High School Jazz Band Directors’ Efficacious Sources, Self-Efficacy for Teaching Strategies, and Pedagogical Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between high school jazz band directors’ efficacious sources, self-efficacy for teaching strategies, and pedagogical behaviors. Participants ( N = 264) completed the Jazz Band Director Self-Efficacy for Teaching Strategies Scale and responded to items about their formal and informal learning experiences, school characteristics, and demographics. Parental support was the best predictor of participants’ self-efficacy for jazz teaching strategies, followed by undergraduate participation in jazz performance and improvisation courses, school enrollment, and completing a doctorate or master’s degree. Participants with greater scores on self-efficacy for teaching strategies also indicted greater comfort for teaching various styles commonly performed by high school jazz bands and dedicated more class time to teaching improvisation and jazz theory. Jazz directors may improve their self-efficacy for teaching strategies by developing parental trust and engagement with the jazz program and seeking feedback from effective mentors when refining jazz teaching strategies.

The creation and validation of a Jazz Theory Measure: Implications for improvisation education

The purpose of this study was to create and validate a measure for jazz theory knowledge assessment. The Jazz Theory Measure (JTM) was created by exploring publications on jazz improvisation instruction and research studies that utilized jazz theory as a significant aspect of the study (i.e., dependent variable, independent variable, data collection). Latent jazz theory components (i.e., Key Knowledge, Scale Knowledge, and Chord Knowledge) were identified from an exploration of the literature and each was paired with several subtests. Items representing the JTM ( N = 60) demonstrate significant representation of the jazz theory components through alpha reliability (.98), and confirmatory factor analysis (standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = .0327, comparative fit index [CFI] = .930, Tucker–Lewis index [TLI] = .907) providing support for the JTM as a valid and reliable measure of jazz theory knowledge. Further analysis suggests that music educators providing instruction in jazz improvisation should focus on building a foundation of jazz theory in the first 5 years of jazz instruction.

Jazz and Jazz Theory

The question “what is jazz?” has been asked regularly since the origins of this music in the early 20th century. Over this time, jazz has undergone many changes, but certain characteristics—such as a particular kind of syncopated rhythm, improvisation, and tonal harmony—have remained more or less constant. The central theme of this chapter is that these constant features constitute a common jazz practice analogous the common practice that underlay European art (“classical”) music from the mid-18th century to the end of 19th century. While the common practice in jazz is no longer at the creative cutting edge, the tradition it represents is alive and well. All of the major styles within this tradition are still performed by skilled jazz artists around the world. Jazz Theory follows.

Pornodyssey

The celebrated novel Pornopopéia, by Reinaldo Moraes, represents a type of joycean Ulysses of the city of São Paulo’s underground in the excesses of the 1980s extended to the beginning of the 21st century. Despite its importance in contemporary Brazilian literature and perhaps because of its literary and linguistic complexity in producing its distinct humor, it has never before been translated into English. This article reports some results of a post-doctoral research in which we carried out a literary, commented translation of this epic novel. The theoretical framework of the research was based in general on a model of language from the perspective of the Theory of Genre and Register (TGR) (MARTIN; ROSE, 2008) and on Berman’s concept of ‘tradutology’ (2012), while the translation practice was informed by adaptations of Rothenberg’s concept of ‘total translation’ (2010), Frota’s Jazz Theory (1989), Toury’s ‘norms’ (1995), Milton’s (1998) discussion of metaphors for the practice of translation. Some results point to the following features as contributing to humor and presenting distinct challenges in the process of translating them: code-mixing and switching, punning haiku, rapid changes in registers from erudite to street, sonority (hard rhymes), neologisms, blends, and other linguistic, semantic and generic transgressions, along with those of a social nature. Ultimately, with this research we hope to offer the anglophone reader the pleasure of this text by Reinaldo Moraes, simultaneously disseminating Brazilian literature and culture to a broad anglophone speech community through the translation, and ultimately contributing to reflections on the practice of translation in translation studies.

Jazz Ensembles

This chapter acknowledges the growth of jazz ensembles in instrumental music education and the value of preparing future music educators to teach jazz. It situates jazz pedagogy in an authentic, experiential framework, emphasizing the important role of the rhythm section and what it means to be culturally literate through improvisation. Topics such as jazz theory, swing feel, and jazz styles are examined. The chapter also discusses a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of music education, whereby an interpreter-performer perspective is replaced by a creator-performer perspective. Musicians’ roles as composers and improvisers in the jazz idiom suggest learning this art form is relevant for developing creative performers who may then be able to participate in a variety of other musical cultures.