Ep 64 Simon Purcell

Jazz pianist, composer and educator, Simon Purcell came to
prominence during the UK jazz boom of the 1980s. After working in
East London schools, as a passionate music educator and thinker,
Simon has been active in the conservatoire sector since 1985,
first as a senior lecturer at GSMD between 1987-2005, Head of
Jazz at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music between
2005-2017 and returning to GSMD as International Chair in
Improvisation in 2018. He has contributed to the development of
jazz education in the UK for many years and in 2006 was awarded
Jazz Educator of the Year by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz
Appreciation Group.


Simon was a member of the Working Group for the Pop and Jazz
Platform within the Association of European Conservatoires
(2009-2018) and his research into teacher-development in jazz
education was published by Ashgate in 2005. His work in jazz
education has taken him to Brazil, China, New Zealand and many
parts of Europe and current research interests are:
teacher-education in jazz, jazz within wider music education and
neurologically informed pedagogy. For more information see
https://simonpurcell.com/about


Luke spoke with Simon in March 2022. Taking face to face in an
actual room, they discussed improvisation and how to teach it,
comparing perspectives in music therapy and jazz education. How
is music experienced? What are the best ways to understand it?
And how would you go about teaching improvisation badly?


 


References


Green, B., & Gallwey, W. T. (1987). The inner game of music.
Pan Macmillan.


Helding, L. (2020). The musician's mind: Teaching, learning, and
performance in the age of brain science. Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.


McCrary, J. M., Altenmüller, E., Kretschmer, C., & Scholz, D.
S. (2022). Association of Music Interventions With Health-Related
Quality of Life. JAMA, (3)


Paton, R. (2011) Lifemusic: Connecting People to Time. Archive
Publishing.


Werner, K., & Aebersold, J. (1996). Effortless mastery. New
Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz.