Essential Elements: For Jazz Ensembles

Evaluation

 

Pros:

·    Conductor’s Score is a good size, gives pointers and rehearsal tips before almost every piece.

·    Every instrument on pages 2 and 3 explains the basics of jazz.

·    Both jazz percussion & guitar approach is beginner.

·    Conductor’s book has important performers of each instrument

·    Conductor’s book also has recordings for the performers…even flute and vibes!

·    Has all the different scales: blues, etc.

·    Shows rhythmic notation with the notes for many of the first pieces per unit. (ie-pg. 31 #119 scale notated for instrument improvisation, but NOT for piano and bass.

·    Sequence moves fairly well, do a review of material before moving onto a new subject.

 

Cons:

·    Conductor’s score does not include some instrumentation, ie: clarinet and flute.

·    No fingering charts

·    Should be approached later in the student’s learning due to difficulty of books and since most books don’t approach the student as a beginning (ie-no finger charts, set-up, embouchure, playing position, etc.)

 

Appearance:

·    Series is attractive, but the only color used on the inside cover is butter yellow.

·    Plus on appearance: scattered throughout the book are pictures of famous musicians.

 

Percussion Book:

The drums book is pretty good.  Like the other rhythm section books,

it first starts with a great description of the roll the rhythm section plays in the band and what other instruments make up the rhythm section.  After that, in two pages, it covers the percussion instruments required for drum set, the set-up, drum set notation, and

the 2 different stick grips.

 

One thing Steinel overlooks is a THRONE on a drumset.  It is not included as part of the instruments for the set.  I feel it plays the most important roll in setting up the drums because of the vertical position (how high or low) it is set at.

 

Although they do a great short explanation of all this, I do not think it is enough for some students to really get a good first understanding on most of all; setting up, and the stick grips.  Being a visual learner myself, I would like to see better, colorful pictures that have arrows pointing to key spots and instruments.  I do not think a student will

understand much about setting up except for how it is SUPPOSE to look when they are done.  I do not think a student will understand how to properly play with matched grip and traditional grip after seeing a picture and attempting to understand the 2 paragraphs that describe the grips.  The colors are boring and the material is boring.  More so, being humorous, the common personality of a drummer would not appeal to this material and would rather just "do it how he wants to."

 

I think it is important to explain why having the set-up and stick grips are so vital for becoming a better player in the future.  At the same time, it should be stressed that playing fast takes perfect technique and also how it is not important to playing the drums what so ever.  I think a lot of new drummers will listen to popular drummers

and be attracted more to quicker playing instead of melodic, groove based playing and so maybe a sentence or 2 about this would be beneficial.

 

Finally, the rest of the book is pretty good at introducing the Jazz style to a beginning student. I really appreciate that Steinel shows the scales and harmony.  Also, he has some exercises with notation such as the scales or harmonies pretty regularly in this book.  Some of the greatest Jazz drummers are great because they understand more than just the drums and so I think it is great for students to start learning other concepts in Jazz as soon as they can.

 

Standards Addressed:

 

  1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
    1. No, it does not specifically say to sing anything.  However, it can easily be implemented by having the class sing before playing.

 

  1. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
    1. Yes, obviously there is ample opportunities to play together or alone in this book.

 

  1. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
    1. Yes, for example on page 9 #27 has the student make up their own melodies.  There are several opportunities to improvise, make a variation of something or accompany another instrument in this book. 

 

  1. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.

a. The series works on composing from an improvisational point of view, not                     so much composing via planning.

 

  1. Reading and notating music.
    1. Reading music is addressed since the students will have to read music every time they sing, clap, or play their instruments. Notating music is not as applied, unless the teacher wanted to have the students notate what they plan on playing or to help with improvisation in the future.

 

  1. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
    1. Listening to music is not addressed in an activity in the book, however there are accompanying CDs with each book in the series.
    2. Analyzing music does occur, at least the beginnings of it…ie-Learning to build a dominant scale (pg 12 in student book) or chord names.
    3. Describing music isn’t directly addressed in the series. However, the teacher could apply descriptions into a lesson to apply concepts.

 

7. Evaluating music and music performances.

      a. I would say the pictures of musical examples and the CDs which are

included with the books completly cover this standard.

 

 

8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and

disciplines outside the arts.

            a. This is a little uncovered but it does have some good, short bios of historical figures, helping describe the history of Jazz.  A neat way of describing the sound of the rhythms in Jazz such as "dot" and "dit" are used in this book and I think that realates to creative arts by using simple vocabulary to describe the non-vocabulary of Jazz notation.  Otherwise, it does not compare the music with art and disciplines outside the arts.

 

9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

                   a. As described for number 8, it highly relates this music with its history but it does not talk much about the culture during that time nor how it fit within the culture which i feel is important because this is music created in America.