Teaching Middle School Jazz: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Study.

Abstract

In my experience, many music teachers do not teach jazz ensemble, not because they do not have the musical ability to do so, but because they believe that they do not have the musical ability to do so. Subsequently, the purpose of this Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) was to explore the previous experiences, and current thoughts and actions of middle school music teachers regarding middle school jazz education, and to do so through the lens of perceived ability to teach middle school jazz. The first phase of this study was a qualitative exploration of middle school jazz education. Qualitative findings informed the development of a survey instrument that was used to collect data from a larger population of middle school music teachers. Data from both phases were then mixed in the final analysis to provide a more complete description of the topic. Both qualitative and quantitative data indicated that listening to jazz and playing as a professional jazz musician are the previous experiences most strongly correlated with one’s perceived ability to teach jazz. Qualitative and quantitative data both suggest the following relationships between participants’ perceived ability to teach middle school jazz and current thoughts about teaching middle school jazz: (a) the primary responsibility of the rhythm section is to keep time, (b) a good rhythm section makes the horns sound good, (c) bass is the most important member of the rhythm section, and (d) a significant negative relationship between perceived ability and the thought that concert band is more important than jazz ensemble. Qualitative and quantitative data both suggest the following relationships between qualitative and quantitative participants’ perceived ability to teach middle school jazz and current actions in teaching middle school jazz, and might be considered effective teaching practices: (a) requiring students to play a “traditional” jazz instrument in order to join jazz ensemble, (b) using major scales and pentatonic scales to teach improvisation, (c) modeling, (d) having students listen to jazz by watching jazz videos, (e) bringing in jazz clinicians to work with the group, and (f) involving students in call-and-response activities.