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A Community of Excellence in Musical Experience
Experience the Flow of Musical Intention as We Practice Together Learn Awareness through Musical Performance Create and Share a Communal Repertoire – JC Heisler
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A Guide
A “teacher” must be humble and articulate enough to share in the process. – JC Heisler
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A Poor, Shabby Kind of Practice
“It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it. So you should be grateful that you have a sign or warning signal to show you the weak point in your practice. Here are several poor ways of practice that you should understand. Usually when you practice music, you become very…
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Absolute Present
Every inception within the performance act by virtue of its very nature, is original. There is never a moment within the performance act at which any person can re-create anything. Re-creation is a false premise. The performance act is pure creation in the moment; no matter ability, intention, execution, or cognition. The origin of all…
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Aim of Discipline
To rise above illiteracy, and the shallow emotional milieu of “acceptable convention” satiated in the laziness of “mere taste” and “social utility”. – JC Heisler
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Aim of Education
An essential aim of Education is to provide the pupil with the freedom and safety to process mistakes and misunderstandings without shame. The teacher’s role (in so much as teaching can be practiced) is to share a wholehearted “living experience” (as opposed to inert information) with the pupil so as to guide, encourage, and…
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An Outstanding Teacher
An outstanding teacher has a thorough and rigid understanding of their discipline and practices teaching from a desire to serve unconditionally. An outstanding teacher is devoted to continual refinement of their own skills, abilities, and aesthetic. An outstanding teacher is serious, fair, honest, and consistent, with a commitment of joy to guide pupils to a…
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Apprenticeship
The greatest teachers I have had the privilege to apprentice, are the ones who knew when they were speaking technically in a way that fostered curiosity, trial and error, and insisted that I think independently with depth. They were adamant that I was critically aware of my own experiences of playing Music on the instrument.…
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Artist Statement
I am interested in aromas and tastes; the harmony of nature and change; old stories and poetry; mobiles and paintings; melodic dance and cadence rhythms. I vow to be completely arrested by the shared present moment so as to be led by intuition, together. – JC Heisler
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Be Quiet
A “teacher” must be Humble and Articulate enough to be re-made in the Present Moment of the Art Form. 98% of teaching is waiting, patiently… …to observe when, how, and why the student becomes socially, emotionally, and psychologically self aware within “This Present Moment of the Art Form”. You will know when to speak, when…
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By the Art Form
Music must be “taught” by a rich experience through the Art Form. Analogies may give intellectual, conceptual, and philosophical perspective by referencing relatable experiences to the pupil. This is NOT Music. Therefore, any analogy may be considered to be a step further away from the actual experience of being formed by the Art Form. –…
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Conceptualization
Conceptualization is the key that unlocks technical facility and the inspiration that abounds poignant artistry. It is educed within the tradition of aesthetic. It is exercised within the heritage of the art form. It is a unique freedom to each individual. – JC Heisler
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Envy
“So, how is the mind to be totally free from envy? Because envy inevitably brings conflict. Envy is a state in which there is no creativity, and a man who wishes to find out what is creativity must obviously be free from all envy; from all comparison; from the urges to be, to become.” –…
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Learning Jazz
Get Listening 1) Play an album that makes you smile; one that really makes you genuinely happy. 2) Sing the melodies and solos. 3) Design your own melodies. 4) Play with the album. 5) Repeat 1-4. 6) Perform for an audience with veteran players. – JC Heisler
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Limit Your Activity
“You may think that if there is no purpose or no goal in our practice, we will not know what to do. But there is a way. The way to practice without having any goal is to limit your activity, or to be concentrated on what you are doing in this moment. Instead of having…
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Listen
As light waves travel, absorbed and reflected in constant motion, illuminating our perceptions all around us; so too are sound waves moving among us and through us, engaging and affecting our lives in sympathetic resonance. If we learn to listen, we may be open to hearing with deeper humility, dignity, integrity, clarity, and elegance. –…
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Made in the Music
You can only give, what you have. You are not the music; the music is, The Music. You have to be made in the music, to share through the music. I know of very little extra of what I might offer, that equals the experience of what only music can give. – JC Heisler
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Mastery of Details
THE ORGANIZATION OF THOUGHT Educational and Scientific BY A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations. The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot ‘postpone its life until you have sharpened it’. Whatever interest attaches to your…
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Mistakes
Do not practice in order to avoid mistakes. In doing so, you will make avoidance and anxiety a performance habit; as they become part of your aesthetic. Your weariness will always be arrested by hypotheticals and “someday” will never come. Create. Act decisively Through the Art Form with your essence and be arrested by the…
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Must I Write?
“Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe… You ask whether your verses are any good…. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid…No…
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My Desire
To create an independent phrontistery of musical study and art-making that is peaceful, calm, and positive; that serves people’s need to be valued and accepted while honoring their individual hopes through meaningful musical experiences of performance, study, and composition; that gives people help, support, inspiration, and wonder in their own engagements with music; that brings…
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Not a Matter of Forcing Yourself
“Let me put it in this way, “I don’t have it, if you don’t have it”. Because, I have it, only to the extent that I can give it away; “that I can give it up, and to all others.” But, in order that people may master these disciplines, (and this is the responsibility of…
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Perform Practice. Be Made.
