Category: Editions

Learning ceases with the known.

Did you know that it’s alright to Wonder?

Did you know that it’s alright to Marvel?

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

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 art forms?

JC’s Answer – I would not call them Art Forms at all.  The Art Form is performance.

They are two different processes of coordinating the body and the mind with the ear; as all performance within the art form is by ear.  The terms “instinct” and “internalization” might be used to describe written and memorization processes; as it may be someone’s instinct to coordinate the ears, body, and mind through writing and study and then in turn, to memorize so as to internalize.   

Both processes are valuable as a means to a beginning.  When practiced thoroughly and genuinely they should  lead to extremely personal internal change, discovery, and wonder, thus serving and developing the artist’s personal talents, skills, considerations, and relationship with the Art Form; there is no codifying an absolute or acceptable way to participate in the creation of an artifact within an art form.  

There are the same inescapable laws of physics that we all commit to dancing with through dedicated repetition as we reimagine, through self discovery, new possibilities of self expression to serve the performance of our unique artifacts. 

In this way, the deeply personal processes of practice lead to genuine honest innovation and revelation in performance.

– JC Heisler

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.

They rarely gave me dogmatic technical solutions and they afforded me a severe amount of freedom that forced me to trust and develop my own awareness, instincts, and judgments. This was a massive gift, and a horrific indictment to take full and complete responsibility for all of my foolishness, shortcomings, liabilities, and ignorance.

I am grateful now, to have been so singularly challenged with this intense type of apprenticeship. It gave me the freedom to develop an autonomous, independent, and un-coerced encounter with history and repertoire to be fully formed in The Music.

Profound artifactual creation occurs within a time and space where the most serious and personal part of one’s ontology is manifested.

– JC Heisler

A “teacher” must be humble and articulate enough to share in the process.

– JC Heisler

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, layers, textures, shapes, hues, shades, pigments, weights, temperatures, poems, dances, stories, movements…

There is space inside of each tone; there is space inside…

A tone is a flower.

– JC Heiser

Experience the Flow of Musical Intention as We Practice Together

Learn Awareness through Musical Performance

Create and Share a Communal Repertoire

– JC Heisler

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 interval

dissonant consonant

tetrachord pentachord

octave unison

fourth fifth

third sixth

second seventh

– JC Heisler

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 focus and definition to an indelible way of life in musical art;

that has a purposeful presence in community;

that has a rigid curriculum of clarity, rooted in the history and tradition of generous folk performance;

that incites and provokes the attentive process of creation in the deepening and ever sacred Present Moment;

that provides the freedom to amplify confident curiosity in the making of musical artifacts;

that is opposed to and disinterested in shame, guilt, career, contest, judgement, grades, and “professional” egotism.

– JC Heisler

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

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.

– JC Heisler

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 performance is submission to the absolute present. 

– JC Heisler

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 movements and flow of your attention.

– JC Heisler

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

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 Moment; to Be Made, By an Act of the Creative Will, Unconditionally.

The Communication of Feeling in Sound through written music is merely a catalogue, a documentation of a particular moment of creation that has already been emoted. The truest ambition of the Performance Artist is to have Their Own Aesthetic be Entirely Open to the Present Moment of Performance through Study, Preparation, and Practice so as to Become an Audience to the previously emoted written music.

The intention to be original is a distraction of the Genuine Trueness of the Absolute Present Moment.  It is a selfish and commercial redundancy.

Originality is Inevitable; Genuine and Honest Expression of Intelligible Aesthetic is the  challenging process and never guaranteed. 

The essence of every picture is its frame; the essence of every performance is the Absolute Present.

You Are the Present Moment. You are Enough.

– JC Heisler