If you know me, you know I love jazz music. I think it’s part of the smoothness of the sound or how effortless jazz musicians can make it look. Sitting in on the jazz band jam session I realized that there is a lot of work that goes into making it all look and sound the way it does.

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Dr. Luke Gillespie lead today’s jam session by beginning with different scales. Then came getting the rhythm and pitch of the melody down. it took around half of the session to get into individual students playing their solos.

Before they could get to playing as a group, they needed to figure out the different degrees and increments of all of the different scales. Gillespie mentioned that it is common for musicians to do well in math since they can translate the skills from music to math. I can’t say that was the case for me, but maybe I just needed more music in my life.

Another lesson learned by the campers centered around knowing the language before you use it. They needed to know all of the notes used in the melody and rhythms they were going to use before they planned on soloing. Going into this session, I didn’t think there would be math and english involved as well. It just goes to show and reaffirm that music can influence every part an education.

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When you watch jazz musicians, you don’t think about all of the work they had to put behind their performance but that’s why they work so hard. It’s fun to sit and enjoy jazz music but even more enjoyable once you realize how much work that went into it before.