Dick Grove

For the football manager, see Dick Groves.
Dick Grove
Birth name Richard Dean Grove
Born 1927
Lakeville, Indiana, U.S.
Died December 26, 1998(1998-12-26)
Laughlin, Nevada
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician, composer, arranger, educator
Instruments Piano
Years active 1950s–1998

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 is best known as the founder of the Dick Grove School of Music. Its students include Michael Jackson, Linda Ronstadt and Barry Manilow, and its teachers Henry Mancini, Bill Conti, and Lalo Schifrin.[2]

Richard Dean Grove was born in Lakeville, Indiana. At the University of Denver he studied music and then taught piano locally. In 1957 he moved to Los Angeles and taught at the Westlake School of Music.[2] Westlake concentrated on the Schillinger System,[3] which had also served as a basis for the first curricula 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 nine years.

Grove established the Dick Grove School of Music in Los Angeles in 1973. After the school 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 by using movable do solfege; the concept of chord families to organize all possible chords (including all extended chords); the concept of plural interior chords and "assumed roots" within a chord family, which is instrumental in systematically organizing slash chords, polychords and "upper structure" voicings used in Jazz); the "grid" concept (an expanded circle of fifths that helps to visualize and analyze chord progressions moving through different momentary keys) according to criteria of good voice leading; the concept of "shapes" as a systematic approach to understanding voicings, a comprehensive approach to jazz harmonization and reharmonization, and many others.

As a jazz pianist, Grove worked with Alvino Rey, Paul Horn, Buddy Rich, and Nancy Wilson.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Oliver, Myrna (20 January 1999). "Dick Grove; Jazz Musician and Educator". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Dick Grove". Variety. 5 February 1999. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  3. ↑ Bob Morgan: The Sankofa Tradition: A Reminder for the 21st Century (online at trumpeter Marvin Stamm's Website)
  4. ↑ Michael Arkush: The Grove School may Close. Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1991.
  5. ↑ Dick Grove School Without Walls (website)
  6. ↑ Overview of Course Descriptions at Grove School Without Walls
  7. ↑ Dick Grove Credits at School Without Walls Website
  8. ↑ Dick Grove Credits at his School Without Walls website
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