The Jazzaar Concept

The ‘Bandstand Learning with Role Models‘ (BLRM) with its specific educational principles is referred to as the ‘Jazzaar Concept‘. The concept developed independently by the Renolds is akin to ‘Model Learning’ proposed by the social psychologist Albert Bandura in his publications in the 1970s.

Bandura proposed that learning occurs through observation, imitation, and modeling and is influenced by factors such as attention, motivation, attitudes, and emotions. The BLRM platform provides strong evidence for this theory through the steep learning curve observed in young musicians learning on the bandstand with their mentors and role models.

The 4 progressive steps of observational learning indicated by Albert Bandura below are indeed evident in the development of the youth musicians within a week at the Jazzaar Festival.

• Attention: In order to learn, one needs to pay attention. To pay attention the model being observed must be interesting or novel, hence we select excellent artists of international renown as role models.
• Retention: The level of attention influences the ability to retain information as this is an important part of the learning process. Retention is vital to observational learning.
• Reproduction: Paying keen attention to the model and retaining the information, leads one inevitably to perform the behavior observed. Repeating and reproducing the learned behavior leads to improvement and skill advancement.
• Motivation: A successful reproduction of the observed behavior motivates the learner to imitate the behavior that has been modeled. Young musicians imitating their role models is the phenomenon observed on the Jazzaar Festival stage.

Evaluations and Peer Reviews

The efficacy of the Jazzaar Concept has been evaluated over the years by international experts in Music/Jazz Education.

The evaluations in PDF are available below for download.