- Dick Grove
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For the football manager, see Dick Groves.
Richard Dean "Dick" Grove (1927 in Lakeville, Indiana- December 26, 1998 in Laughlin, Nevada) was an American musician, composer, arranger and award-winning music educator.[1] He performed with Alvino Rey, and worked with Paul Horn, Buddy Rich, and Nancy Wilson.[2]
Grove was very active in the Jazz education field. He started teaching in 1958 at Westlake College of Music. At the time, the school had a strong focus on the Schillinger System,[3] which had also served as a basis for the first curriculums at Berklee School of Music (which had originally been called Schillinger House of Music). In his Composing&Arranging Program, he mentions that he studied the Schillinger System for 9 years.
Grove is perhaps best known for establishing the Dick Grove School of Music in Los Angeles in 1973. After the Grove School of Music closed in 1991,[4] he established the Grove School Without Walls,[5] a distance learning school where he taught Musicianship and Modern Harmony, Composing and Arranging, and Jazz Keyboard via a series of books and accompanying videos/DVDs.[6]
While operating the Grove School and the School without Walls, Grove authored and published many books covering basic musicianship, jazz harmony and ear training, improvisation, composing and arranging as related to contemporary styles of music.[7] He pioneered innovative concepts such as tying the study of chord symbols, jazz harmony and chord-scale-theory to eartraining via movable do solfege, the concept of chord families, the "grid" concept (an expanded circle of fifths that helps to visualize chord progressions moving through different momentary keys), the concept of "shapes" as a systematic approach to understanding voicings, etc.
The school operates to this day and is currently headed by Dirk Price.
References
- ^ Dick Grove; Jazz Musician and Educator; Los Angeles Times, Myrna Oliver, January 20, 1999
- ^ Dick Grove Credits at his School Without Walls website
- ^ Bob Morgan: The Sankofa Tradition: A Reminder for the 21st Century (online at trumpeter Marvin Stamm's Website)
- ^ Michael Arkush: The Grove School may Close. Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1991.
- ^ Dick Grove School Without Walls (website)
- ^ Overview of Course Descriptions at Grove School Without Walls
- ^ Dick Grove Credits at School Without Walls Website
External links
- Dick Grove School of Music Alumni
- Dick Grove introducing his most recent harmony course at School Without Walls, "See It, Hear It, Play It Vol.1" (video)
- Official memorial page at DickGrove.com
Categories:- American jazz musicians
- American music educators
- People from Indiana
- 1927 births
- 1998 deaths
- Deaths from heart failure
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