Suzanne Davis

"When I teach improvising techniques to advanced students, we do what is called 'peripheral listening.' It's the art of playing as though you're having a conversation. It involves dividing your attention and listening as hard to the other players in an ensemble as you listen to your own playing. Exercises involve taping your own playing, listening to what you sound like as you're playing in an ensemble, and critiquing."

"It's important to listen to a wide variety of artists and styles while building a repertoire of standards and learning to play well in an ensemble. The more kinds of music you listen to, the better, so I try to get my students to listen to some of my own musical heroes."

"I encourage students to find their own style, but not to be afraid of imitation as a learning tool. One way I learned was by listening to the artists I really like, transcribing, and playing the transcriptions. And that was very valuable. As a learning tool, it's okay to learn someone else's solo and play it."

"Just because my students are learning jazz harmony, jazz voicing, or jazz theory, it doesn't mean they have to play jazz. They can apply that knowledge to any style of music. If you can learn closed position and spread voicings with tensions in your jazz voicings, you can pretty much apply them to any style of music. And if you can master those voicings, you can pretty much do anything."