Red Wire Jazz Concert Report

Thursday mornings at 7:30 am, a group of orchestra students get together to play music. This group, called Red Wire Jazz Strings, plays music anywhere from traditional show tunes to modern pop music. If it has jazz chords, they’ll play it. “Jazz Strings is an opportunity to offer students an experience they wouldn’t often normally get to play as string players,” says Sean Patrick, Jazz Strings’ director. “Jazz is a major music genre, but there’s not a lot that’s offered to the strings, so it’s an opportunity give those students the chance to play that, a chance to get experience with improvisation. It’s just kind of a fun time to play some different music you wouldn’t normally get to play in orchestra.” Improvisation, for those who

The different kinds of music can be a new and interesting experience, for both directors and students. “In Jazz music, we experience harmonies that we wouldn’t get to experience in other music as much,” says Patrick. “So students are learning how to hear music in different chords. Students are seeing rhythms that they wouldn’t see as much. It helps them build rhythmic vocabulary, it helps them build ear training, the improvisational aspect really helps them more quickly translate their mind and putting it onto their instrument. It absolutely helps you become a better player.” Like many other advanced groups, Jazz Strings goes on many trips and participates in different competitions. “It’s kind of a fun community where we get to play music maybe they [the students] have heard on the radio or heard in other settings and be with their friends and get to play different music,” says Patrick. “We do a couple trips where we get to play at jazz festivals, we play the Purdue Jazz Festival, in January we’ll play at the ISSMA Jazz Festival, and this year in March we’re actually going on the music trip to Boston. It’s an opportunity to play different kinds of