The UK conservatoire sector

The academic study of music was a fairly insignificant part of a conservatoire education for the greater part of the 20th century, but has been developed over the last 20 years (Weber et al., n.d.). In the UK, this was undoubtedly due to the introduction of degrees rather than diplomas as the final awards for undergraduate students during the 1990s, which meant that conservatoires had to ensure that their awards met academic criteria. The existence of discrete ‘Academic Studies’ departments in many conservatoires may testify to relatively rapid ‘bolting on’ of an academic component to traditional conservatoire courses. At the same time, most universities developed performance as part of music courses, drawing on the conservatoire model. In some instances there appeared to be minimal definition between the curricula of the two types of institution.

The vocational relevance of conservatoire programmes has received significant attention and funding in recent years, clarifying a key distinction between conservatoire and university education. In addition, the 1998 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Review of Music Conservatoires defined the relative functions of performance and academic study in the two types of institution:

Formulating an academic curriculum that effectively informs performance demands consideration of two crucial issues: firstly, it must be specifically relevant to performers and secondly, the links between theory and practice must be made explicit within the curriculum, rather than expecting students to construct these for themselves.

Jazz pedagogy in conservatoires

Jazz continues to present particular challenges to the traditional conservatoire system that are only just beginning to be fully researched and addressed (Whyton, Reference Whyton2006: 66). With specific reference to jazz improvisation, Simon Purcell has noted that ‘British colleagues, both musicians and teachers, have tended to identify either with the dominant technicist pedagogy (stylistically specific and content-based) or with a more liberal, group-composition based approach, reminiscent of the work of Paynter and Aston’ (Purcell, Reference Purcell2002: 25). These composers promoted a creative approach to music teaching in schools in their book Sound and Silence (Paynter & Aston, Reference Paynter and Aston1970). The ‘technicist’ approach has tended to focus on bebop as the benchmark for teaching and learning, and demand the knowledge of a canonical repertoire of jazz standards. The emphasis is on learning ‘correct’ note choices over the standard chord progressions, often based on the imitation and replication of clichés, with arguably less emphasis on the development of a coherent musical language and the student's individual voice, features that would be the focus of a more liberal approach. The presence of this simplistic dichotomy in jazz education may be symptomatic of the lack of substantive critical debate on the implications of improvisation pedagogies. Worryingly, the result may be that ‘jazz students seem to feel pressured to choose between the paths of individualism and creativity on one hand, and technique and theoretical abstraction on the other’ (Prouty, Reference Prouty2004), when a balance of approaches is needed in order to address the needs and aspirations of individual learners.

The need for accountability and reliable assessment in formal learning environments such as conservatoires can contribute to the dominance of a ‘technicist’ pedagogy, the goals of which become ends in themselves. Whilst it is relatively straightforward to develop reliable criteria for measuring a student's technical attainment, it is considerably more difficult to assess other more nebulous creative and interactive skills, which are just as vital in any performance. Recent work by Elisabeth Barratt has quantified the tension between jazz practice and the requirements of conservatoire assessment (Barratt & Moore, Reference Barratt and Moore2005: 303). Prouty refers to the resulting musical compromise as ‘university jazz’, which fuels opposition to the academic study of jazz even from within the jazz community and leads to the perception that the jazz institution is divorced from both ‘art’ and ‘reality’ (Whyton, Reference Whyton2006: 71).

This is not to say that the technicist pedagogy has nothing to offer, as it emphasises competences that are all recognised as important to the development of a skilful jazz musician. However, there are many ideas about what a skilful jazz musician actually sounds like. In the world of jazz pedagogy, the truly tricky part is deciding what particular skills are necessary for the individual student reaching his or her aesthetic ‘goal’, and moreover, providing students with the means to identify what this ‘goal’ might be. Thus, jazz pedagogy has to retain space for personal development within its methods if institutions are to educate musicians capable of making a real impact on the art form.

