Over the Easter holidays, I attended the New Sounds Jazz Workshop at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire for my second year in a row. Led by some of the UK’s most amazing jazz musicians, and special guest Adriano Adewale, it took place over four days, with a final ‘musical sharing’ on the last day. The course was very selective and was only open to 32 participants aged between 11 and 18. As I did piano last year, to expand my musical knowledge, I applied for drums this year to ensure I would make the most of this opportunity.
The course was very structured with us starting every day with a short warm up for half an hour, consisting of usually vocal practice but also some rhythm as well, then moving on to do a 1 ½ hour ensemble session every day before lunch. After, we would always have a jam session where the tutors would basically host a jazz concert for us for free! Then, for the first three days of the workshop, we did a ‘plenary’ session whereas a whole collective, we did something to expand our skills, such as conduction or advanced rhythm (which practically killed my hands). This would usually be followed by another ensemble session and then various types of sessions per day to finish, such as a tutor Q&A where we could ask questions about performance or working in the industry, or a whole group listening session, etc. However, the final day was structured slightly differently, with us doing another ensemble session immediately after our jam session and then our concert, where each group played a variety of jazz pieces.
In our ensembles, we learned how to play a variety of pieces. However, as the whole course was done without sheet music of any sort, this was done by ear, with us using musical intervals to learn melodies and essentially improvising our parts. For me, this would involve making my own drumbeats and essentially just going along with what the rest of the band was playing, while ensuring I would be staying on time with them. We learned ‘Take the Coltrane’, a jazz standard (basically a piece that is really well known in the world of jazz), and ‘You Ain’t Gonna Know Me ’Cos You Think You Know Me’, a piece by Louis Moholo (who was a drummer), but we also composed our own song as a group which we played in the final concert! During the ensemble sessions, I especially learnt about musical modes, which was something I wasn’t so confident on before, but now I feel like an expert in them!
On the second day, we were also joined with another special guest, Jas Kayser, who is currently the drummer for Lenny Kravitz on his tour! This was a surreal experience, as we all got to learn one of her songs during the plenary session she hosted, and had previously come to our ensemble session to give me (and the other percussionist/drummer in our group) a personal two-on-one percussion lesson which was amazing! We had a Q&A with her where she answered many of our questions about life performing as part of a concert tour and what being a performer in the music industry really entails, which was super helpful!
To end the workshop, our final musical sharing consisted of all the different groups (there were four) playing some of the pieces that they learnt. Overall, I really enjoyed this workshop, and while it meant sacrificing a bit of revision time for my GCSEs, I can certainly say that it was worth it and I will definitely apply next year. I would highly encourage that if you are also a musician and even have the slightest interest in jazz, you should definitely do this course (it’s free!) next year, as in the total timespan of 7 days (spread over two years), I feel like a master of jazz music and I believe that you could be the same!
Adam (Year 11)
