ABOUT

Hello and welcome to my project; 'Conversations'. This is the page whereby I explain my impetus for completing this project, the research I have undertaken to complete it and give the reader as much background as I can to allow them to engage with my project and know what it is exactly that I am doing.

Firstly, I am myself a Jazz musician, primarily a Jazz Pianist. I study at the University of Sheffield and am completing my final year of study. As such, a lot of my university contacts have been within the sphere of Jazz and Improvised Music within which I operate. However I have tried to interview Musicians here from a range of idioms and stylistic backgrounds. This project is being completed under the supervision of Dr Adrian Moore who runs 'Special Project' at the University of Sheffield.

When I was given the option of choosing my third year modules in Sheffield, the option for 'Special Project' stood out as holding a lot of creative possibility; I was encouraged to do something that does not fall under the usual categories which we have in higher music education of Performance, Composition, Dissertation (and so forth...).

I immediately thought to myself that I wish I could harness the capacity of many of the great conversations that I have had with musicians of various stripes, that that would possibly make an entertaining read for someone, and be quite pleasantly different from the rest of course (I would enjoy the process of recording speech, and of transcribing good conversations).

So I went about thinking of what precedent there has been for such an activity, and a few publications that I have enjoyed over the years stood out:

The BBC (Radio 3)

The BBC have done some good interviews with Jazz musicians. Over the years I've listened to countless interviews on music but also politics in music, the arts in general and more from countless journalists and presenters including Alyn Shipton and Geoffery Smith in the Jazz department but also those in classical music (and also other mediums such as art and film).

The BBC have also put together various help materials for those practicing journalism. From these I accessed some good tips on how to make a good interview, which I've put into practice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/production/article/art20130702112135222

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/skills/interviewing

'Do The Math'- Ethan Iverson

Ethan Iverson is a Jazz Pianist, well known for his role within the controversial postmodern Jazz outfit 'The Bad Plus''. With 'Do the Math', he also operates a very successful blog. This blog has a number of brilliant posts on Jazz Theory and History, and (most importantly, for the purposes of this project) a voluminous section of interviews, with interviewees ranging from Wayne Shorter, Charlie Haden and Keith Jarrett to Robert Glasper and Django Bates, and many more. These are all great examples of how to hold a good conversation with some of the most prominent Jazz musicians; how to guide the conversation without taking the spotlight away, when to speak when not to speak and give space and many other things.

The presentation of 'Do The Math' also stood out to me; I like the typeface and also how the interviewer and interviewee are firstly referred to by name and later by initials.

Special Thanks

James Surgenor, Ross Davidson for sound recording advice and pat

Henry Eady and Matt Jaconson for enabling me use the studio's

Adrian Moore for project direction

The team at Sheffield Jazz

And last but not least...each and every interviewee for their time, patience and stimulating responses!

I hope I can use these interviews and recordings in the future