About GrooveZONE
WHAT IS THE
GrooveZONE PROGRAM?
Purpose
The GrooveZONE Program is a course of intensive study for music teachers who want to expand their horizons in the direction of rock, blues, and jazz; with a special emphasis on Modal composition and improvisation. The program was designed and developed by me, Jerry Rockwell, based upon my 30 years of modal improvising on the guitar and mountain dulcimer, as well as my formal classical and jazz training at The Ohio State University.
There will be monthly audio CDs that follow the curriculum, and offer an engaging play-along experience, as well as a good basic model of how each student can learn to build their own "grooves" or rhythm tracks.
The real core of the GrooveZONE program, however, is to be found in the individualized composition - improvisation assignments. These assignments will allow each individual to develop their own unique modal compositions and improvising style. The improvisations are used to continually expand and enrich the compositions, as well as to develop a generalized capability for "soloing over changes" in a rock, folk, or jazz context.
Target Audience
As I'm writing this - late January of 2004 - the GrooveZONE program is in its infancy: you might want to think of this first year as a "pilot project," because it is not even open to the public. There are five carefully-chosen mountain dulcimer teachers who will form the first graduating class - and it is quite likely that some, if not all, of these "students" the first time around - will want to continue on as kind of "core staff" for the future of the program.
Instruments
As I mentioned above, the pilot program will be delivered to a small group of hand-picked mountain dulcimer performers and teachers. I will deliver some of the audio on dulcimer - in the first few months of CDs which emphasize building the rock and blues grooves from the ground up - but as the melodic elements become more and more important in the middle and later portions of the program - a majority of the single-line improvisations will be illustrated with acoustic and electric guitar. It is imperative, then, that the first round of mountain dulcimer players rise to the enormous challenge of playing these melodic lines on their dulcimers: with very little help from me (I'm currently totally involved with building my guitar chops).
Even with this small group of accomplished dulcimer players, those who have easy access to keyboard or guitar will fare much better in the understanding and application of deep musical structure.
The Future?
I have a very strong vision for a course in Modal Composition and Improvisation for ALL Instruments. This could take the form of a series of books with audio CDs - or a series of intensive weekend workshops - or a web site such as this one ----- or maybe all three!
Now, what do I mean by "ALL" instruments?
Probably the ones that I am familiar with enough to be able to demonstrate: guitar, mountain dulcimer, and mandolin. For keyboard, I may have to enlist the help of an accomplished professional player, as my keyboard abilities are severely limited.
Will mountain dulcimer players eventually get left behind as the program gets more and more harmonically and melodically sophisticated?
I certainly hope NOT!!! But I will have to let the incredibly talented first class of mountain dulcimer students set the pace for the future of the mountain dulcimer. My own direction is clearly with the guitar, but I would love to see this first class blow the doors off of any notion of limits to what the dulcimer can do. There is theoretically no reason that the dulcimer should meet any "brick wall" - considering that a very large proportion of the modal harmony and improvisation involves purely diatonic resources. Some of the jazz harmony will involve unusual "chromatic" tunings, and even the invention of new tunings for 3 or 4-string dulcimer.