Play and sing, sing and play.

There are a lot of things that make IfCM jazz and creative music programming unique and awesome (I mean, I enjoy it so I'm gonna brag). Two of the big buckets of awesome that we try to fill up include:

1) All instruments and voice types can participate in our programming

2) People who are primarily instrumentalists get regular opportunity to sing and people are primarily vocalists get experience playing piano (or another instrument).

People experience sound through our bodies first. Moving and singing are primary expressions of how we experience sound as music. If we forget to spend time moving and singing it's harder to have a convincing sense of groove and a strong sense of pitch. Move big! BAM BAM BAM! Vocalize loud! YAAAARGHHHH!!! When we then refine our motions and vocalizations into smaller actions we're focusing something big into something small (playing on instruments, singing with control). If we only work on learning small motions on instruments it's...harder.

Back in the 2010s I was a chronic instrumentalist haunting drum thrones around Rochester, NY. I was plucked off the bandstand by amazing human and vocal teacher Vera Forster who graciously and generously coached me into shape. Out of nowhere I was singing a LOT. I sang a ton of a cappella with groups like The Bowties and Madrigalia which challenged me to learn and KNOW (without sheet music) the most music I've ever learned in a short amount of time. Dozens of songs for Christmas gigs, cookie parties, Jewish High Holy Days were learned much more...better...by playing my parts on piano and sing along. At that point I had gained a lot of inspiration from teachers and performers I worked with who modeled high value in working on singing AND playing. Folks including Alan Murphy, Katie Ernst, John Nyerges, Mike Frederick, Tim Forster, Sydney Nash (née Josh Simon), Chris Azzara, Alexa Tarantino, Annie Wells, Chris Ziemba and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting (sorry, peeps). These are people I'm fortunate enough to actually KNOW who kick butt at this, not even people I'll never meet. I'm sure you know some folks like this too. 

Do you sing? Do you play? Put them together. Sing and play! Play and sing! Also, watch this new promo video that Grace and I put together and register for the spring Denton Jazz Workshops to sing and play with everybody.