SAJE Jazz Workshop - Gordon Vernick

This blog post is going to be two-fold. My thoughts before and after I attended the SAJE Jazz Workshop. The workshop was aimed at classically trained teachers who are now expected to teach jazz by the South African education department. I attended because even though I studied jazz, my knowledge is not ingrained in my playing. So I feel that I am not fully equipped to teach jazz to the best of my ability, especially when it comes to improvising (I will explain more about that below). But when we learn how to teach something we often improve on that skill. So it's really a vise-versa kind of situation. 

My thoughts that I wrote down before last weeks workshop

Below are two things that I have learnt about myself recently:

1. I get bored very easily, keep me busy.

2. I want to be busy, but I don’t want to use my brain too much.

These too conclusions are the reason, I have decided, that I can’t really improvise. I have the knowledge of how to do it, but I don’t have the patience, to firstly listen to other people improvise. Secondly, I don’t want to actually practise the stuff. I get bored. Even though I know that there is so much exciting stuff and I really want to be able to play the stuff, I want to shred, but I don’t want to have to memorise stuff or do the work. It’s too taxing on the brain. 

So, who cares!? 

Well, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO IMPROVISE!!!!! I want to be constantly stretching myself and developing as a musician. So, this is my mountain. How do I climb it? I don’t know.

I’ve decided that going to this workshop is my last attempt at getting to this. I need motivation, and I need a programme, but I don’t have anybody to be accountable to and it’s much easier to clean the house and do laundry than think. Either, I have to banish the dream of being a competent improviser, or, I have to get over myself and come up with a plan. I am going to have to climb this mountain with one foot in front of the other and not take any steps back. I have to refuse to let my brain get tired and rather take bite size chunks that I can manage, and then see what happens. Maybe this blog will help me be accountable? We’ll see, watch this space.

My thoughts after the workshop

Below are two things that I learnt at the workshop:

1. Jazz is constantly changing.

2. So many other people haven't got a cooking clue what jazz really is.

So I always look at people like Dan Shout, Mike Rossi and Marc De Kock. Those cats  play a mean horn and they can certainly improvise! I know they have done the work, but I look at them and think, "sho, I have a long way to go". After hearing the questions that some of the people asked and hearing what Gordon Vernick had to say, it was like "sho, I actually know this stuff...I just need to go home, LISTEN to more music and practice". And really is that such a difficult thing?

So I have been listening to so much jazz this week and it has been so incredibly refreshing. My brain has not gotten too tired and I realised that this really is the kind of music that I want to play. Gordon also gave us all a whole lot of really useful material, which I'll definitely put to good use. I also found it encouraging (although intimidating) that Dan Shout, Marc De Kock and Terrence Scarr were at the event. Saying that you are always able to learn more and also learn new useful ways to teach.

I would like to write more about Gordon Vernick, but that will have to wait for another post. He really is an inspirational man. 

Gordon Vernick
(please not that this picture does not belong to me)