Please reach us at info@bakersfieldjazzworkshop.org if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Jazz originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was heavily influenced by African American music, including blues and ragtime, as well as European classical music. Jazz quickly spread throughout the United States and became popular in the 1920s during the era of Prohibition. It has since evolved and diversified into many subgenres.
Blues originated in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was heavily influenced by African American spirituals, work songs, and field hollers. Blues became popular in the 1920s and 1930s with the rise of recording technology, and it has since influenced many other genres of music, including rock and roll and jazz.
Improvisation is a key element of jazz music. It involves the spontaneous creation of musical ideas and melodies by the performer. Jazz musicians use a variety of techniques to improvise, including scales, chords, and rhythmic patterns. Improvisation allows jazz musicians to create unique and creative performances every time they play.
Yes! We offer a beginner jazz class every Tuesday at 6:30 pm. To participate you should be comfortable with your instrument, able to play major and minor scales in every key, and read music.
The jam session is intended for more advanced players who want to practice improvisation, improve their sight-reading skills, and learn to collaborate on-stage with a group. Click below for some basic process and etiquette guidelines. ( Jam Session Guidelines )
Chick Corea's "Cheap but Good Advice"
1. Play only what you hear.
2. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything.
3. Don’t let your fingers and limbs wander — place them intentionally.
4. Don’t improvise endlessly — play something with intention, develop it or not, but then end off, take a break.
5. Leave space — create space — intentionally create places where you don’t play.
6. Make your sound blend. Listen to your sound and adjust it to the rest of the band and the room.
7. If you play more than one instrument at a time — like a drum kit or multiple keyboards — make sure that they are balanced with one another.
8. Don’t make any of your music mechanically or just through patterns of habit. Create each sound, phrase, and piece with choice — deliberately.
9. Guide your choice of what to play by what you like-not by what someone else will think.
10. Use contrast and balance the elements: high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, tense/relaxed, dense/sparse.
11. Play to make the other musicians sound good. Play things that will make the overall music sound good.
12. Play with a relaxed body. Always release whatever tension you create.
13. Create space — begin, develop, and end phrases with intention.
14. Never beat or pound your instrument — play it easily and gracefully.
15. Create space — then place something in it.
16. Use mimicry sparsely — mostly create phrases that contrast with and develop the phrases of the other players.
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