In my first post I said I wouldn’t be teaching, but trying to get a conversation going. But then I post two long posts. Oh well!
I’m obviously happy to share my thoughts and experiences but I want this to be a forum for everybody. It’s too bad that the format hides the responses (to my first post) and you can only see my posts (responses) unless you look under comments. Because it is your comments that will make jazz flute tips a meeting of the minds.
If you are out there, write a comment in response to Jess and Jeremy. Or write a comment on any of my posts.
Keep fluting!
Hi Mark,
Thank you for opening the opportunity to learn from someone with profound mastery of jazz flute.
I have a couple of questions as I’m picking up my flute to learn jazz after my third child is off to college – making time around running a vacation retreat in southeast Wisconsin. I long to learn to sit in w jazz musicians it seems – currently sit in rarely with a local duo (Tommy Greywolf played fiddle w Brooks and Dunn and was playing w a guitarist in clubs locally and I played brown eyed girl and summertime that was decent – but don’t know my scales/chords well enough – don’t know chords at all (only one year of piano when I majored in music for a year in 1980) to be able to read charts and feel fluent with tunes w more chord changes like Jobim’s Wave or Girl from Ipanema (play this by ear in a couple of keys but don’t have an academic understanding at all and long to be able to jump in and play on harder tunes/jazz standards that I love.
1) needing to take a hard look at exactly where I am and this is rudimentary w the scales.
Learned major scales well with classical training and can ‘play just about anything’ by ear and have a feel for when to keep quiet when I can’t – but don’t understand chord names/scales – some familiarity with minor but don’t know it cold (learned minor diminished augmented way back when in 1980 when I studied flute w Charles Delaney at FSU, Tallahassee). Seem to have a love of folk, jazz, indigenous music and also had a cantor in Kiev in the family history – my grandmother fled the pogrom of 1905 in Kishenev and was ‘pushed into the Pale of Settlement from Kiev – she fled while the village was burning w 6 younger siblings in tow (her dad had already gone to America) youngest was 6 months – I searched 25 years to find her ship manifest (her maiden name was Lee and this was shortened from Liebowitz that they took when they arrived in Owensboro KY but the actual family name that they crossed the ocean with was rumored to have “sounded like a sneeze” like ‘zalisnach’ lol. my parents parents all have name changes.
So am inspired by your story of how you connected with what is vital, resilient and inspiring about your Ukrainian roots. I met an older Jewish man in early 80’s when I visited the Juda L Magnes museum in Berkeley who asked me what I was studying in college and I told him my minor was music and that I had ancestors from Kiev and one was said to have been a cantor and he was thoughtful for a moment and finally said “well I see that you have managed to capture the music” – this at a time I was feeling as cut off from my roots/sense of family as I could be – music is a universal thing and just appreciate his trying to connect the dots to a glimmer of recognizing/honoring authentically one’s heritage for what it’s worth – in our DNA
So I would be interested to hear music influenced by that of the Ukraine and will see if I can find your album – wonder if this is similar to klezmer music –
I lived w jazz musicians for the year I majored in music and have had the pleasure of hearing many wonderful jazz artists live (Chagal jazz festival in Nice in 1976/77 when I took some master classes w Rampal at l’Academie d’ete and have a relatively decent sound and a longing to express – love music as poetic expression of soul and conveying what is a tremendous love/pathos for humanity/world – my mother died when I was ten w a lot of family denial and I’ve worked hard to open my heart to the world – but have very limited vocabulary to express and hold an intelligent musical conversation w other players, so to speak.
But I digress and the question for me about the Jazz is what would be an efficient/effective way to learn to play jazz – I reside in a rural area and the closest teachers are an hour away – eg get a real book, an Abersol scale book, or download scales from Internet – it seems I will need to learn one scale/arpeggios/intervals at a time – and is there a certain progression of learning the scales you recommend likely starting w learning the minor scales cold. I’ve recently learned of some open mic jazz groups in Milwaukee and aspire to eventually sitting in.
Thank you – most of the comments are far advanced for me to benefit from and I know I need to work on the basics at this point and just wonder if there are any words of wisdom for a rank beginner of jazz – likely to just ‘buckle down and work on learning chords and scales or ‘shut up and practice’:)
Best wishes,
Laurie
Laurie, I haven’t been paying attention to my page, I’m not as involved in music as I have been, but I find your story fascinating and your desire to play jazz admirable. Just to start do you understanding the cycle of keys? If you do my suggestion is that you play a Gmajor scale up and down in 2 octaves from C to C, then still playing from C to C get rid of the sharp and you are in Cmajor then add flats according to the cycle always playing he new scale in two octaves from C to C. That way you will get familiar with how each scale feels on the flute.
Once you can play all of the flat scales (Fmajor ot Dbmajor) that have a C in it, we can talk about sharps