outhful Young People's Concert - Virginia Symphony Orchestra

What is Jazz
That’s a tricky question to answer!
Young People's Concert
Jazz is often called America’s original art form... but other than telling us that it came
from the USA, what does that phrase mean It’s tricky! Jazz is a style of music that is still
evolving (growing and changing). Because there isn’t just one kind of jazz, one set way of
playing it, it is challenging to truly define.
Even though it is tricky to define, when you hear jazz, you might notice a few things
that definitely make it different from music like Mozart’s. Here are three major
characteristics.
1) Syncopation – You hear this when the strong and weak beats in the music aren’t where
you would usually hear it in the Classical music of Mozart. For example, when a piece of
music has four beats in each measure this is what you might hear:
Classical:
STRONG, weak, STRONG, weak
Jazz:
weak, STRONG, weak, STRONG
In Classical music, beats 1 and 3 are strong. In Jazz music, beats 2 and 4 are strong.
2) Swing – Instead of playing the eighth notes nice and evenly, jazz musicians often swing
them. This means that they don’t play them equally. Each eighth note in a pair is not the
same length. The first one is played a little longer than the second.
3) Improvisation – Improvisation means to make something up on the spot. In jazz, there
are sections of the music where the musicians invent what they are playing right then and
there!
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