Like many students, I started giving lessons to make some money, but discovered that teaching music has its own rewards.
In the seventies I helped out at the Spectro Arts Workshop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Activities included the organization of musical ‘events’: festivals, concerts and the running of jazz-rock & experimental workshops- a truly amazing experience at that time!
From 1979 -1988 I was employed as a flute teacher and workshop/orchestra leader (pop, jazz, folk & classical) at the Muzisch Centrum (music school) in Emmeloord, NL, and from 1985-2010 as a teacher in the jazz & pop department of the Arnhem Institute for the Arts (Artez). Subjects include: Harmony, Solfege (eartraining), Notation & general theory, Arranging & composition, Songwriting, Jazz history, Solo analysis & Bigband analysis.
Over the years I’ve developed a set of courses for both amateurs and professionals, one-to-one or in groups. Full descriptions are listed on the next pages, or can be downloaded as a pdf file.
Many of these subjects are categorized as ‘theory’- which I’ve always considered a bit of a mis-nomer. For me, teaching is about practical application- putting knowledge into practice.
I’m particularly interested (obsessed by, some would say…) in the development of harmonic styles: changes -over time- in harmonic language and thinking for improvising musicians and composers. Most of the guest lectures I have given, (and the book I mean to finish soon- really, soon:-) are about this.
Guest lectures
- October 1999. During the 4th. European Music Analysis Conference (EuroMac) in Rotterdam, entitled “Milestones: an analysis of changes in harmonic language in jazz improvisation” .
- February 2000. During the 2nd. Congress of the Vereniging voor Muziektheorie (Association for Music Theory) in Antwerp, Belgium: “A practical approach to structural analysis for improvising musicians”
- February 2005: Lectures at Harvard, Berklee and Columbia (USA) about modern jazz harmony (about educational methods and my own compositional style