Towards a Jazz Pedagogy: Lessons from Legends and Educators!
Tuesday 29th July 2025, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
This two-hour virtual workshop explores the foundational tenets of jazz pedagogy as both a conceptual and practical framework for teaching. Drawing from my research in “Towards a Jazz Pedagogy: Learning with and from Jazz Greats and Great Educators,” we’ll investigate how jazz (its historical and cultural legacy, structure, improvisation, and relationality) can be mobilized to inform dynamic, liberatory educational practice.
Through an interdisciplinary lens that bridges Black studies, music, and critical pedagogy, this session examines what educators might learn from the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Betty Carter, as both musicians and expert teachers. Participants will engage with activities that illuminate how jazz insists on listening, freedom, and collaboration, qualities often overlooked in contemporary educational spaces.
The session will offer a blend of lecture, short media clips, and reflective prompts to help attendees consider how jazz can reshape our pedagogical methods, classroom culture, and relationships with learners. We will explore key questions like: How can improvisation serve as a model for culturally responsive teaching? What does it mean to practice improv within a curriculum? And what can the jam session teach us about assessment?
This workshop is ideal for educators, voice practitioners, and creative facilitators who are interested in centering Black cultural knowledge, honoring artistic practices as intellectual traditions, and expanding the possibilities of teaching and learning.
🏷️ Price £30 (UK VAT inclusive)
🎥 Recording automatically sent to all who book (even if you cannot attend live)
▶️ Rewatch as many times as you like
📜 Certificate of attendance available
Dr Autumn Griffin
Dr. Autumn A. Griffin is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a 2025 Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. Her scholarship sits at the intersection of Black girlhood studies, critical media literacies, and liberatory pedagogies, with particular attention to how Black cultural traditions offer new visions for education.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Wednesday 29th October 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
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Hilary Davies
In recent years, the music therapy profession has begun to consider the application of the neurodiversity paradigm to music therapy practice, in particular In relation to autism, and an increasing amount of literature embracing this perspective has been published. This lecture, delivered from a lived experience perspective, will provide an explanation of the key concepts around neurodiversity - particular consideration will be given to the use of the voice, both one's own but also to the neurodivergent individual’s particular ways of using language, song and vocal sounds.
Thursday 30th October 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
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Most of us have little idea of HOW we speak, or what to do to make speech more muscular. Join Annie Morrison (creator of the 'Morrison Bone Prop') for this two hour session on Creative Articulation, a holistic and haptic approach to the touchings and feelings of the articulators in the dance of speech. Seeing articulation as a purely mechanical skill is detrimental to an actor's process: it is crucial to understand what language is doing on a biological level.
Tuesday 4th November 2025
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
(London Time)
The Belt Voice in R&B/Soul Singing: Vocal Characteristics & Physiology
Dr Matt Allen
The belt’s got soul! This course offers a deep dive into the vocal artistry and biomechanics of R&B/soul singing, with a particular focus on the belt voice—a powerful and expressive vocal technique central to the genre. Drawing from over 80 years of stylistic evolution, the course explores how R&B/soul singing has shaped contemporary commercial music and investigates the unique vocal traits that define its sound.