Prof. Skip Gailes completed 36 years of teaching Jazz Improv and other courses at VCU in May 2014. (photo credits Antonio García [left] and William Fisher/Fire At Will Photography [right])

Chapter 6: Required and Dual Competencies

You may believe that it is important that every student exit your semester having demonstrated the ability to perform a number of required skills: certain scales, arpeggios, riff-concepts, perhaps singing along imitating a recorded jazz master, or more. Maybe chords and scales are no problem for that alto saxophonist who came from a strong feeder jazz program, but she’s never sung a note in her life. Or that drummer can play a great drum solo, but he has no idea what a Dorian scale is. Is it really fair to require every student in the Improv class to learn the same concepts? Is it reasonable to expect that each student can and will do so to the same degree of facility when demonstrated on an instrument?

With required and dual competencies, you will have a clear means to assess and grade according to the learning taking place across different experience-levels. And your grade will be defensible against the appeal of “But I’m the best soloist in the class!”