Week 5

Week 5

How is my understanding of blues and applying 12 bar blues?

Blues so far is an interesting topic for me. I enjoy hearing the unique style of music, and its unique style of sound. Improvisation still seems challenging to me and we luckily haven't tried it. We did have to create a 12 bar composition. This advanced my understanding due to the insight into the workings of composition. Melding the notes with the chord sound also helped me understand the blues genre more. So far, I haven't actually played any blues music though.

Instrument class

We tested out our blues song in instrument class. Well at least I did, I don't really know about the others. It's still a difficult process, and I have no experience with blues improvisation. However, i'm getting better at actual playing, despite my constant mistakes. I have to get a lot better if I want to competently improvise though.

Term 3 Week 4

Week 4
How do you understnd the learning of jazz through your assessments done till now?
As we didn't have any assessments that involved improvisation yet, the previous assessments had little impact on understanding jazz. The essays we had to do gave us a lot of insight in the history and techniques of jazz, but do little to prepare us for actual improvisation and playing. The singing assessment helped me in getting a feel of what jazz songs are like though, so I guess it slightly counts.

Instrument Class
As we had our singing songs this week, we didn't learn any new chords or techniques. Instead I spent instrument time thinking about how I would sing. Mr John was kind enough to accompany us for singing with his guitar. Dhanes (as usual) was able to pick up on the chords rather easily, which made the session interesting to say the least.

Term 3 Week 1-3

Week 1
How did you find the beginning of jazz according to you and how it was presented by the teachers?
I think the beginning and the roots of jazz were interesting. The fact that it was created by African-Americans made it unique and interesting for me to learn. The evolution from slave and spiritual songs to jazz was also intriguing. I think it was presented rather well too, due to the booklets, which helped a lot in understanding the topics. The slideshows were good for getting the point across, the performance was epic, and all-in-all I find it a good if difficult topic due to the improvisation required.

Week 2
How is my progress in learning jazz? (Roots of jazz)
The process of learning jazz is complicated, but we're taking it slow by learning the various chords first. My progress itself is rather good. We've read most of the paper that Mr. Herry has given us. We've also learned about the actual music of jazz. On the actual chords themselves though, I haven't got a good grasp, and I haven't learned anything new. I know how to play some of the seventh chords, but my expertise is limited. Improvisation is still a long way off though.

Week 3
How did I do my essay and how does it affect me on learning and applying jazz?
My essay wasn't the best work I've done. We had to write about the beginning of jazz again, which meant summarizing most of the information sheets we were given. I did my music essay the day that we first got it, because I was feeling very motivated. Unfortunately I didn't put too much effort into it, and all the info was gained from a single source (the info sheets). I guess it only affects my knowledge of the history of jazz, as I see no practical application of it.