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A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO JAZZ

7 min readMar 19, 2017

“Life is a lot like jazz… it’s best when you improvise.” -George Gershwin

This article is not an official lesson plan for teaching jazz, nor is it a quick Sunday morning read. This article is meant to give the reader a feel of jazz music and help know about its elements.

LET’S BEGIN.

Jazz is something that is unique to everybody. There isn’t just one melody backed by a single emotion. The way jazz is played is very different from the way it is perceived. While a saxophone is known for its tenor, the trombone is known for its groove and the trumpet for its class. When all these variables collide in a harmonic tandem, jazz is created. It holds the ability to bring out a unique sentiment from each of its audience, creating a roller coaster of emotions in the process. So, as said before, this article will not help you learn how to play jazz, it’ll help you to understand it.

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”

-Louis Armstrong

HOW DO YOU ‘JAZZ’?

People say jazz artists play whatever they want to. Though they are absolutely correct, what they don’t realize are the limitations under which they do it. Jazz music depends a lot on improvisation and the key to improvisation is thinking out of the box. Famous artists such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, John Coltrane, all have an amazing ability to make up music as they play, especially during live shows. Once, in a live performance, John Coltrane was said to have created a 25-minute improvisation act from just a 10-second melody.

For an artist to improvise on jazz, they must make it their language. There is no analytical thinking involved. When they play, they don’t realize how or why they’re playing the next note. It’s a rhythmic flow of thoughts, which occurs unconsciously. The best way for an artist to improve their improvisation skills is by practice. Once the basic progressions and notations of jazz are known, the only thing the artist needs to do is keep an open mind, and entertain the possibility that, out of the millions of chord combinations, any chord can be next. This gives them the freedom to choose how they progress down the melody, thus creating a unique song.

10 BASIC JAZZ CHORD SHAPES

EXERCISES YOU CAN DO FOR BETTER IMPROV

This works for any instrument you might play like a piano, a guitar or a flute. Choose a starting note and an ending note. The ending note decides the cadence of the melody. Now, keeping in mind the jazz progressions (harmonic minor iv-V-i, melodic major v-iv-I, etc.), find multiple ways to reach from the starting note to the ending note.
This method is a bit more restrictive but can yield better results. Select a scale to work with and note down all possible keys and progressions which can be included in that scale. Check the same keys and progressions on the instrument, getting a feel of how to get to them. Now play inside this scale using different combinations of styles and skills.

“A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.” -Benny Green

BEHIND THE CURTAIN…

Some people say jazz is confusing and, at times, annoying. It is not so easy to grasp a jazz beat until you know its breakdown.

In musical theory, there is a concept called an eighth note. Simply put, four beats make up a unit, and by dividing these four beats into halves, we get what is called a half beat or an eighth note. To make the concept clearer, listen to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Its intro is three eighth notes before a half note. Consecutively, it can also be read as three half beats followed by a full beat.

In jazz, the beat is divided into three parts, with the first two parts tied together. This makes the note pair uneven, with the first eighth note longer than the second. This variation is called swing beat.

Swing music originated in the Southern United States, during the turn of the twentieth century. Almost fifty years later, some musicians decided to clear this “error” and evened out the beats, making them equal in length, and thus a revolutionary new genre emerged known as rock n roll. The theory of eighths serves as the key difference between swing music and rock n roll.

“Forget about upholding the tradition and just play who you really are.”

-Terence Blanchard

MODERN JAZZ.

Classical fanatics would say that modern jazz is a rip-off of all the old riffs and tunes. But the evolution of jazz is governed only by its audience. These days, jazz has become faster (owing to Coltrane) and more dynamic in its melodies, though its popularity has fairly diminished. More instruments are included which expands the number of varieties of songs, making up hybrid music.

There are still some things that no one can understand, like what goes on in the mind of a jazz artist while improvising. But that is the beauty of jazz. It is like the saying goes, “You don’t have to understand something in order to like it.”

“One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”

- Lou Reed

MY FAVORITE JAZZ ENSEMBLES.

FROM THE AGE OF SWING — Dick Hyman Ensemble
SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION — Cannonball Adderley
LA VIE EN ROSE — Louis Armstrong
CARAVAN — Charly Antolini
ASCENSION — John Coltrane
BOPLICITY — Miles Davis

SCHOOLS FOR JAZZ STUDIES.

NOTE: There are multiple jazz courses provided by these universities. For more information, visit their websites.

Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts
College of Music, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Massachusetts
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, New York, New York
Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
Frost School of Music, University of Miami, Miami, Florida
School of Music, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Los Angeles College of Music, Los Angeles, California
Jacobs School of music, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Juilliard School, New York, New York
Herb Alpert School of Music, UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio
Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York
Yale School of Music, New Haven, Connecticut
California State University, Los Angeles, California
Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, England
Conservatoire de Paris, Paris, France
Seoul Institute of the arts, Ansan, South Korea
Global Music Institute, New Delhi
Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, Chennai
The True School of Music, Mumbai
KMMC: The Conservatory, Chennai
Delhi School of Music, Delhi

BOOKS FOR JAZZ STUDIES.

The Jazz Theory Book — Mark Levine
But Beautiful: A book about Jazz — Geoff Dyer
How to listen to Jazz — Ted Gioia
Effortless Mastery — Kenny Werner

ONLINE COURSES.

Jazz Appreciation by University of Texas
Jazz: The Music, The Stories, The Players by Hamilton College of Liberal Arts
Music in the 20th Century by Peking University
The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form by University of Rochester
Jazz Improvisation by Berklee College of Music
Jazz Piano by Berklee College of Music
Jazz Guitar 101 by Berklee College of Music
Jazz History 101 by New York Jazz Academy
Introduction to Improvisation and Jazz Theory by New York Jazz Academy

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FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS FOR JAZZ.

Jazz Fellowship by Luminarts Cultural Foundation
New Music Grants by BMI Foundation (Invitation only)
Monash Jazz Music Scholarship by Monash University
Jazz Studies Scholarship by University of Oregon
Jazz Scholarship by Berklee College of Music
Scholarship in music by ASCAP Foundation
BMI Future Jazz Master Scholarship by BMI Foundation
Davidson Fellows Scholarship by Davidson Institute