However, the dominance of the ‘liberal’ over the ‘technical’ may be just as problematic. Purcell upholds the utopia of ‘music about music’ as an optimum teaching and learning strategy: ‘improvisation combines action, creation and evaluation – as one, distinct from written or even verbal feedback in that it occurs in the same context and material as the subject matter being evaluated. Here, both teaching and learning activity and evaluation are integrated. No other learning or evaluative activity so faithfully resembles both subject and participant it attempts to serve.’ (Purcell, Reference Purcell2002: 25). Purcell asserts that ‘While verbal discussion is of value in the conceptual, psychological and philosophical realms, the actual communication of the act of making music is best achieved within the immediate medium of music itself’ (ibid., 2002: 69). However, avoiding written or verbal communication altogether in the teaching and learning of improvisation may be unrealistic within the context of a degree course. Since Barratt noted ‘some correlation between a group's ability to hold a group discussion [. . .] with their ability to perform in an interactive fashion’ (Barratt & Moore, Reference Barratt and Moore2005: 307) the development of these skills may contribute both directly and indirectly to the success of students’ musical performances.

Both Barratt and Purcell advocate greater reliance on students not only to assess their own performances but also develop their own criteria on which to base these assessments (Purcell, Reference Purcell2002: 51; Barratt & Moore, Reference Barratt and Moore2005: 307), in fact necessitating a high degree of self-reflection and verbalisation of musical processes. In both cases, this strategy was developed within the context of student-centred learning, the effectiveness of which is dependent upon ‘the student's ability to articulate and interpret their own learning experience’ (Purcell, Reference Purcell2002: 17). However, the evidence presented in the two studies suggests that students may have been unable, reluctant or inadequately prepared to engage verbally and intellectually with their practical activities:

Purcell argues that ‘students who switch off in music analysis classes or appear to be lost for words reinforce the view [that the actual communication of the act of making music is best achieved within the immediate medium of music itself]’ (Purcell, Reference Purcell2002: 75). An alternative view is that these students are not adequately prepared by the conservatoire curriculum to engage with music in this way. Instead, they lack the appropriate vocabulary and endure irrelevant music analysis classes. The authors believe that a degree course should actively encourage students to engage with conceptual, psychological and philosophical implications of music, as ‘It is surely the successful integration of understanding and application that defines the convincing performance, where intellectual and physical responses become a consequence of each other’ (Jackson, Reference Jackson1999: 126). Further, if students graduate without the ability to be articulate about their own work, their education has done them a disservice.

The academic jazz curriculum

Jazz studies has developed as a serious field of academic study over roughly the same period as the changes in UK conservatoires outlined above. Arguably, until relatively recently the most exciting jazz research was taking place outside conservatoires and university music departments, and often sought to evaluate critically the myths and romanticism surrounding the jazz canon. Without a clear musicological model for jazz studies to follow, and often without the necessary expertise within faculty membership to pursue the prominent scholarly socio-critical approach, the academic study of jazz in conservatoires would tend to follow the traditional ‘linear chronology’ approach dominated by the jazz canon.

Certainly, the standard periodisation of jazz history and styles produces a neat overview that fits conveniently into limited teaching time allotted for academic studies in the conservatoire curriculum. Although this offers little to the student of jazz performance other than a basic knowledge of repertoire, styles and personnel, this does provide an ideal complement to the ‘technicist’ pedagogy of improvisation. For example, Frank Griffith's recent survey of improvisation teaching in six UK HE institutions is revealing as to the limited extent of critical engagement with the music in practical sessions that he observed, exemplifying division and opposition, rather than integration, between practical (performance-based) and theoretical (socio-critical) approaches to the subject (Whyton, Reference Whyton2006: 76):

Leeds College of Music: Towards an Integrated Curriculum

At the Leeds College of Music (LCM) in the 1990s, Whyton developed an approach to the ‘historical, critical and analytical studies’ (HCAS) curriculum of the undergraduate jazz studies course that sought to address the critical issues embedded within jazz and its history: ‘As a scholar involved in the development of jazz education programmes, and working in an environment where the performance-based and socio-critical sectors collide, I have tried to bridge the gulf between [performance practice and socio-critical] approaches by demonstrating that they are integrally linked’ (Whyton, Reference Whyton2006: 76). HCAS is described thus in the BA Jazz Studies course document:

Although this model enjoys a high level of popularity amongst learners and has been effective in ‘nurturing performers with a more critical approach to music’ (Whyton, Reference Whyton2006: 77), until recently these sessions have been delivered within a primarily theoretical setting (lectures, seminars and tutorials) and assessed by written assignments. Therefore, HCAS represents an effective combination of historical study, musical analysis and critical evaluation, but the extent to which students perceive it as directly relevant to their development as improvisers could perhaps be greater. Recently, lecturers at LCM have noted that although advanced levels of critical awareness were demonstrated in final year dissertations, this was not always informing students’ performance activities to a significant degree. This had become particularly clear when examining the substantial written commentaries that students were required to produce to accompany final year recitals.

