This post offers a broad view of humanity’s musical customs. It explores the evidence for prehistoric music making, and it explains how music got passed down through the ages. Musical instruments, traditions, and notation systems are also examined.
Author: Brian Jump
Brian Jump is a guitarist, teacher, and audio engineer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He teaches commercial music and technology at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.
The Devices and the Voices
This post covers jazz timbre, jazz ensembles, and the theory of jazz sound. Common instruments are described, like trumpet, piano, and saxophone, and common techniques are defined like syncopation, swing, and call-and-response. Also covered is jazz’s peculiar take on melody and its proclivity to use blue notes and blues scales.
Top Seven Mistakes Made By Music Students
In this post, Brian Jump discusses seven common mistakes made by music students. He examines problems like music illiteracy, playing too fast, and memorizing too soon.
Reign of the Soloists
This blog post explores three swing-era musicians who were known for their brilliant soloing styles: Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Swing, Bands, and Leaders
This post explores the swing style of jazz. It summarizes swing’s defining characteristics, and it covers two influential swing musicians: Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington.
Illiterate by Choice
In this blog post Brian Jump explores the hostility many musicians feel towards reading music. He describes the many ways students shirk the responsibility of reading, and he attempts to dispel the myth that learning how to read is antithetical to the spirit of music. Jump’s main point in this post is that becoming literate drastically improves one’s musicianship.
