Teaching jazz double bass in the 21st century

Tony Overwater

My initial plan was to do research and catalogue the available existing method books for Jazz bass education. But during the process I realized that matters were more complex than I had foreseen. Jazz (bass) methods were often based on classical music methods but Jazz education demands a different skillset and approach. I reexamined the fundamental building blocks necessary to successfully teach Jazz double bass. For this I designed a graphic theoretical framework that helped me analyze the existing methods. With this information I built a data base and webpage that offers analytical information about the available methods. Methods not limited to the traditional books but also on line learning programs and other methodical teaching material. Furthermore I examined the influence of the technological developments that the computer, smartphones, tablets and the internet have to offer. Teaching Jazz in the 21st century has proven to be much more of a modulair approach than the traditional linear approach.

Interviews

I interviewed two Jazz bass teachers with apparently very different approaches. Hein van de Geyn who has written the most elaborate method available for Jazz double bass, and John Clayton, who has been teaching for over 40 years and is considered to be one of the best educators for bass (as is Hein van de Geyn) and never wrote a method of his own. For the interviews I selected some questions. During the interviews some question were already answered before I asked them, or they were of no added value to the interview. So, the summary of the interviews are not necessarily answering all of the question or not in the order of the question.

Even if the approaches seem to differ a lot at first sight, in the interviews it became apparent that they are both much more in agreement with each other than one would think. Hein van de Geyn stated that he doesn’t consider his book a method but more like an exercise book. John Clayton had changed his opinion on method books over the years and found them a good resource of practice material.

Questions