Teaching Materials

Are you trying to learn the art of jazz singing, but don’t know where to start? Pick up Jay Clayton’s Sing Your Story! This practical guide will keep you in check as you begin to put your voice out there. Clayton offers an insightful look on how to find the best material for you to sing and the short-cuts in “talking down” your arrangements to your rhythm section.

She also gives suggestions for a successful practice session and where to begin with improvisation. This book also comes with a CD full of instrumental accompaniments for you to practice with. Any aspiring jazz vocalist would benefit from this book. Singers.com

Francis Davis – Downbeat “Clayton is an important singer…. one who proposed dramatic changes in vocal styles and rules…. her musicianship is impeccable.”

Sheila Jordan “Thanks to this book, we can finally eliminate some of the fears we as singers face. The answers are here.”

Herb Wong, Downbeat Magazine “This book really hits a target and fills a niche.”

Kathleen Willison, Jazz Changes If only there were more books like this! … a fantastic guide for those learning and/or teaching jazz singing.”

Teaching credits include New York’s City College, the Bud Shank Workshop in Port Townsend, Wa., Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and currently co-teaches a summer workshop with Sheila Jordan at Banff Centre in Canada. She is a rotating guest professor at Musica Hochschule in Graz, Austria and for eighteen years was on the jazz faculty of Cornish College for the Arts in Seattle, Washington.

 Vocal Practice Series 1

Take private lessons with the highly respected Jay Clayton. There are two Exercise Workouts on this CD. Both sequences of exercises have been designed for warming up, improving breath control, widening your range, and improving accuracy and intonation.

Developing a good daily routine of working with the CD will help you develop control, strength, delicacy and flexibility. Your goal is to sing anything you feel and hear with ease. Singers.com

Vocal Practice Series 2

Vamps are one or more chords repeated over and over again. Since the harmony doesn’t change much, you have time to hear ideas and develop a solo as well as find new ways to articulate and build your personal vocabulary.

There are eight piano vamps on this practice CD. Each one has a different feel and character and chord progression.
Singers.com