Accept and learn through repetition, to unapologetically perform your unique sound with genuine abandonment, in pure honest expression; so that the music arrests your complete attention, captivating true devotion to your own aesthetic, artistic inspirations, and developing abilities. Be patient. Be kind. Be attentive and curious. Settle to the simplest; Be Made. – JC Heisler
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Practice
Your: Presence of Attention – Objectifies Coordination Patience –Sustains Focus Impartial Scrutiny –is Creative Liberation Vivid Aural-Imagination – Defines the Absolute Present – JC Heisler
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Practice & Struggle
“(Practice) does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest…Don’t struggle. Practice in a way that does not tire you out, but gives your body, emotions, and consciousness a chance to rest.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
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Practice the Minimum
Flow and Personality Curiosity and Creativity Interesting and Resonant from Thinking and Doing to Feeling and Being Heart Mind – Mind Heart downbeat upbeat in 2 in 3 low high soft loud slow fast smooth detached delicate harsh major minor tonic dominant crescendo decrescendo whole-tone chromatic diminished augmented lightly densely translucent opaque by step by…
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Questions for Jazz Educators
My answers to… QUESTIONS FOR JAZZ EDUCATORS (Part 2) From Brad Goode: August 16, 2021 Facebook Post and Thread Q1. One can improvise by using material applied to chord changes, either written or memorized, OR one can improvise by playing from instinct and ear over song forms that have been internalized. Are these two different…
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Questions for Self Education
1. Can you hear your own music in your own imagination with your own musical ideals? 2. Has this musical encounter exposed your own unsolved technical difficulties and challenges? 3. Do you lack clarity and literacy of this musical situation? 4. Is your presumptuous ego preventing you from being honest with yourself? 5. Do you…
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Scraps of information have nothing to do with it…
THE ORGANIZATION OF THOUGHT Educational and Scientific BY A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. What is the ‘first commandment’ to be obeyed in any educational scheme? It is this : Do not teach too many subjects. The second command is this : What you teach, teach thoroughly. Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty, and humane feeling.…
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Serving Music Literacy
We learn how to speak before we can read or write. “Students” need to know from the very beginning, they are talented musicians and artists. Their sound is valuable, unique, and cherished right away. Their sound is the music from the very beginning. The skill of speech develops through our first 18 months of life…
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Simply Tonal
No accessories are necessary. No breathing mechanisms, pipes, windmills, or straws. No respiration devices. No embouchure strengtheners or aperture shapers. No buzz nozzles, pipes, cutaways or visualizers. No play-a-long cd’s, dvd’s, or mp3’s. Music forms musicians; simply tonal. – JC Heisler
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Singular Conviction
Where is the artist to go? Deeper into Self, the Art Form, Nature, and the Mysterious Trials of Wonder. – JC Heisler
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Society Needs Artists
“To all who are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world… Society needs artists, just as it needs scientists, technicians, workers, professional people, witnesses of the faith, teachers, fathers and mothers, who ensure the growth of the person and the development…
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Studio Heutagogy
Trumpet Diatonics© orders technical advancement, while maintaining a prodigious emphasis on developing a clear aural literacy. Heutagogy is a learner-centered educational thesis rooted in key principles of learner agency, self-efficacy, capability, metacognition (knowing how to learn), and reflection. Learners are interdependent. They identify the potential to learn from phenomenal sense experiences as a matter of course, and…
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The End of Learning
Learning ceases with the known. Did you know that it’s alright to Wonder? Did you know that it’s alright to Marvel?
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The Present Moment
Perhaps, every inception of the Creative Act, by its very nature, Is Original. Perhaps, there is never a performance where one might re-create anything. The Performance Act is Pure Creation of the Moment, within the Moment; no matter Ability, Intention, Execution or Cognition. Performance is the ability to Live with Absolute Attention in the Present…
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Tone
If you cannot play five tones, then play four. If you cannot play four tones, then play three. If you cannot play three tones, then play two. If you cannot play two tones, then play one. There is space inside of each tone; there is space inside… …movements, worlds, beauties, resonances, tastes, feelings, energies, smells,…
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Traditions
One cannot rehearse tradition; one observes and LIVES a tradition…or not. Tradition fashions by consequence of its boundaries, extolling awareness upon one’s unique personhood in THIS specific time and space. To CREATE is an indictment, to DARE to DECIDE. It is not to cajole, try, convince, preserve, nor replicate. NO ONE, can stand in for…
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You play what you hear. You practice hearing.
The body must only respond to the stimuli of the imagination’s ear. The depth of intent and clarity of expression solely depend on one’s ability to respond to the solitary stimulus that actually matters; the creation and manifestation of music from within, before any note is ever played. Therefore developing the imagination’s ear through refining…