At the same time, it seemed obvious that there would be clear benefits in a more integrated curriculum throughout the course. Derek Bailey has argued that ‘The learning process in improvisation is invariably difficult to detect. Although a large number of books and courses offering instruction and advice on how to improvise are available it seems impossible to find a musician who has actually learned to improvise from them.’ (Bailey, Reference Bailey1993: 1). However, by presenting ‘packages’ of learning material encompassing everything from the C major scale to the theory of Roland Barthes, the individual musician may be more likely to find the particular combination of ideas and methods which will help them to perform a well-structured improvisation. The challenge for educational institutions is to coordinate these ‘packages’, and for tutors, to prove to students the relevance of knowing, for example, ‘the socio-political circumstances of bebop in 1940s New York’ in the context of their improvisational performance. Despite the existence of some examples of good practice in the sector, there is a need for further development of innovative teaching methodologies to strengthen the links between performance and academic studies in support of learning outcomes.

Case study: Improvisation (Minor)

The rationale of the Improvisation (Minor) module is to engage students critically in the construction of improvisational structures (or frameworks), where these structures act as catalysers for individual approaches to improvised music (with musical outcomes ranging from bebop to ‘freely’ improvised music). Students participate in weekly workshops where they work in groups to explore a particular topic through performance, such as improvising to film or performing a solo improvisation. The outcome of these sessions are performed for an audience of the other students in the group, and then discussed by the whole group. The module was devised to support the development of students into skilful artists capable of aesthetic impact based on a unique individual expression. This would seem to be particularly appropriate at this advanced stage in the students’ education.

In the pilot sessions devised for this project, students were set the task of utilising the Coltrane piece ‘Naima’ as a logical structure for improvisation, with particular emphasis placed upon creative responses. Students were encouraged to ‘control’ the composition as an improvisational tool, and not let the piece subdue or restrain their ideas. In the course of the allocated sessions the students needed to take the composition apart, research its components, and then decide how this particular piece could work for them in a performance situation. Several different recorded versions were used as part of this research (see discography). Students were expected to demonstrate a high level of improvisational skill within the parameters of the compositional structure. In other words, as this was not just a theoretical exercise, each student was actually expected to be able to play well within his or her arrangement, and the ultimate outcome of the processes of research, deconstruction and rearrangement was a performance.

In the workshop sessions each individual student within the group of 25 took charge of their particular arrangement, chose personnel and rehearsed the band. When a particular version was ready to be performed and recorded for assessment purposes, their fellow students would either participate as musicians, or they would act as audience/critics, which exposed the students to a great variety of expressive responses, musical and verbal, based on this single piece of music. The results were all well arranged, strong pieces of music of a professional standard and were later performed during the FuseLeeds06 Festival.

In many ways there is nothing new in arranging jazz standards in a distinctive manner, but for an individual student to do this in a workshop situation and perform the outcome to a large group of fellow students puts a different spin on it. Firstly, some of the students had not ever properly engaged in re-arranging a pre-composed piece of music in order to achieve a thoroughly idiosyncratic performance outcome. Secondly, through involvement in each other's arrangements (as either fellow musicians or audience), the students had the opportunity to form strong impressions of the other versions being put together, which in turn helped them to define and clarify their own particular artistic angle. The pedagogical value of this became very clear through students’ written commentaries – one student pointed out that ‘the improvisation module gave me a real insight into the approaches and tastes of my fellow students’. Further to this, many of them found enormous value in witnessing the various performance processes of their colleagues with whom they may not have performed previously. Peer pressure within the workshop context made the students put an enormous amount of effort into the task; more so than if this had been a mere paper exercise (after a particularly successful performance, some of the students would look quite worried and run off to work on their arrangement for the following week).

