The Jazz Band

Common performance problems and some remedies

Style is too choppy sounding

Jazz (swing in particular) is basically a legato style. Everything usually has a smooth flow and is energized by using breath accents and different forms of legato articulation. A warmup exercise that includes different forms of legato articulation is a good place to begin work on jazz style and articulation. One example of an exercise to develop this concept is to play different slur patterns on scales and gradually add syncopated legato articulations. Please see my description of legato for the trombone if you want to know more about legato articulation.

Balance is not good, especially in the rhythm section

The rhythm section must follow dynamic markings. Too often they play loud all the way thru the piece and cover up the soloists. Many people ignore the fact that the rhythm section can and should play the same dynamic markings as the rest of the band. Unfortunately the motor coordination problems inherent in playing loud and soft also effect the tempo.
You can work on this by creating ostinato patterns in which the players watch the director for sudden and gradual dynamic changes. This is best done with a metronome (possibly amplified) to avoid the changing of tempo.

For balance within and between sections, tutti parts should be played very slowly asking the players to listen for the lead and to play just under this part. Some tutti sections make nice chorales which are especially helpful in developing listening within the section.
Usually balance problems are a matter of trained listening,breath control, tone quality and intonation. Tone qualities that don't match and poor intonation also make chords very difficult to balance.

The basic problem is that very few people can really play technically the same at all dynamic levels because they don't practice at all dynamic levels.

You must practice how you play!

Tempo varies too much, especially during dynamic changes.

Practice with a metronome at as many varied tempos as possible. If you have the full ensemble rehearsing, try to amplify the metronome or record a sequenced pattern to play for a time keeper. Your drummer is not likely to be able to do the job by his (or her) self. It is also a good idea to play the same song at different tempos. It opens up a whole new realm of discovery to play a tune that normally flies at 240 at a tempo of 72.

Minimal dynamic changes.

A lot of bands ignore or can't achieve dynamic changes due to the problems incurred because they haven't practiced the above concepts. Dynamics are a basic expressive part of music performance. Don't overlook them. Practice at all dynamic levels! Play loud sections soft, soft sections loud, and try to use dynamics to shape the inner lines. The use of Dynamics is your most effective tool in musical expression but you have to train your players to use it.

Not enough diaphragm energy in the playing.

This is a tough one too fix and will take steady constant attention. Breathing exercises are a good place to start. Breath deep and practice long sustained tones with crescendos/decrescendos. Singers sometimes practice "ha..ha..ha's" to exercise these muscles, you may want to borrow a page from the "excellent choir directors" book and begin these exercises with your group.. You may want to try syncopated patterns with rhythm accompaniment where the players are asked to syncopate using the diaphragm instead of the tongue. There is a whole system of teaching rhythm that uses this procedure called the BRIM method. These players seem to develop good breath support , rhythmic feel and vibrato all at the same time. If you want to know more about this, go to your local college music research sources and look up Steve Middleton (he has done a lot of work in this area). Whichever way you work on this please remember that a lot of the interest in a jazz line is contained in the shaping (accentuation and syncopation that isn't written into the music) .

The bottom line is: Like most musical works, if you play everything on the page as written, you have only done half of the job. You must listen to a lot of jazz to begin to get the hang of this.This is even more pronounced in jazz. Jazz cannot be taught well from a book, it is and aural art, passed on by aural tradition. You must listen to a lot of jazz to begin to get the hang of this.

I have a system of teaching diaphragmatic energy that I call the "Screaming Whisper" that is effective in producing more energy in a young group. Check it out.

Attacks and releases are not together.

Every release should be marked until the group becomes familiar with the style and interpretation wanted. Even professional groups usually discuss where to place the release. All sustained notes should have a purpose. They usually take you to the next note or lead you away from a preceding note. In other words make sure the group knows what you want.
As far as attacks go, you must acclimate your group to the rhythm of the music. They must not only know intellectually where the attack is they also must be able to feel it . The rhythm must be locked in (within the whole group) or the players won't have a chance. Some of the worst attacks are those that happen on sustained pitches. They are the hardest to hear. Once again, singing the parts can be very effective.

A good technique to see if everyone is articulating together is to take all of the sustained notes and simply do not sustain them. Play the attack and clip it off very short. Play thru the whole section this way and it will be very apparent who is and who isn't "locked in". It is a very neat effect to actually have a major attack held back just slightly, the group must be tuned in to all of the above variables to successfully pull this off.

Improper interpretation of the music and style.

The only cure for this is to discriminately listen to lots of examples of the style you are trying to emulate. Bring in professionals that can help with the interpretation and remember.....jazz is a relatively free type of music (which will allow many interpretations) but listeners (and judges) usually expect to hear an interpretation they understand.

First Lesson in swing style

The eighth note pattern in swing is actually closer in rhythm to the first and third note of the eighth note triplet. The first note is the longer "Doo" and the second is shorter "Dah". They are usually played with a connected/legato style of articulation.

Begin with exercises based upon eighth note patterns "doo-dah, doo-dah...."

Progress to adding combinations of eighth and quarter note patterns.

Most people catch on to this aspect of rhythm quickly. The real problems begin to occur when trying to accommodate for rests. In the early stages most inexperienced players will rush the rests. To fight this the players must keep this (doo-dah,doo-dah,doo-dah) feel going throughout the rests and sustained tones. The following exercises can be used to develop fluency in this regard.

When learning to play off the beat in swing it is sometimes helpful to have the players inhibit the downbeat by humming it "mmm" and saying "dah". (mmm-dah,mmm-dah,mmm-dah,mmm-dah). You can progress from this to playing the "dah's" and silently thinking the "mmm's". Thus the repeated pattern of eight rest-eighth note becomes (mmm)-dah, (mmm)-dah. This should be practiced in as many common quarter/eighth pattern forms as possible. Make it part of the daily jazz band warm up.

Rushing is a common problem when playing successive quarter notes at slower swing tempos. The following exercise is good for keeping the tempo.

Replace all of the upbeats (dah) with "um". Thus the players begin by saying Doo-um, Doo-um and then progress to playing the downbeat and inhibiting (thinking) the upbeat.

A very common rushing problem is illustrated below. When you teach students the swing pattern on eighth notes they seem to pick it up very quickly. However when they try to apply this new concept they are successful only as long as they can bridge those notes between beats. As soon as we throw in rests we begin to have a problem with rushing. The below pattern would illustrate this idea as the students would usually play the first set of swing eighth notes without too much problem but they would very oftern rush the second set. The reason for this is that they can no longer hear (and play) their beat "set points".

The addition of the rest usually will cause inexperienced players to rush the eighth notes at the end of the bar. The easiest solution to this is to remove this rest and add a note. Once the tune has been learned and all of the players are placing the notes comfortably in the right place, you will remove the added note and ask the musicians to keep "thinking" it. This procedure can be used for eighth notes that tie into the next bar as well. Simply remove the tie and articulate the next note.
For syncopated patterns such as quarter notes on the upbeat have the musicians articulate each of the two eighth notes that make up the quarter. Be sure to emphasize the swing pattern within those eighth notes.

The most important factor in all of these exercises is that the doo-dah pattern becomes second nature and felt all throughout the piece of music.

I am very interested to know your response to this page and any suggestions on how I may improve it. Please send me some E-mail to let me know you were here or to give comments about these pages:
Dan_Traugh@fcgate.fcasd.edu
I would love to hear from you!


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