Submitted photo Dana School of Music Professor Kent Engelhardt is starting a Jazz Jams program at Youngstown State University to teach improvisation skills to high school musicians.

A new, free program at Youngstown State University will give high school musicians a chance to develop and improve their improvisational skills.

Jazz Jams will run for six Saturdays from March 14 to April 18 in Bliss Hall. High school-aged musicians are invited to bring their instruments to room 2222, which will be equipped with amplifiers and a drum kit. Dana School of Music graduate assistants and some upperclassmen will work with the students to help them expand their musical vocabulary and explore different songs beyond the notes on the sheet music.

Dana Professor Kent Engelhardt said he wanted to provide an opportunity for young musicians that their high school programs might not have the time or ability to offer.

“I’m trying to come up with a way to help the situation, both for folks in the public schools and for people who are considering coming to our music school,” Engelhardt said. “I think in the public schools, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything taught, so they have to prioritize things. I’m trying to come up with a way to help, rather than say, ‘Well, you guys should do this,’ and ‘You guys should do that,’ because that doesn’t solve anything.”

They did a trial session last fall, spreading the word through area band directors, and were excited enough by the response to expand it to six sessions this semester.

“I didn’t want it to be a class, because students have enough classes,” Engelhardt said. “I wanted it to be fun, but I also wanted it to be an informal mentoring and teaching kind of thing. It’s not, ‘OK, here’s your assignment,’ but rather, ‘Why don’t you try it this way?’ or ‘Let’s try this and see if this works better.'”

Improvisation not only reinforces the skills needed for school marching bands and concert bands, it also teaches new abilities, according to Engelhardt. Improvisation requires a greater understanding of harmony and chord structures.

“People sometimes think improvising is you play whatever you want,” he said. “That’s just not true. Improvising is taking the musical materials that you know and using them in the moment in a new way, because you can’t play something that you’ve never known before.”

In addition to the benefits for the high school students, Engelhardt said it will be helpful for the YSU upperclassmen and graduate assistants participating as well.

“In every class that I teach, in every ensemble, I tell them, pay attention, because I’m talking about pedagogy, and I’m talking about teaching, and everybody in the room at some point is going to be doing some kind of teaching in their musical lives, whether that’s in a public school, a college or university, teaching private lessons or in some kind of informal way,” he said. “Here are pedagogical approaches that will work with these ages of students. I think that it’s a place for the grad students and the upperclassmen to try out some of those things.”

While Jazz Jams will appeal to students who play in their high school bands, that’s not a prerequisite. Engelhart said some of his best Dana School of Music students weren’t involved in their school bands, and those kinds of students are welcome as well.

Jazz Jams will adapt and adjust depending upon how many students show up. For the fall event, seven students attended, and there wasn’t much overlap in the instruments each student played. If a couple dozen students show up in March, there is enough space that they could use multiple rooms at Bliss Hall to accommodate everyone.

Depending on the success of Jazz Jams, it may lead to a performance opportunity for the musicians.

“What I’d really like to do is, if we have kind of a core group of these high school students, we’re going to put them on our final concert of the year with our jazz combos,” Engelhardt said.

If you go …

WHAT: Jazz Jams

WHEN: 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturdays from March 14 to April 18

WHERE: Room 2222, Bliss Hall, Youngstown State University

HOW MUCH: The program, open to high school instrumentalists, is free, and there is no advance registration. For more more information, email Kent Engelhardt at kjengelhardt@ysu.edu or Katie Merrill at kamerrill@ysu.edu.