What is the best college to study Jazz Bass Guitar?
Apr.30, 2010 in
College Selection
Time is coming for me to choose a college and I want to study Jazz Bass but I have no clue what are good Jazz Bass colleges. I live in California so somewhere near there would be preferable
April 30th, 2010 at 4:49 am
The closest, good college to you is Berklee College of Music: http://www.berklee.edu/
Juilliard is absolutely awesome, but is expensive and out of state: http://www.juilliard.edu/
An inexpensive college with a really good music program is the University of Northern Colorado. It is located in Greeley, CO and has a great campus – I live about 20 minutes away, and I’ve been on campus many times. This was actually one of my colleges of choice, but I ended up taking Electrical Engineering at CSU instead of Classical Guitar at UNC.
Just remember that Jazz doesn’t follow any rules. Any “rules” are just suggestions (ie 8/12 blues progressions can be changed outside of their normal setups). You can’t really learn it from someone else. You would be better to take a few music theory classes, a technique class or two, and then listen to Coltrane, Montgomery, and such. Jazz is more about expressing feelings and untangible ideas, not sticking to a set form.