May 26, 2008

Backing up

I had a piano lesson with Skip Beckwith last week. I was ready to quit, give up the idea of learning jazz piano. It’s very hard. I’ve played classical music since I was eight. Jazz is a very different way of thinking about music. It seems so spontaneous yet there is a basic structure to learn before being able to fly free.

Skip is not only a fantastic jazz musician (he plays bass in groups), he is also a wonderful teacher. After every other approach failed (miserably!), he decided we should start with the blues. There is a definite blues scale and series of progressions as a base from which to move out but I would keep getting lost in the process. I just couldn’t put both hands together and keep myself connected to the time and chord series. So Skip had me go back to the beginning, do the basic, fundamental groundwork, learn the left hand well, learn to play it with my eyes closed, make it part of my body, part of my whole being. Then, perhaps, I can improvise on top of that. And I think it’s working. It doesn’t even feel tedious.

I can relate to the pleasure he must get from trying to figure out how to impart his knowledge to a student. All the many possible angles, approaches to achieve the desired result. It’s something I miss about teaching but is something that happens all the time when painting. If you do this, that happens; if you do that, this happens. And you don’t really know until you try it.

Once recently when teaching, my mechanical pencil (I love mechanical pencils) wouldn’t give me a new piece of lead even though I could hear it rattling around in the pencil. We were doing homework critiques at the time and I kept trying even while standing up in front of the class. Finally, after about ten minutes, it worked. So persistence does bring success!

Posted by leya at May 26, 2008 11:31 AM | TrackBack