Internal Language of Jazz

Perhaps the most important aspect of jazz is that it absolutely requires inner hearing—audiation—to perform it effectively. The performer must hear the music inside her head at the moment of producing it; to only hear the music after it comes out of the horn is a recipe for certain disaster. This chapter presents exercises for developing beginning through advanced students’ rhythmic and tonal audiation skills in jazz. It provides a progression of rhythmic groove exercises that jazz teachers can use to improve the rhythmic feel of ensembles of any age. Methods for teaching head charts (arrangements taught by ear and memorized for performance) are presented as a valuable way for getting students’ heads out from behind the music stands and setting them on the way to becoming more active listeners as well as more tonally and rhythmically independent performers.