Renowned guitarist Stanley Jordan hosts workshop at Cape

An array of polyrhythms, syncopations and complex harmonies filled the air in the Cape Henlopen High School band room April 16, as jazz guitarist and international recording artist Stanley Jordan and jazz drummer Kenwood Dennard played an improv piece to start their student workshop.

Student musicians from Cape High and Delaware State University attended the workshop to learn new playing techniques, ask questions and even jam with Jordan and Dennard at the end. 

“Music makes us all humble,” Jordan said, encouraging the students to ask questions. “If you have a problem, chances are, I’ve probably had that same problem.”

Jordan has toured, recorded and played with many artists, including bassist Phil Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead. He’s also a frequent guest player with groups like the Dave Matthews Band and the String Cheese Incident.

Dennard is a retired professor from the prestigious Berklee College of Music. He has toured the world and played with artists like Whitney Houston, Dizzy Gillespie, Sting, the Allman Brothers Band, Henry Belafonte and more.

Much of the interactive workshop centered around pitch, time signatures and polyrhythms, which are the simultaneous use of two or more different rhythmic patterns.

Jordan explained how certain aspects of music, like meter and repetition, relate to mathematical concepts. For example, he said, musical notes are arranged on a logarithmic scale, and going up a musical octave doubles the frequency. The distance between musical notes is based on the ratios of frequencies, rather than the differences in frequencies.

“When you study logarithms in math, you already intuitively understand it from music,” he said. “It’s just amazing to me that we hear things in this mathematical way, and we can take advantage of that.” 

He and Dennard also spoke about how to channel an audience’s energy into music and how to stay focused on performing without getting too much in one’s head.

When Jordan plays with other musicians, he watches them and their body movements, syncing his movement with theirs.

“I figure if we’re dancing together, then whatever we play is going to fit,” he said. “It’s a very physical thing for me, and that keeps me in my body and keeps me from just being in my head.”

He also encouraged the students to explore new and unique ways of playing.

“Sometimes we inhibit our creativity by putting too many rules in front of ourselves,” he said. “Go ahead and break the rules. Practice trying some crazy stuff. Don’t worry about if it sounds good or not. In fact, deliberately make it sound bad just to get yourself out of that frame of how it has to sound.”

In terms of channeling one’s surroundings into one’s music, Dennard explained how the improvisation at the beginning of the workshop was a musical manifestation of the students’ energy, visuals, body language and overall presence. When someone in the audience started tapping their hand to make a beat, for example, Dennard listened and went along with it, incorporating it into his playing.

Being receptive to those things, he said, is important as musicians.

After the workshop, Jordan and Dennard jammed with some Del State student musicians and a couple Cape students. They improvised together, and the two pros offered some pointers.

Many students stayed after to meet and chat with Jordan and Dennard. Several beamed as they said how honored they felt to meet and learn from them.