Listen to part of a conversation between two students
W:So,one of the things that I really have in trouble understanding is how jazz music developed tobe so different from many other kinds of music.My class notes are terrible.
M:Well what can't you understand from your notes?
W:Uh...One thing is I copy down the musical training from the blackboard.What did it mean by that?
M:Well most people who become professional musicians to have some kind of formal training inmusic but the first people who play jazz music had almost none.
W:Ok,but so what?Doesn't it just mean that they weren't very good musicians?
M:Well,that's not that the early jazz musicians weren't good.it's they that play their instrumentdifferently.Let's say you are receiving formal instruction in the trumpet.First you would learn the right way to place your mouth and the right way to use your fingers and right way to blow air andthen you will practice single notes and different combination of notes until you could do thosecorrectly and only after that which your teacher give you a piece of music to play.W:And the early jazz musician didn't learn to play this way?
M:No,the first people who play jazz music learn to play their instrument by actually trying toplay a song they like!They were humanity and tried to play themselves on their instruments.Because they were mostly teaching themselves,they began to express themselves in ways thatformally traditionally trained musician didn't.In traditional instruction there's one correct way toplay something and everyone who plays try to make the correct sound.But in jazz…
W:In jazz music,there isn't one right way to play.In fact,individual musicians are supposed tointerpret the music in their own style.So you are saying that this aspect of jazz developed becausethe first people who play jazz didn't have any formal music training?
M:Well that's part of it but there is more.What else do you have in your notes?