Today we have the opportunity to share another installment in our “Instructor Features” blog series! This week we have Seth Jenkins to celebrate! Seth is a piano, voice, guitar, bass, and drum instructor who is a life-long musician with experience in the performing and recording industries. Seth is passionate about musical improvisation and helping his students find joy in expressing themselves.
Read more about Seth below, and at the link near the bottom of the post.
To begin, what do you teach at Vibe and how old are your students?
I teach piano, voice, drums, bass, and guitar, and my students are ages 9 years-old to adults.
What is your favorite concept or skill to teach?
My favorite concept to teach is improvisation because it sparks creativity. It’s easy to rob the joy out of a topic by focusing too much on the technicalities at first, so I like to start each session with a bit of improvisational jamming because it’s more rewarding for the student to be able to immediately express themselves musically.
Talk about one of your first experiences with music.
My father showed me how to find a note that I had sung on the keyboard when I was 7 or 8, and that’s what opened the door for me to be interested in music.
When you begin lessons with a beginning player, what are some initial goals you help create with the student?
I start by finding what brings them joy and then understanding some idea of where they are headed on their musical journey (what their goals are). Do they want to be able to play pop music (play what they hear)? Do they want to be able to sight-read and perform with a group at school or in Solo & Ensemble, or do they want to play with other musicians? Do they enjoy improvising? Do they want to be a multi-instrumentalist? Do they want to play and sing? Do they want to write their own music? These questions allow me to help them determine their direction.
What is your favorite ‘90s jam?
“Everlong” by the Foo Fighters
What are some of your favorite method books to utilize and prescribe?
I like anything by Jamey Aebersold. I really like his blues and jazz books because combined with the minor pentatonic scale, you can get students improvising quickly.
Do you remember the first time that you “fell in love” with music?
I first fell in love with movie music because it accompanies a story, and there’s sentiment and sentimentality with it. I think that the emotional connection with music came to me a lot with movies.
You are the newest addition to a crayon box. What color are you and why?
Orange because I’m warm and sunny.
Why do you feel that music education is important for developing members of society?
There are some wonderful studies that show that music, unlike any other topic, develops the brain in some advanced ways. It develops the connection between the brain hemispheres in a way that no other human activity does. Science has mapped and monitored the brain activity of people doing various activities, and for a person playing music, it looks like fireworks. So when a person participates in the act of playing music on an instrument, it is the brain equivalent of a full-body workout. Aside from science, I also believe that it develops empathy in people that helps people relate to each other.
Seth is such a great addition to our team, and we are so excited to have him on board! Read more about him here!
