If you can sing it you can play it

This short video of Isaac Stern giving a masterclass in 1979 should be food for thought for any kind of musician.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/1194841317720/isaac-stern-with-ho-hongying-in-1979.html?action=click&contentCollection=Music&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article

If you can sing it you can play it.  - Then if this is the case why not learn to sing?

Well, I couldn't agree more. Though I'm not talking about singing per-say as your chosen instrument of study.

As an improviser, singing (however bad and untrained) should be your most valuable tool. If you can sing a particular line then it's a question of then transferring it to your instrument as is being described here. But if you can't sing the line you trying to play? How can you expect to allow it to come through your instrument? If you can not transmit something through the body's most natural instrument, then it won't come through when you add the extra difficulty of having an instrument to play..

This is why everything you learn you should learn to sing first. Rhythms, melodies, harmonies. Everything. Once you can sing something properly, feel it through your body, you can play it.

What about transcribing? Writing down solos on paper serves good technical purposes, but if you really want to internalise music and gain the maximum benefit, learn to sing it. Not only will you feel the music better and gain valuable vocabulary but it will also aid enormously your listening and memory skills.

If this doesn't make sense then experiment. Try learning a new song in two different ways. The first in a traditional way. Read it and learn to play from paper. The second, learn to sing it first and then transfer it to your instrument once you have grasped it. Which one will help you learn the song better and to be able to have the confidence that you know it well enough in any kind of musical situation? Which one will help you remember the song longer?

Teaching - Jazz Piano and Improvisation Primers

I have been teaching for many years now. Through this blog and the educational work I do in private classes my aim has been to share the knowledge that I have gained over the years as a musician. I have been working professionally now for almost 25 years and I have been fortunate to play in all kinds of musical situations and styles. My focus is on improvised music - often jazz based - though increasingly I see music in a broader sense and use jazz as the tool to learn.

I am having an increasing number of students that approach me for lessons. Sometimes, it is difficult for people to travel long distances or to take the time to work one to one as often as they would have liked, so I have written some texts or primers to help people get started. That way they can follow the methods that I use and keep in touch, even if they are far away.

At present I have two courses of study - one that focuses on the basics of Jazz piano and another on generally learning how to improvise in Jazz. These are directed towards musicians with an intermediate to advanced knowledge of their instrument who would like to move towards improvised based music. They come in easily digestible Chapters which focus on various topics.

In these primers I share all kinds of material gathered from ideas that I have collected from musicians and teachers all over the world. I also take considerably from music in South India.

If you are interested in learning from these, please contact me through mail matt-jazz@hotmail.com and we can see what suits you the best.