Gary Schwartz is a busy and well respected player and educator in Montreal. In this 2 part interview Gary shares with us the early years back in the day as well as his informative thoughts on teaching and life as a musician. A definite must read indeed.

JazzGuitarLife.com Interview with Gary Schwartz: This interview was conducted at his home in June, 2004. This is part two of a two part interview. Read the first part by clicking here.

JGL: Let’s talk a bit about your thoughts on institutional learning. I guess the obvious question would be if a school is the place for students can learn how to improvise in?

GS: As far as improvisation goes, you can be shown basic things like chord/scale relationships, rhythmic concepts, ear-training, critical listening techniques but I don’t think you can be shown how to blow. This part of the process is completely personal and it differentiates one player from another. What I have found is that confidence levels are low and this is what educators really have to work on. The classroom should be a place where students put their egos aside and just play. I encourage them to allow references and personality to come out because that’s what great improvising is. However, instrumental skills and stylistic direction have to be solid in order for continuity to take place. I always have to deal with a broad range of levels in my classes and as a result, the material must be presented in a very flexible way. This can be a very positive thing because it stimulates creative thinking which in turn helps to develop individualized approaches to blowing concepts.

JGL: The guitar duos that have come out of your improv classes seem to work rather well.

GS: There have been some pretty good groups of all combinations in that class. One year, I had a group that was made up of drums, piano, tuba and clarinet and they sounded just great. The guitar duo is a sensitive situation but it can sound absolutely spectacular. Guitar players like to play together for some reason. A classic record is “Grace Under Pressure” with John Scofield and Bill Frisell. The thing is to get two people who don’t play the same way. In this instance you couldn’t ask for more opposite approaches than Scofield and Frisell. Then there’s “I Can See Your House From Here”, the Metheny-Scofield duo album and way before that was the Abercrombie-Scofield album, Solar. Ed Bickert did a duo record with Oliver Gannon for CBC. Then there’s the famous Jim Hall duets record “Dialogues” and he also did a record with Metheny. I think Joe Pass and Herb Ellis also did one.

JGL: Well that’s the cool thing about guitar players. They love to play together. It is not a competitive thing but rather out of mutual respect. One thing I would like to ask for the benefit of the younger readers is information on auditions for a music program in University or College jazz studies?

GS: Ok…well… they should definitely have their tunes prepared and they should project as much confidence as possible under those very weird circumstances. As strange as it sounds, they should have the gear that they need, like working guitar cables or play along records. Basically you must project self sufficiency and focus. You’re coming in and showing that you are in control… that you have your shit together and that you are there for real!

JGL: Ok…

GS: I’m not saying that it can’t happen the other way, where people come in and they are completely scattered but are “knock-outs” when they play. Generally speaking, auditioners see a lot of people and their interest gets peaked when they meet someone who is focused.

JGL: As you’re sitting in those chairs watching someone do an audition, what are you looking for as an educator? What will excite you about one student over another?

GS: I am looking for focus, direction, depth and intention. If those things are there it’s going to show. The student tells us what they need from the school… most people don’t know that. It’s hard to do auditions for both sides. I am very sensitive to the fact that some people may not function well in this type of situation. Even though people get very nervous, I can still hear if they have some music in them.

JGL: So how bad do you have to be to not be accepted?

GS: In order for me to reject someone, preparation is lacking and attitude is not focused. As well, their desires have little or nothing to do with the style(s) that are going on at the school. One of the things that really kills me is when someone comes in and we say “ok, what are you going to play?” and what I hear is: “Well, there’s this little thing that I just wrote.” That’s not a good signal for me because eleven times out of ten it’s nothing. It’s some progression with a lot of theatrics involved. I try to make the person as comfortable as I can so that they will be able to play as well as possible. This is not an easy situation and it could just very well be the turning point in someone’s life. Acceptance also depends on the general level of all the people auditioning. Strong players might be rejected because of a lack of space.

JGL: True. This leads me to my next question. Do you think that there is a greater benefit going through an academic institution rather than doing it on your own through private study or other means?

GS: Oh yeah, sure…there are benefits…but any way you cut it, it starts with the person. If you want to do it, you’ll find a way. Many universities allow auditing and that pretty much says it all. They realize that people want to take advantage of the resources but not necessarily register in degree programs. So there are ways to do it if you don’t want the paper. The degree will allow you to obtain more paper. It will not necessarily make you a better player. If you do not have the desire, the regimen, the outlook to work and focus on your playing, then going to school for 99% of the people will not be that beneficial. Taking courses means following a cross-section of information which is not necessarily directly related to your field of study. Sometimes my students come for their lessons and they say that they couldn’t do the work because they had other class assignments to finish. The motivated student will take advantage of the background courses without sacrificing his goals. When does the point arrive when those classes become more important than your instrument? It is important for students to understand that instrumental studies are organized and demanding as well. That’s the reason why I put conditions on certain basic things in my lessons For example, if you don’t finish the reading book, you fail…

JGL: Really!? What book is it?

GS: The Berklee book…Melodic Rhythms. It’s basic reading and the studies are prepared. At the very least, students will go through it and come to terms with the real basic rhythmic figures that they are going to meet in their musical lives. Will school make you a better player? Not necessarily. School, for some people, has actually made them worse players and they admit it. School has actually taken them away from their desire to play their instrument. My whole life is focused around performance and I can’t accept that you constantly have other situations to use as excuses to stay off the instrument. If this is the case, it means your priorities are not there, so don’t complain when I push you. If I didn’t push you, I would get bored…you do not want me to get bored. I’m not so nice and I don’t project a caring attitude when I get bored. “So you didn’t do all your work. What did you do? Did you at least think about the stuff you didn’t do?” It’s amazing how many people don’t think when they practice about what they are practicing.

