The three core approaches to my teaching
1 – Mentoring and creativity
One of my jazz piano teachers opened up many new dimensions for me in things such as yoga, tai chi, meditation, systems theory, self organising systems and free jazz. A good example of the kind of impact this had on me was that for many years I was terrified any time a teacher or fellow student wanted me to play in odd metres (less commonly played time signatures such as 7/4 or 5/8) until I brought the problem to one of our lessons. He was kind of frustrated that I kept saying I couldn’t do it and then suggested that maybe one day I might become a master of odd metres. We then broke the problem down a little and worked on a few aspects of it and indeed over the next few years it did become one of my favourite things to explore in music and improvisation. Looking back I can see that there was a brilliance in how he was able to imagine and then encourage me to have a wonderful relationship with odd metres (as well as tackling the problem head on) instead of just a mere competency.
Because of the experience with this teacher and many others who were able to broaden my horizons both inside and outside of music, I have started to develop an interest in encouraging students to find and then break down their limitations, learn to explore new territories and start to treat life as an adventure.
If you would like to come to me primarily for mentoring, I would recommend that we start on zoom as I don’t yet have an ideal space or setting for holding such conversations.
Spirituality
Spirituality has played an increasingly large role in my life over the last decade or so. Whilst I have no evangelizing inclinations, I do feel that spirituality can open up some fascinating dimensions in our lives. Specifically, it can help us to break out of old habits and patterns and open us up to larger perceptions of how things are. I don’t have formal training in any particular spiritual practice but I’ve developed a fairly large degree of familiarity with meditation and some other practises such as Yoga, Ayurveda, Tai Chi (to a lesser extent) and various spiritual texts from different traditions. At the same time, I have an enthusiasm for secular culture and feel that it’s possible to embrace all perspectives without necessarily introducing a sense of division. From this point of view I hope to be able to guide people through the benefits and potential challenges of exploring spirituality and the different possibilities that are potentially available.
Creativity
Increasingly, I’m more excited by teaching about creativity and artistic expression than about solely teaching about jazz piano. It’s exciting to me to encourage people to embrace creativity as a primary activity and if one is so inclined, channel it towards jazz or jazz piano. One of the core first principles here is learning to embrace creativity as our fundamental and natural state and learning to let go of some of our learned habits of judgement with the possibility of introducing discernment at a later stage.
2 – The fundamentals of jazz
In this approach we cover various important aspects of the jazz tradition.
Topics included:
-Repertoire
-Chord tones
-Melodic development
-Theory
-Scales and arpeggios
-Chords
-Chord progressions
-Substitutions
-Chord tensions
-Technique
-Basics of playing the instrument
3 – Improvisation and allowing (getting out of the way)
In this approach we start to uncover the secrets of good improvisation. This topic is more complex and subtle and harder to lay out explicitly. But the basic idea is that the more you try to make improvisation a certain way, the more limited your improvisations will be and the more limited your ability to improvise will be. To put it slightly differently, the more you have a pre-conceived idea of how you want your improvisation to go, the more limited the improvisation will be.
How do we address this topic? Fundamentally it’s about letting go of a degree of control which ultimately allows something greater to flow through you. To get to such a state is an ongoing process that can be challenging, mysterious and ineffable but I can walk you through the things which have helped me and that I still work on to develop this quality further.
Price
30 min lesson – £25
45 min lesson – £37.50
60 min lesson – £50
The first lesson can be on a pay what you feel basis but if you feel that it’s been a valuable lesson, please pay at the full price.
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