University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

A jazz-inspired approach to applied classical saxophone study

VanHemert, Jordan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99951

Description

Title
A jazz-inspired approach to applied classical saxophone study
Author(s)
VanHemert, Jordan
Issue Date
2018
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Kruse, Adam
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kruse, Adam
Committee Member(s)
  • McNeill, Charles L.
  • Pugh, James
  • Lund, Erik
Department of Study
School of Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
A.Mus.D. (doctoral)
Keyword(s)
  • Jazz
  • Saxophone
  • Applied
  • Improvisation
  • Composition
Language
en
Abstract
In 2014, Patricia Shehan Campbell convened the College Music Society’s Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major (TFUMM). The task force, including lead author Ed Sarath, published a report called Transforming Music Study from its Foundations: A Manifesto for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music Majors. Among other issues, this report suggested changes to the overall nature of applied study, considered by some to be the backbone of the academic system. The task force’s key claim is that the interpretive performer paradigm purported by most schools of music is no longer sufficient for the changed musical landscape entered by college graduates. The task force has forwarded a model for music study with the three pillars of creativity, diversity, and integration. To accomplish these goals, Sarath envisioned a music school rooted in the principles of integral theory. In this model, the focal point is the composer-improviser-performer paradigm. This paper explores one view of what an applied classical saxophone curriculum might look like in the task force’s vision of an integral school of music. First, I have conducted a survey of applied saxophone professors’ experiences with and use of improvisation in their own applied studios, in order to validate Sarath’s claim that improvisation is mainly experienced in academic studies of jazz and relatively rare in applied classical saxophone study. Finding this to be mostly true, I created a rationale from music education scholarship for a semester-long, jazz-inspired curriculum of applied classical saxophone study.
Type of Resource
  • text
  • image
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99951
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2018 Jordan VanHemert

Owning Collections

Doctoral Project Theses [Option 2] - Music PRIMARY