One of the main aims of this exercise was to kickstart a sense of personal aesthetics for each individual student. Indeed, some of them realised that outside the realms of this assignment ‘Naima’ was not an effective structure for them at all. Others found that ‘Naima’ provided an untested improvisational route, sparking off fresh musical aesthetics. One student described this process in his commentary:

Therefore, within workshop situations, the educator's task is to present a series of structural options and improvisational techniques, where there is recognition that his or her role is limited to guidance alone. With this in mind, students work on a whole range of ideas throughout the module, and each student might find a useful artistic idea (however tiny) in each of these tasks, so building up a personal improvisational repertoire. As one student, who took a sharp turn from being a very traditional player to utilising much more open structures, wrote in his commentary:

It was interesting to see how the students really took these ideas to heart by realising the importance of putting a personal ‘stamp’ on whatever compositional structure they chose to play. This was evident through their individual final performance examinations, where examiners noticed a much greater level of clever arrangements, with few candidates succumbing to the ultimate crime of merely reading from a lead-sheet in the ‘Real Book’, which often results in bland and thoughtless performances.

Case study: HCAS 2

In order to further develop the HCAS strand of the curriculum specifically to enhance its relevance to jazz performers it was decided to pilot the incorporation of some performance-based sessions into this module. This meant that students found themselves singing and playing their instruments in a ‘history seminar’, perhaps having turned up with some or all of the preconceptions implied by that term. The cohort is split into smaller groups for HCAS seminars, ideal for this sort of work. By the second semester of year 1 when this module is delivered, students had been introduced to the jazz canon, and were therefore aware of the main stylistic developments in the history of jazz and had come into contact with some of the so-called ‘classic’ recordings. The students were also encouraged to examine the processes by which these recordings have been elevated to canonical status. Therefore, they already had some critical and musical perspective on ‘Hotter than That’, one of the most celebrated of Louis Armstrong's legendary ‘Hot Five’ recordings, on which the pilot sessions were based.

Two weeks before the sessions the students listened to the recording of ‘Hotter than That’ as a class and were given a transcription of the trumpet and vocal solos (see

). While it might be advantageous for students to work on the piece without a written transcription (or produce one of their own), it was decided that this was not the best use of the available time and might not allow such thorough exploration of the critical issues, which is the main aim of the module. Students were asked to memorise the material, working with the recording and transcription, applying it to their respective instruments. At the beginning of the sessions themselves, the students were played the recording once again, and invited to sing along with it. Immediately after this, the group attempted an a cappella vocal rendition of the two solos. Next, the students performed the two solos on their instruments, as a group. Rhythm section players took turns to provide accompaniment, but also took part in the performance of the solos. Individuals then took turns to produce 16-bar improvisations, including breaks, in a stylistically appropriate fashion. Finally, there was a group discussion during which students were invited to comment on the experience.

Fig. 1

As with the exercise in Improvisation (Minor), there was nothing particularly unusual about the task that the students were asked to undertake here. However, the educational context of the exercise focused students’ attention on the implications of their performance of this specific material and also encouraged wider self-reflection. ‘Hotter than That’ was carefully chosen for these sessions as its musical properties and the task of performing it raise many critical issues for jazz musicians. Indeed, students showed a tremendous willingness not only to perform the music, but also to consider the implications of the experience and the discussion of a practical task led naturally to critical reflection by students on their own learning and performance. Each group produced a remarkable range of insights in the final discussion with minimal input from the tutor. The comments were not restricted to the music itself but were wide ranging, including consideration of Armstrong, early jazz in general and the relative merits of various pedagogical approaches to jazz improvisation.

Armstrong is frequently identified as one of the first great innovators in the jazz genre, but his canonical status could be either justified or challenged. ‘Hotter than That’ certainly contains examples of his extraordinary musicianship (such as polyrhythm, correlated phrasing, implied substitutions, chromatic extensions on chords). Engagement with the music through performance prompted a number of comments from students that identified aspects of Armstrong's specific influence on the development of jazz (for example, ‘You can see some elements of Armstrong's playing in Charlie Parker's music’).

