Thought provoking quote on playing in ensembles

Jazzaferri

“I was a professional when I got to Ghana,” Galeota says. “I had been working with the opera and the ballet and doing all these jazz gigs. I could really play.”

But he soon found out what the locals meant when they told him, “This music is no joke, man.”

One evening Galeota joined an ensemble. “They gave me this little bell part to play. It seemed simple, but I couldn’t play it!” Fortunately,an old man sat behind Galeota and touched him on the shoulder every time he got lost, wordlessly guiding him back to the beat.

“Everything is about community [in Ghana],” Galeota says. “You don’t get to go shed in a practice room until you know what you’re doing. You learn and make mistakes right there in the group, in front of your peers. You feel very vulnerable.”

This experience informs Galeota’s perennially popular classes and ensembles. “There’s no room for ego,” he says. “I don’t teach with handouts or written music; it’s strictly oral tradition. I sing the rhythm and make the students clap the pulse and tell me where ‘one’ is.” Once students find the beat,Galeota calls “switch” and has them sing the rhythms with syllables analogous to a rhythmic solfège.

“I have them sing everything first before they pick up an instrument. That way they have internalized the music before they try to present it.” Galeota stresses that these approaches enhance rather than replace Western learning techniques.

A focus on artistic intangibles gives Galeota’s classes a unique vibe. “An African ensemble is only as strong as its weakest player,” he says. “And the better players see it as their responsibility to bring novices up to their level. The music is very egalitarian.”

Students enjoy this collaborative atmosphere. Galeota says this frees them from ego, which is really a by-product of insecurity, and leaves them feeling more secure as musicians. It’s no wonder his classes are so popular.

… “[In Ghana] music doesn’t belong to any one person; it belongs to everyone and is part of life. You’ll see guys working on a roof and they’re all singing.”

Once students understand that in Ghana, music is the lineage of family, a means of public satire, and a form of history keeping, Galeota urges students to consider what their own music means to them.

From an article about Joe Galeota, by Adam Renn Olean, Berklee Today (Summer 2013)