ESSAY 1

- Observation of my teachingDimitrije Vasiljevic

During the Fall 2015 semester, I was teaching a Jazz Keyboard

class for non-piano majors. This was a lab class with 12 available seats
and it was full. The goal of this glass was to present the main jazz
piano concepts and techniques to undergraduate jazz major students
who mostly had beginner to intermediate knowledge of jazz theory and
practice, but whose main instrument wasnt piano. In my class, beside
undergraduate students, I also had 2 masters jazz major students who
got a permission at the beginning of the semester to register for this
class. These two students jazz piano skills were significantly advanced
in comparison to the rest of the class, so it posed a certain challenge
for me to create a good balance of the materials presented in the way
that these advanced students get engaged and still manage not to
overwhelm the rest of the students with a program that is too
demanding for them. Nevertheless, I successfully managed to find the
right balance. It is important to mention that, in any music career, the
basic knowledge of piano is crucial for many activities that are part of a
bigger musical picture (for example music teachers need piano skills
as well as conductors, arrangers, vocalists, improvisers, composers,
etc) Therefore, even though I was trying not to be too demanding in
general (since this class is not the most important part of their nonpianist music degree), I still tried to maintain a high level of
expectation. During the semester, we had 3 performance exams and a
final exam. In each of these exams (including the final), the amount
and level of material, as well as criteria for grading were getting
gradually higher, which showed good results at the end of semester.
Since many non-pianists tend to express a certain anxiety and fear
over their first steps in learning to play the piano (especially when it
comes to chords and chord voicings), this gradual raising of the bar
was necessary and welcomed by many students.
Since jazz is a specific musical subject that, while possesses a
strong theoretical foundation, is still mostly an aural and improvisatory
art, I didnt use any textbook for my teaching. According to the
agreement with my advisor, professor John Chip Stephens, I based
my teaching upon the concepts he suggested would be appropriate for
this class, the ones I already knew and had adopted and used
extensively in my career as a jazz pianist and composer. Again, jazz is
very specific because, in order to teach it, you really need to, not just
theoretically know it, or have it learned yourself at school, but really
adopt it through life experiences, performances and personal effort,

until it becomes your second nature. Therefore, as a teacher you

almost never need to organize notes for yourself, reminders, guides
and similar things because you know your material so well, that it
almost feels like a part of your personality. It rarely happens that you
dont have an answer for a students question, and even if that
happens, you know how to explain things around that particular
problem in order to solve the issue and give the descriptive answer
that can still help the student. All this is very important to know when
it comes to establishing criteria during the exam period. Jazz is, by its
nature, a style that requires a personal approach from the performer,
and while still keeping common musical rules, develop his or her own
sound that will differ from everyone elses. In this light, I tried to
respect the individuality and personal touch of a student, in each of the
topics we covered throughout the semester, in both classes and
exams. For example, if we were playing a blues, I would spend a class
or two explaining the concepts and use of a blues form, chords, scales
and feel, but would also encourage every student to develop their own
approach to the blues and see if they can come up with a way of
applying these fresh approaches to a system I showed them. In this
way they started developing both a strong theoretical foundation of a
topic we were doing at the moment, and a creative approach to how it
is supposed to be done. Moreover, it is important to mention that every
student had his or her own set of headphones and microphones, as
well as myself, which allowed me to hear them play the exercises we
were doing in class in a private fashion. That helped a lot of them to
feel more relaxed and avoid the feeling of anxiety that could be
present because of playing the material they are not very familiar with,
in front of the others. However, from time to time, when I felt that
everyone in the class has advanced to a level that they can smoothly
play a certain topic, I would tell them to turn their speakers on and
take turns in playing that topic openly, or play it with each other in
groups or duets. This showed great results because it gave them the
opportunity to compare their versions of a topic to those of their
colleagues and actually learn from one another.
The challenges I encountered while teaching this class were not
many. One of them was the fact that all the students in the class were
actually my peers and friends from the jazz department whom I played
and was friend with both in and out of the school. Initially, it was hard
to set the tone and pace of the class and to switch from being a
friend and fellow musician outside the class to being their teacher and
authority inside the class. The first thing that helped me here was the
fact that all of them showed a high level of respectfulness and have
never really taken advantage of this fact. The other thing was that they
really wanted to learn what I was showing them and they all knew this

task could be well achieved only if they trust my methods and do what
I tell them to do.
Another challenge was the one where my teaching advisor Mr.
Lucas Anderson helped me a lot with. He attended and observed my
class and noticed that I had a lot of downtime which happened
mainly because while I had one student play for me using the
headphones, other 11 students would wait for their turn and get bored.
Mr. Anderson suggested I should give the rest of the class what to do,
while I am listening to one student, which I did and it showed
wonderful results. Mr. Anderson also pointed out that he liked my pace
and style of teaching, my use of a chalkboard and how I made the
class fun, yet very informative. In private advising sessions with him
we discussed some details or questions that I had and were related to
particular students needs and behaviors. Hes always helped me with
his insights and some examples from his big teaching experience.