VDM Verlag Introducing Jazz to High School Ensembles: The Development and Investigation of a Model for Introducing Jazz Education to Secondary School Ensembles

This book is aimed at producing a jazz teaching model for the short- term training of students with little or no jazz experience. By using a mainly experiential approach over a set time frame and limiting the instruction to certain elements of jazz interpretation, it aims to present a reasonable introduction to small jazz ensemble performance in the high school sector. The research grows out of more than two decades experience introducing jazz performance to secondary school students where a well-defined pedagogical problem has been identified as a result of the lack of instructional methods for teachers wishing to instruct high school students in small jazz ensemble performance. The tuition model aims to fulfill certain quantifiable criteria over a set period of time. The efficacy of the model is assessed by the success of attaining basic parameters and qualified by the performance outcome at the end of the model implementation period.