Gilad Atzmon - The Primacy of The Ear

It's no secret that The Sage Gateshead has struggled to pull in large crowds for its series of Jazz Workshops and Master classes, Jazz for Everyone, but this has certainly not meant that the quality of the sessions has not been World Class. The latest (and sadly possibly the last) was an opportunity to have an insight into the approaches Israeli Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon uses in his own practice.

The main focus of the workshop was that we, as musicians, rely too heavily on visual methods and academically inclined studies when learning an instrument when we should be focussing on the importance of using the ear to guide us. Classical Music is learnt almost entirely from the page whereas Folk and traditional music throughout the world is passed on aurally and is seldom written down. When these 'World music' styles are learnt from the written page many of the characteristics of the music are missed, elements like feel, emphasising notes in a particular way and quarter tones can not be accurately reproduced when written resulting in a poor representation of the original piece. Learning to play these different musics can only truly be done by ear.

Jazz sits somewhere between Classical and Folk music in the way it is taught. Improvisation, it is stressed, should be a purely aural exercise with the ear dictating the pitch and rhythm, it is however, being taught in a very academical way with countless books saying you must play this chord like this or this pattern will work over this progression etc. etc. We end up learning the information and simply regurgitating it when it comes to our 'solo' and the performer and listener are often left unfulfilled by the results.

Gilad Atzmon shares similar beliefs about the process of learning to improvise with a teacher and close friend of mine and it was very reassuring to hear him speak so confidently about the effectiveness of his methods when studied correctly. He confesses that everything he knows about music can be taught in 20 minutes and although the workshop was 3 hours long I think the points where he was teaching us can not have been more than his initially amusing statement. The workshop was divided into two parts. Part One was about Consonance and Dissonance - consonance being continuity and dissonance being an interruption. We explored this in small groups creating entirely spontaneous pieces some of which (when we were all listening to each other) were quite special. 'I'd buy that album' encouraged Gilad when we had played something particularly beautiful. Part Two was about technique. Simple exercises developed to create a connection between performer and instrument including combinations of singing and playing and also a brief introduction to the Indian Rhythm method Konokol. I had, unknowingly, been introduced to this method earlier this year and was very excited to try out Gilad's suggestions on how it should be practised. I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone wishing to develop their rhythmic freedom.

I have come away from the session feeling inspired and intend to be spending as much time as possible at the piano trying to take in as much as I can about what I have learnt.