Lennie Tristano - Teaching

Teaching

By the mid-1950s, Tristano focused his energies more on music education. He can be regarded as one of the first jazz teachers to teach jazz in a structured way, beginning in the late 1940s and continuing to his death in 1978.

Tristano approached each student individually and hence lessons were structured to meet the needs of each individual; however, each student was challenged in ways that would allow the student to find and express their own musical feelings, or style.

Tristano would often have his students learn to sing and play the improvised solos by some of best-known names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. Solos were often learned by first playing them along with the original recording, from a phonograph record or magnetic audio tape, at half the normal speed, hence the pitch would drop by one octave. Eventually the student would learn the solo at normal speed. Tristano stressed that the student was not learning to imitate the artist, but rather should use the experience to gain insight into the musical feeling conveyed by the artist.

One of the key teaching tools used by Tristano was the metronome. In practicing fundamentals such as scales, the student would set the metronome at or near to its slowest setting and play the scales and arpeggios in a legato fashion covering the full range of their instrument with very even dynamics. Developing a strong awareness of the beat was a key element of his teaching philosophy.

A book by bassist Peter Ind, Jazz Visions: Lennie Tristano and His Legacy, was released in October 2005. The book documents and discusses Tristano's contributions to jazz music.