JGL: Can you expand on that statement?

GS: Sure. You should be practicing what you can’t play, not what you can play. There seems to be a big ball of confusion about this. There could be a warm up period whereby you do exactly that, warm up the muscles in your hands and forearms. It’s a physical instrument that we are touching and we use muscles in varied and precise ways. It’s like any other workout that you need to warm up to. Otherwise you may cramp up or worse, wind up with tendonitis, which had happened to a few of my students. They over-practiced and didn’t pay attention to the signs their bodies were giving them. You can warm up in all kinds of ways playing with scale forms, connections, arpeggios or whatever. I think a strong practice routine is something adhered to, not something which is necessarily super long. I don’t think people should practice for long periods of time without breaks. I’d say the maximum amount of time, especially if you are doing chops things, should be twenty minutes to half an hour because then your mind starts to wander and you stop paying attention to what you are doing. The whole idea is to pay attention! Don’t force. I think you should creep up on things. Break things down into small parts… small units. If you are very focused, working on something for a minute can seem like an hour. So take breaks and of course, be organized. You have to know what to practice. Your routine doesn’t have to be the same everyday. Changing what you do for some people is probably a good idea but it should revolve around the same things. In other words, don’t drill the same key everyday. Break things up. It’s just a matter of realizing that when you sit down, you are progressing. So when you get up you can honestly say “I’m doing this a little better.” There’s also a thing about how to practice pieces. What many people do is practice errors. They reinforce their mistakes. If you are playing something, and lets say we are starting from the beginning and we’ll call the beginning bar number one, you could play all the way to bar nine and then you have a problem with bar nine, you don’t go back to bar one. First thing you do is you isolate the problem, you “pull out” bar nine and do it really slowly. You should always practice at a tempo you can make because that’s what’s going to encourage you to go on. Not failing, but succeeding at what you are trying to work on. No one really tells us this. They just give us things to learn but they don’t tell us HOW to learn. Or we don’t ask “ok…but how do you do this?” It’s not rocket science, its playing guitar!

JGL: True. But I think the expectation of it is that what we have in front of us, the music, concepts, or whatever, should be enough to…

GS: Enough to do what…

JGL: Well we should have enough intrinsic sense to…

GS: Make our way?

JGL: Yes…

GS: But what happens if you don’t know how to make your way?

JGL: Well that’s the thing…we have a ton of resources to “make our way” with, but no real sense as to how to use it fully to our advantage as players…speaking generally of course.

GS: I won’t get into my philosophies on the education system, but suffice to say we are left to our own devices far too often within the system. If “they” taught us how to do things, we could do more things more effectively. Our education system is not that. The education system is stuck on quantity, not quality. It’s band-aid stuff. Those are the kinds of things I talk to my students about. A lot of people don’t want to hear that because they don’t understand how important it is. They think I’m just talking to waste time yet they come back time and time again playing the same mistakes in the same places. Then they get it. I mean c’mon…I’m not showing you anything you can’t figure out for yourself. Actually, I feel that the most effective teachers are the ones who make their students independent. In fact, you should be training your students to not need you. You don’t need a teacher to tell you to play a G altered on a G seventh chord. That’s baby stuff. This is kind of what’s happening in our education system and I have had to change my approach a little bit, in order that I establish connections with my students that they understand. I refuse to go all the way because I cannot subscribe to the approach of passive, inactive, learning. I refuse to do it! I had an attitude about school that had to do with this very subject all my life although I didn’t know it was that until I was old enough to understand what was happening. Universities have become nesting places and people go there for any number of reasons… the least of which is to actually learn something. When I was a kid you went from high school to university and upper level education was considered a privilege. The music has come off the street and into the university and in a way it has become legitimized because of that. Good! If we are going to legitimize the music, then let’s also organize the instruction and the attitude. Let’s do that. I mean I would love to go to music school. I’d love to sit in music classes all day. I think it’s a special opportunity and unfortunately, I think most people really don’t take advantage of it.

JGL: That’s a lot of stuff to think about Gary and I thank you for discussing it with me. To wrap up this interview would you mind talking a bit about what you are up to these days? I hear that you have recently been on tour and that you have put together a new group playing some of your own tunes?

GS: As a matter of fact, I have a new quintet called Between The Lines and our radio show was aired on Jazzbeat (CBC) Sunday, September the 4th. The line up is trumpet-Andy King, tenor-Phillipe Poirier, guitar, bass-Zack Lober and drums-Jim Doxas and we are playing my tunes. Another project which was very exciting and rewarding was my combo at Concordia University. I organized a 31 piece jazz orchestra, which included 12 strings, for a project called Themes and Impressions of the Wizard of Oz. I commissioned arrangers from Montreal who so graciously wrote charts for minimal amounts of $. We had three months to mount the programme and it was presented on April 1, 2005. I mentioned earlier on that I don’t like being bored. I extend the same courtesy to my students. The arrangements ranged from straight ahead to free and there were even dramatic elements with dialogue. It was a blast. The concert went well. It’s too bad that we were only able to play it a single time.

JGL: Thanks Gary for participating in jazzguitarlife.com. It is greatly appreciated.

GS: Thank you Lyle.