What motivated you to set up Girl Plays Jazz?
It's very clear to those who work in jazz and jazz teaching that there are more boys than girls. A few years ago I looked into the research as to why, and one of the main features and causes of it seemed to be that girls start off on instruments that aren't seen as jazz instruments by them or their parents, so they don't see themselves as jazz musicians. I realised that was a barrier that I might be able to contribute towards overcoming.
It was also important to give girls the opportunity to play and listen to music that they might relate to over the course of their lives. My own experience of learning classical music was that it was always something very different to the music that I listened to at home on the radio and made tapes of with my friends. There's a lot of really terrific new jazz out there that fuses the genre with electronica and hip-hop, and there isn't any reason why young people shouldn't be a part of that.
The initiative places an emphasis on encouraging girls to improvise from a young age. Why is that?
If you get them young enough, they don't have any inhibitions about having a go. It certainly makes the girls more confident and helps them think in more compositional terms as well. They suddenly start to feel that they have ownership of the music and that they might be able to create the music themselves.
If I look around at the men who are pursuing very high-flying careers in the music industry, like arranging for the BBC Big Band, they've all come from a place of being improvising musicians. So unless girls have that exposure to improvised music and contemporary genres early on, they will only be disadvantaged if they want to pursue those avenues in the future.
Was it important to you that the professionals leading the workshops play alongside the young musicians?
Music is at its best when it is participatory and inter-generational. It's important for the children to hear and appreciate the whole reality of live music – warts and all – like when the professionals trip over a couple of notes. There is a bit of teaching in what we do but I really focus on aural learning and, within that, shared, inter-generational music-making.
It's also really rewarding for the teachers, since the teachers are all musicians. If you simply see yourself as someone that's imparting information or skills, rather than someone who is totally absorbed in the process of music-making, then neither the students nor the teachers get as much out of it. It's a much more enhanced experience for everyone when it's experienced as collective music-making.
Does playing music together create a sense of community for the girls?
When you play together with your peers you connect with them. I think that's a key part of it – creating a network of girls who know each other and going forward will hopefully form bands and be able to play together. They're still at the younger end for now, but that will come.
At the London Jazz Festival, it was probably the best performance that we've had so far. The girls knew each other and were really listening and playing together. It's such a privilege to work with them. They are hugely enthusiastic and super kind to each other.
To find out more about Girl Plays Jazz's upcoming workshops and performances, visit https://girlplaysjazz.org.uk
