mindful that improvisation is a learned skill as dependent on hard work and organized practice as it is on innate talent. This jargon-free textbook can be used in both self-guided study and as a course book, fortified by an array of interactive exercises and activities: musical examples performance exercises written assignments practice grids resources for advanced study and more! Nearly all musical exercises--presented throughout the text in concert pitch and transposed in the appendices for E-flat, B-flat, and bass clef instruments--are accompanied by backing audio tracks, available for download via the Routledge catalog page along with supplemental instructor resources such as a sample syllabus, PDFs of common transpositions, and tutorials for gear set-ups. With music-making at its core, Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment implores readers to grab their instruments and play, providing musicians with the simple melodic tools they need to "jazz it up."

Quick Reference for Band Directors is a go-to guide for new and experienced band directors. With tips on recruiting and retaining members, preparing lesson plans and program objectives, developing a booster group, budgeting, classroom management, using technology, and making emergency repairs, this book will soon number among your closest advisors. Learn how to build, maintain, and improve your program. Get tips on how to structure concert band, symphonic band, wind ensemble, marching band, small ensembles, jazz band, and pep band while developing musicianship. The book focuses on high school band programs but offers advice for elementary and middle school directors as well. Read it sequentially or select the chapters most pertinent to you. You'll come back again and again to benefit from the author's thirty years of teaching.

(Meredith Music Resource). Student Supplement Book 2 is a continuation of the many concepts and exercises presented in Book 1. The exercises focus the thinking process while expanding student awareness and sensitivity to musical expression. This high priority develops timed mental activity and accuracy throughout the ensemble.

Written by a jazz teacher for jazz teachers, "The Real Jazz Pedagogy Book" is based on the premise that successful jazz teachers must be constantly working four main areas: 1) the wind instruments-including tone production, intonation, and section playing skills; 2) playing styles correctly-such as rhythmic and time feel approach, articulation approach, and phrasing; 3) the rhythm section-playing the instruments, time feel and concept, coordination of comping, harmonic voicings, drum fills and setups, stylistic differences; and 4) the soloists-developing improvisational skills (both right brain and left brain), jazz theory, the ballad soloist, and the vocal soloist. Ray Smith, who has taught and directed jazz ensembles, including the acclaimed Brigham Young University group, Synthesis, and given private lessons for over forty years, also discusses the details of running school programs. Smith's YouTube channel complements "The Real Jazz Pedagogy Book."