Jazz @ Emmanuel – Season 35
Where the spirited and spiritual come together in a new kind of celebration!
The Language of Jazz
September 13 – Rhythm
October 11- Playing the Changes
November 8 – Interlude
December 13 – Transposition
January 10 – Harmony/Dissonance
February 14 – Chord Progression
March 14 – Syncopation
April 11- Perfect Pitch
May 9 – Improvisation
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What is the Language of Jazz?
A few blended snippets about the Language of Jazz from the internet…
Music developed as an ancient, pitch-and-rhythm-based form of emotional communication long before structured human speech or written language emerged.
Jazz isn’t just a style of music. It’s a language.
“Language embodies the world view of a culture and is unique to the culture that created it. It reflects values and concepts that are deemed to be the most important by a culture. A language describes the culture it comes from.” –Noam Chomsky
The language of jazz is the shared musical vocabulary, phrasing, rhythm, and interactive communication style that jazz musicians use to converse and improvise together.
Jazz language is the licks, lines, harmonies, chord voicings, rhythms etc that are used by jazz musicians. Learning the language of jazz is seeing through the bar lines, phrases and getting to the character of the musicians. This is how you easily identify their influences. A great player has a distinct sound. You can often name the musician within two notes just by their vocal quality on the instrument.
The true jazz language lives in small details like a bent note, a rough tone, or a sudden pause.
“You play jazz by internalizing the language so deeply that it becomes yours. You’re not just repeating phrases — you’re having a real-time, honest-to-goodness conversation with the band…And one day, without realizing it, you’ll be fluent — and you’ll have something really interesting to say.” Marc Andre Seguin
Music comes from the musician, not the instrument. Victor Wooten
In this YouTube video of a TED Talk, Victor makes a compelling case for how musicians learn jazz like babies learn our language by immersion and the freedom to imitate and improvise. 18 minutes.
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As Christians, we too have our own language, and we can make the same mistake as many music teachers do – teach vocabulary, form, technique, and right and wrong.
How much better if we teach by example, letting our faith play the melody of love that invites the world to sing and dance?
“David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment.”
~2 Samuel 6:14
This Season, listen carefully for the “Language of Jazz!”
or…
Sing and Dance!
As only
Jazz @ Emmanuel can.
AS ALWAYS…
The Second Sunday of the Month, September – May
5 PM IN THE SANCTUARY
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