Armstrong's canonical status is often substantiated with reference to his trumpet playing rather than his singing or stage persona, the apparent popular appeal of which contradicts the desire to secure the status of jazz as art music. Analysis of Armstrong's trumpet and vocal improvisations reveals that the musical vocabulary employed is almost identical, whether he is singing or playing. This gives significant insight into his improvisational approach, and strongly suggests that he is effectively using the instrument as an extension of his voice. This exercise opens up debates surrounding the relative status of Armstrong's trumpet playing and singing, and further, whether the contributions of vocalists to jazz are sufficiently recognised. The similarity between the vocal and trumpet solos may suggest that Armstrong is ‘singing’ at all times, and for some students vocalisation is a route to developing their aural awareness, essential for all improvisation. There was much reflection amongst the students on this point, and students identified (directly or indirectly) that Armstrong uses his instrument to express ideas that seem to be already conceived in his inner ear:

Perhaps predictably, the exercise caused several students to raise their opinions of Armstrong:

That such re-evaluations should have been necessary, however, suggests that Armstrong's canonical status, so widely acknowledged amongst critics and historians, may not be recognised amongst younger musicians. This is clearly commensurate with the prevailing trends in jazz pedagogy, which results in the students’ perception of early jazz being somewhat marginalised:

These reactions are not so surprising when considered in the context of the jazz canon that is often perceived as a progressive evolution from ‘primitive’ forms of the music via the ‘classic’ bebop towards ‘advanced’ contemporary forms. However, whilst sheer ignorance of jazz repertoire could give justifiable cause for concern, it might be considered equally worrying if young musicians have passively accepted Armstrong's oft-stated historical importance without having really engaged with the music itself. The following comments seem to suggest that in the students’ previous encounters with early jazz (be it live, or on record) something had been lost in translation, due to the nature of early recordings and the fact that the music is now rarely performed within the learners’ peer group:

Therefore, it was significant that the exercise required students to engage with early jazz as musicians, provoking comments such as ‘It's given me a much higher opinion of early jazz’ and ‘Learning to play it makes you appreciate it more’. Potentially, the exercise allowed students to deconstruct the linear narrative of jazz history and associated value judgements for themselves through performance. The students repeatedly commented on what could be termed the ‘deceptive simplicity’ of the music:

Meanwhile, some of the rhythmic content proved more problematic than might have been expected:

Both cases involve the same rhythm, and this may indicate that some students may be more at ease with the rhythmic conventions of later styles. Armstrong frequently starts his phrases with this rhythm; by contrast, he often ends his phrases on the beat, where later musicians might tend to syncopate (see, for example, bar 43). This also caused problems, with one student commenting that ‘putting things back onto beat one can be difficult’.

The exercise deliberately embraced recordings and transcriptions, sources that are so pervasive in jazz education. Students were invited to consider these materials more critically, as this in turn encourages informed independent study. The given transcription was assessed by the participants, not only in terms of accuracy, but also in terms of its value to the development of improvisers. Whilst some students felt that the visual cues provided by the notation were analytically helpful (‘How he shapes it is clearer in the transcription’, ‘It's good to be able to see what notes are being used’), others were alive to the danger of becoming over-reliant on visual representations of the music:

Others identified the usefulness of the process of transcribing a solo:

Recording may also be understood as a form of transcription; as if we had actually been there the music would have sounded very different. The experience of re-performing recorded music may help students to view the testimony of sound recording in its proper perspective and may usefully inform the study of jazz which draws heavily on recordings.

There was much favourable reaction to the introduction of a practical element into what was perceived as an ‘academic module’. There was a strong view amongst learners that they prefer to engage in tasks that are (at least partly) practical, regarding them as more valuable overall. Apparently some students were totally unaware that they had been simultaneously engaging in some profoundly critical analysis:

Conclusion

The teaching and learning described above demonstrates that it is possible for the links between theory and practice to be made more explicit even within existent curriculum structures that would seem to render them mutually exclusive. The tutor of the HCAS module commented that the pilot sessions amounted to some of the most enjoyable teaching that he could remember, and that he felt that the majority of students found the exercise similarly engaging. These strategies of integration present implications and challenges in relation to the host institution and the pedagogy of jazz improvisation, but also more generally for conservatoires and their role within the HE sector.