1. Describe your skill level focusing on the following:
Regarding organization, I think my group and I did fairly well, since we were able to utilize class time extremely effectively, such that we did not require afterschool sessions. This was partly responsible to the fact that throughout the rehearsal process, my group and I decided that everyone would need to go home and practice individually to make sure we knew our specific parts, and the chrod progressions, and really understand the song itself. This helped us in the long run as we panicked less in the days leading to the performance. In terms of creative thinking, I feel I was personally more successful because the song that we selected did not have much room for making more interesting walking bass left hand accompaniments or jazzy licks and varying melodies, since the chord progression was only C-F-G for the majority of the song. Therefore, I had to find an alternative route to ‘jazz up’ my accompaniment; I decided to focus on rhythms and the use of multiple octaves to make my part more interesting. I found that at the beginning of the rehearsal/creative process, I had collaborations with my bandmates regarding the style or feel we wanted to have for the song; more specifically, the rhythms, and key changes to make improvisation and singing easier. However, towards the end of this process, I found that I asked for more consultations with teachers in order to help make my accompaniment more interesting, and I gained valuable information in terms of utilizing higher octaves to contrast with lower octaves in the later stages of the song, which would help build the song up during the climax.
2. What did you learn as you were engaged in this project? What of the jazz skills did you develop? (scatting, improvisation, comping, syncopation, extension chords, swing, walking bass, etc.) Be specific and use music terminology.
One of the most prominent ways that I developed in terms of jazz skills was in creating more interesting rhythms in comping, through gaining a better understanding of the swing rhythms and walking bass lines to give my accompaniment more of a jazzy feel. I incorporated a lot of triplets into the chord rhythms towards the climax of the song to fill up more space and give a fuller sound, as well as increasing my octave ranges. I also learned how to use extension chords, which are extremely important chords in the jazz genre, as they were chords I hadn’t really worked with before. For the chords, I focused quite significantly on inversions to give variety to the chords that I played that remained the same throughout the piece due to the simplicity of the song. The notable piano refrain at the beginning of the song was based upon syncopation, and one of the things I needed significant practice on was keeping myself in time and with the tempo set by Jeff, since sometimes the timing of the syncopation was slightly awkward. After a bit of practice, I understood the ‘groove’ of it better, and it sounded much less rigid and it flowed a lot better with a jazzy feel. Another aspect of the refrain was the walking bass line, which I did with my left hand. I played around with playing it in a legato manner, as well as in a staccato manner to see which style matched the song and the other instruments better.
3. How did your research, experimentation and learning help you improve your skills as a performer? (Links to websites and tutorials)
The research I did opened up a whole world of jazz rhythms to me, especially the YouTube videos that I found along the way, ranging from bossanova to the swing rhythms we incorporated into this piece. This meant that I could incorporate a wider variety of rhythms into our piece to create interest and prevent myself from playing the same chord rhythms and making my part dull and non-interesting.
Learning some background information on Nina Simone proved to be quite helpful for us during the creative process; for example, I learned that Nina Simone liked to have a strong stage presence, so I tried to be as expressive as possible when I played, even when I was not being focused on at that point of the performance.
4. Musical performance
•What are the positive outcomes and strengths of your performance? •How successful were you in conveying the main musical idea or mood through your performance to the audience?
Our piece was successful in the sense that we had a relatively engaging and catchy intro/piano refrain.
5. What score would you give yourself for Criterion B (out of 8) for your final performance and why?
I would award myself a 7 as I feel I was quite steady throughout the entirety of the song, setting up the general tempo, and keeping a steady beat and rhythm through the drum solo, which admittedly threw the tempo and beat off a bit, though once we all were on more sure footing, it sounded great and quite ‘groovy’.
6. What score would you give yourself for Criterion B (out of 8) based on your personal skills development during this unit?
I would award myself a 7 as I had never played the jazz genre before; I had usually focused on playing classical music, as well as generic pop music, which had fairly non-syncopated beats and rhythms, and I had to learn how to stay in time and in tempo with the rest of my band members.
7. Please give any suggestions for improving the unit for next year’s students.
I think we needed to have more time to actually practice, more than just a couple of weeks, because many music students may not have played this genre of music before, and it is really hard to get right, and more time to actually practice practical skills rather than learning about jazz theory and the musicians.
