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Beginning Jazz

Author: Travis
Date: 2008-01-23 18:53

Greetings all. This is my first post although I read this board often. I am looking for any advice or suggestions regarding my aspirations of becoming a recreational (for lack of a better word) jazz clarinetist. My background will be easy to sum up: I am 36 years old and have absolutely no formal music training. What I do have is 8 years of listening almost exclusively to vintage jazz (I also DJ vintage jazz at swing dances on a very regular basis) so I am very familiar with the works of Goodman, Shaw, Bigard, Buster Bailey, Bechet, etc. I decided to learn clarinet a few years ago and practiced regularly for a few months before life got really busy and I stopped. Now, a few of my friends who played music in high school (but haven’t played since) are getting together once or twice a week to play and they invited me to join them so I’m picking up my horn again and am very excited. We have put together a list of about 10 songs of mostly jazz standards like Dinah, I’ve Found a New Baby, All of Me, etc. to play. I’ve been working on about one song per week memorizing the melody and practicing the scale of whatever key the song is in (based off a lead sheet I have or a recording that we are going off of). Aside from the melody I’m also trying to find simple “licks” or “riffs” (excuse me if I use a term improperly) that I can play behind the melody. If I take a solo I basically just play the main melody as I have no skill for improvising yet. I’m fortunate to have a very relaxed learning environment – the people I play with are certainly ahead of me in knowledge and skill but they are very patient and understanding; and we realize that we are just a bunch of jazz music dorks getting together to try and work through a few songs. We have no immediate goals of playing in public but I think that we are certainly working toward that a long way down the road (even if we just play two or three songs at a dance or some other casual environment).

Anyway, I guess I don’t know that I’m really looking for any specific advice but if anyone has any similar experience or suggestions I’d love to read it!

Best regards,
Travis

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