I remember taking one of my brother's 'jazz' piano books to my high school piano teacher and asking her to teach me the pieces. She was not impressed. (It wasn't like they were even jazz standards). She put the book away and told me that I need to focus on my exam pieces. But I hated practicing the piano with a passion and I had figured that it was because I need some more inspiring pieces. Needless to say it wasn't long before I switched piano teachers, but it was still my high school subject, and I still needed to learn those exam pieces.
Over the later years of learning to play music, I just accepted whatever pieces my teachers gave me and decided that it was the only way it needed to be done. I convinced myself that if you want to be a good musician, you have to play all the pieces you are given.
But the reality of this, is that those pieces (or scales) that didn't motivate me to practice, also lead me to recent the piano.
Somehow, learning all the pieces on my woodwind instruments wasn't so terrifying, but it certainly didn't always make me excited about picking up my instruments and practicing.
Now as a musician, I have found that the best way to motivate myself to practice, is to pick music to play that I actually like. This is not necessarily music that I always listen to, or that is popular. But music that is interesting and fairly challenging to play. Yet it mustn't be so difficult that I can't sight-read some of it.
If this is my motivation, then it needs to be how I approach my teaching. Yes, you still need to eat your vegetables, learn those scales and play those pieces, but a dessert of a fun piece, is a definite incentive.
So I hope that you too can find some fun, catchy music to learn this holidays.
I did not have a huge appreciation for classical music when I was at school. Partly because I didn't understand it and I thought that everyone who played it was either rigid or perfection. Both of which I felt I wasn't and so I longed for this thing they call 'jazz'. It sounded way 'cooler' to me and it was different to what everyone I knew was playing. My hunger for jazz was not fed at all while I was at school and I decided I needed to know more.
After doing some job-shadowing in the medical field in grade 11, I realised that it really interest me. Since I come from a medical family I thought my folks would be disappointed if I didn't follow suit. But after consulting them on my desire to study music my parents genuinely showed approval and, most importantly, support.
So off I went. I got an extra teacher to help me prepare for my audition and, to my amazement, I got into the South African College of Music (part of UCT). I won't bore you with details of my 4 year undergraduate degree (it's an honours degree) or the next 3 intense years of Master's. I do want to say, however that it has been 9 years since I last played in a classical wind ensemble. Now, this year being my 10th year out of school, I have joined the UCT wind ensemble. It has been both healing and refreshing. I have recently also joined Windworx and I am so pleased to say that last night we played in a concert and it was the first time in my life that I was not nervous to perform. Not even a pang of nerves and no blushing. It was the most relaxed performance and we even got a standing ovation.
I am enjoying the music we are playing, and I am loving that I am playing my instruments more. But the interesting thing is that we are mostly playing classical music. It's beautiful, challenging and I love it. I don't feel like people are judging me any more for not being good enough. I feel like I have something to bring to the table and I'm learning and improving.
I have come to realise that it doesn't have to be a specific kind of music that you play. It can vary or it can be the same old thing, but it's all about what you put in and get out of it that counts. I have an entrepreneurial outlook on many things, but currently I am playing in bands that allow me to just make music for the love of it. No strings attached.
I am truly grateful that I have been blessed to meet some of South Africa's finest musicians and Shane Cooper is certainly on the top of that list. Bass player, composer and producer, Shane, is definitely someone to watch in the South African music industry. He has recorded with many other well-known South African musicians including Melanie Scholtz, Kyle Shepherd, Bokani Dyer, Rus Nerwich, Zim Ngqawana and Dan Shout (to name a few). He was a member of the Indian fusion quartet 'Babu' and South African quintet 'Restless Natives' (both were based in Cape Town).
After watching Shane play numerous times at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, it was then no surprise to learn that he was selected as the Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz in 2013. I have not heard any other player make a double bass sing like he does, and when he plays his solo's you will involuntarily sit up and watch his every move. Being at the Grahamstown jazz festival specifically, you are inundated with jazz music (obviously that's the point) for almost a full week, it's easy for a person to become overwhelmed and for their ears to get 'tired'. But every time Shane plays, it is almost as if the audience is awakened by his tone and style, then entranced and taken on a musical journey of the story he is 'telling'.
Thankfully those of us living in Cape Town are privileged to see him play at venues such as www.thecryptjazz.com and Straight No Chaser Club and occasionally the Nassau Centre.
Check out what Shane had to say about wining the Standard Bank Jazz Young Artist award (2013).
If you are following my blog, then you will already know that I have been trying to get an understanding of what is 'Behind the Music'. I am asking musicians about what they have to say about their career's, especially within the context of the South African music industry.
This is what Shane had to say in answer to my questions:
When and how did you start playing your
instrument/s?
I started playing piano when I was very young, and
eventually switched to guitar. When I
started high school I was asked to play bass in the school jazz band so I
started learning to play bass for fun. I
developed a love for the instrument very quickly and it became my main musical
focus after that.
Did you
have any formal training, and if so where?
I studied jazz performance at UCT.
What
inspired you to take up your art form as a career?
Playing music became my favourite hobby when I was still in
school, so I decided to try make it a career.
What does
your current career entail? (Can you give an idea of a day in your life?)
It's a mixture of practising my instrument and practising
with bands, composing music, recording / producing, playing shows, and doing
lots of boring admin stuff too.
How did
you (and do you) approach being in the music industry in South Africa?
It's very difficult in South Africa because we don't have a
lot of venues to perform in, and we only have a few big cities that we can tour
to. Also travelling within the continent
is very expensive, so we are limited in terms of performance options. As a result we have to work hard at trying to
get international exposure so that we can get gigs abroad and keep performing
as often as possible.
What do
you most enjoy about your career?
I get to make music everyday, it's the best!
If you
could, what would you change about the music industry?
I wish we could still make money from selling records in the
digital age. That money goes back into
making more albums, but it's very difficult to have that cycle running these
days. I'd also like people to be more willing to pay proper cover
charges for live shows. In 2014 I still
see people complaining about paying R40 to watch a live band, which is
crazy. I also wish music equipment was cheaper
in SA, most products are almost double the price they are in Europe and the
USA.
Do you
enjoy what you do now?
I'm loving it.
What are
your plans for your future?
I'm writing new music at the moment, and also producing
tracks for some singers.
Disclaimer: Please note that non of the images in this post belong to me and they have been credited as far as possible.
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)
