Thought you might enjoy this post on Mark Levine's Facebook page today:

Thank you, Jazz Times and ESPERANZA SPALDING!

RV: What advice would you give to middle school or high school students who want to play jazz?

ES: There’s a Mark Levine Book called Jazz Theory. It’s really just theory that most musical genres function off of. It’s fun to get a sense of what’s going on with music anyway. I would suggest getting it and doing two pages a day just to study it and learn to read some basic piano, even if you can only pick out one note at a time. I think it’s really important for all musicians to have a basic ability to read piano music, it’s not like you have to be able to sight read Bach inventions, but just to know where the notes are to pick them out on the piano. Start by reading two pages, then practice the two pages. The next day recap what you’ve done and do a page or two more. I think if you’re starting in middle school or high school just work your way through that book and as you work through it you’ll notice the way you hear and the way you sing, will automatically start to change. It’s like looking at the world and not knowing it’s all blurry. You can make your way through and then you get glasses and everything gets clearer and clearer. I think that’s really important.

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