Jazz Theory/Keyboard: Music 12

Required Materials:

Mark Levine, Jazz Piano
Mark Levine, Jazz Theory
Real Book, in concert pitch or your instruments key.
Loose leaf binder with manuscript paper

Class Objectives:

Through this course, you will learn the necessary theoretical concepts in class to understand the basics of jazz improvisation.

Learning jazz theory is a necessary foundation to the development of improvisation skills. You will study jazz harmony and nomenclature. The main scale types studied will be major (ionian) , dorian minor, and mixolydian. Others covered will include the blues, bebop, pentatonic, whole tone, locrian, diminished (octatonic), and diminished-whole tone scales. You will learn what chords are associated with each of these scales.

You will also study chord relations and progressions in jazz. You will learn the circle of fourths (cycle), ii-V-I, turn-arounds, as well as standard song forms including the blues and AABA.

Along with written chord and scale recognition, a great deal of emphasis will go into jazz ear training. You will learn to recognize many of the standard chords and scales by ear, and work on simple melodic dictation.

The keyboard component will include learning to play any of the chords and scales covered with good jazz voicing and voice leading.. You will learn basic comping, including standard one-hand shell voicings. You will learn about constructing walkingbass lines, and be able to play a walking line in your left hand, while comping in your right.

Live Jazz Performance Attendance: As you will hear throughout this course, the only way to learn about jazz is to listen to it. This is especially true of live jazz, where you hear it being spontaneously created. During the semester, you need to attend four live jazz performances and write a short (one page typed) summary of what you heard. Submit a program, ticket stub or some other proof of attendance with the paper. Discuss the types (styles) of tunes you heard, the instruments in the group, and any jazz performance techniques you recognized (these will be discussed in the first section of the course). You will be alerted to good jazz performances to attend around the area as the semester progresses.

Class time will be broken up into the following activities:
Discussion, Ear Training (Interval, chord and scale recognition, Melodic & harmonic dictation), Jazz Keyboard skills

Grading

Attendance/ participation 5%
Written tests (3) 30%
Keyboard tests (3) 30%
Ear traing quizes (3) 15%
Assignments/ Quizzes 15%
Jazz Performance Attendance (4) 5%