We are excited to announce that New York Australian expat and acclaimed jazz piano virtuoso and vocalist Matt Baker will be teaching at Summer Jazz Camp 2018. No stranger to Jazz Camp, Matt Baker was a popular regular on the teaching faculty before moving to live in New York. He has since enjoyed a stellar […]
From term 3 of this year (2017) we’ll be running a new combo for school-aged beginners. At the moment the day and time are TBC – that will depend on what suits a quorum of members. All the musicians in the current ‘beginner’ groups aren’t beginners any more, so we need a new combo for […]
From time to time we meet young musicians who are about to finish high school and aspire to study at one of the reputable tertiary jazz schools but are taken aback and disappointed when they don’t get past the audition. Why not? After all, they were one of the best musicians at their school, even […]
Sometimes well-meaning teachers will tell you that “the most important thing is that you just have fun”. Of course you should enjoy playing jazz, but learning how to do it, and getting good at it, will sometimes involve hard work that, well, may not seem fun at the time. Famous jazz players aren’t famous because […]
By Saul Richardson, University of Sydney. May 2016. Learning jazz and playing jazz at school is usually great fun and rewarding. But it can also be confusing and, for some students, disheartening. At first everything is fun, and everyone participates together on equal terms, loving the joy of just making music together. Over time, however, […]
By Saul Richardson. You are not meant to play most Fake Book/Real Book tunes exactly as written. One of the most widely-used resources among jazz students are so-called “Real Books”. Real Book is more-or-less a pun on “Fake Book”, a collection of rough lead sheets for jazz or popular songs. The Real Book first appeared […]
The Sydney Youth Jazz Orchestra is looking for new trumpet players to audition for either SYJO (under 30) or SYJO2 (under 19). Full scholarships are available, sponsored by us here at Jazz Workshop Australia. Members need to be able to commit to weekly rehearsals in St Leonards during school terms. SYJO rehearses on Thursday evenings […]
Do you play an instrument? Would you or your child age 8+ like to join a jazz band where you: a) play great music? b) learn how to improvise? c) learn the ways of jazz? d) play with other like-minded, enthusiastic and talented musicians? e) progress through a program with one of the best track […]
This summer’s Jazz camp is close to closing for new registrations; We can accept late registrations until 30 December, 2014 or the camp is full, whichever comes first. To sweeten the deal, and make signing up a little easier, we’ve waived the PayPal surcharge. Register now online. We’ve put together a high-powered faculty of great musicians […]
By Saul Richardson. In this article I will compare two different ways of presenting and teaching modes to students for improvisation. The first is the common method in which we teach where modes come from. The second, and the more useful for the improviser, is what modes do. Modes are different ways of playing […]
