Reflections on Music College

I spent four years at Trinity College of Music (or Trinity Laban Conservatoire of the Arts as it is now officially known). My principle study was in jazz piano so I guess you could say I have a degree in jazz (though I nearly always tell people it’s a degree in ‘music’ so as to avoid odd/surprised/horrified looks). Here is a summary of some the good and bad aspects of my experience at Trinity (excluding spiritual, social and more general stuff).

Good:

• The first two years – The first two years at Trinity were definitely the best (particularly the second). Both the novelty of music college and the excitement of getting seriously stuck into jazz playing in real ensembles (with bass players who could actually play a walking bass!) was exhilarating. I also enjoyed for the first time in my life doing serious long hours of practice, and my playing (particularly improvisation) finally began to sound somewhat fluent.

• Playing music – A degree that mostly involves learning how to make cool sounds on a piano all day is very enjoyable and rewarding. Learning new skills and deepening one's musical awareness is immensely satisfying.

• Playing with fine musicians – Trinity had (and still has) many top notch musicians, ranging from pretty good to absolute genius. It was a great pleasure and challenge play with these folks. There was one drummer/composer/pirate in particular who’s skill as well as enthusiasm, innovation and originality kept me inspired even when my interest in straight ahead jazz began to wane a bit.

• Starting my own trio – I started my own jazz trio towards the end of my second year and it has been going ever since (though there has been a change in bassists over the years). It was an immense privilege to have a trio to regularly rehearse , try out different arrangements and gel musically with. The trio gave me a platform to develop my particular jazz style (basically a mixture of Erroll Garland, Red Garland and blues) and the various gigs and recordings we did were also a positive experience.

• Arranging – I really enjoyed the arranging elective in years three and four. As well as making me more proficient with Sibelius (the program not composer), it also inspired me to arrange more for different ensembles. Also, if it were not for this module I wouldn’t have discovered Henry Mancini (I don’t care if you class his music as lounge/cocktail/cheese - It’s lush).

• Great surroundings – Trinity is on the site of the old royal navy college on the south bank of the Thames in Greenwich. It is in a grand building itself surrounded by other grand buildings with Greenwich park to the south and Canary Wharf to the north - Absolutely breathtaking in the sunset. There can’t be many more picturesque places to study.

• Helping to run the Christian union – A challenging and humbling experience, especially in such a small college.

• Getting to know a certain Cornish percussionist – he knows who he is.

Bad:

• The last two years – the latter half of my degree wasn’t as cool as the first. I began losing my enthusiasm for jazz and even music as a whole. Even today I remain quite picky in my musical tastes and you would be lucky if you managed to get me along to watch a gig of any sort. The fact that the course became more vague did not help either. Questions about where this was all heading coupled with some intense spiritual struggles added a pensive existential angst to my remaining time at Trinity. It wasn’t really awful or a really hard time, just very mediocre.

• Practice - My practicing habits seriously took a turn for the worst from my third year onward. This was due to various reasons including lack of motivation, not knowing exactly what to practice or where I was heading, modal jazz and just plain laziness. Although I played lots, My actual structured practice remained ropy and inconsistent throughout the last two years which lead to....

• Lack of confidence – On a technical level, I was way bellow just about all the other jazz pianista in the college (even at the end of my last year). This mean't I had lack of confidence before the others which meant I didn’t get asked to play in other folk’s bands very much at all. I was especially miffed by the marks and comments for my final recital, which basically said I can’t swing – not very encouraging after four years of studying jazz, and being particularly into jazz that ‘swings’.

• Modal jazz – In the 3^rd year, the main part of study/performance & assessment was in modal jazz. In short, modal jazz is a style of that is based on a few different modes rather than lots of different chords. While some of the earlier modal stuff (e.g. ‘Kind of Blue’) is very beautiful, I really cannot stand the later variety (McCoy, Coltrane, Corea etc.) This is mainly due to the fact that it involves ‘outside improvisation’, a device which involves playing deliberately wrong sounding notes outside the mode or chord. While some love it, to me it sounds like nails down a black board and being made to learn it wasn’t really that fun (I don’t like modal jazz piano’s excessive use of 4^th or ‘quartal’ chord voicings either).

• Socialising with jazz musicians – although there are some decent folks among the jazz world, I don’t like the whole jazz subculture and ‘shop talk’ it always ensues. My jazz tastes were (and still are) generally older or more main stream than those of the other folks there. While most jazz pianists I met at college were usually into/influenced by figures like Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau, I preferred Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson and George Shearing. So many conversations involved me being asked if I had heard [insert name I’ve never heard of] musician or album. The annoyance of this even lead to me and a friend creating a totally make believe jazz organ player called ‘Red Smithers’ to drop in conversation. I was never into much of the current jazz scene either, meaning I usually couldn’t care less who was playing at the 606 or Ronnie’s that particular night (that’s the fault of my narrow tastes, not the music or musicians, just to get that clear!).

• PSP/PPR – nuff said. (though my final year project did totally kick bottom).

• Helping to run the Christian union – It was, I admit, very frustrating at times. It gave me a tiny taste of the trials of Christian leadership.

• Room 160 – possibly the lousiest jazz rehearsal room in the world.

The one thing I wish I had known before I started (and a tip for those who are about to go to Music College):

Music college (especially if you’re doing jazz) is less about a degree with hoops to jump through and assessments to pass (though there is that), and more about being in an environment to play lots of music, get involved with different groups/bands and take every musical opportunity that comes. It is this that greatly helps one to mature as a musician. College is also a safe place to start being proactive (i.e. ‘getting yourself out there)’about things which can eventually form a musical career, be it gigging, teaching or whatever (something I didn’t really do which is why I’m now at theology college!).

Oh yeah, and practice (and knowing what to practice) is really, really important!

So there you have it. Overall, I would say that Trinty was a positive experience and a time I will look back on with fondness. There is probably a great deal more I could say about it but that’ll do for now. Above is my rather ominous graduation photo.