There was a flurry of excitement a couple of months back when young Tauranga guitarist Joel Shadbolt went to America. Now he's back.

You might remember a story or two in The Weekend Sun at the time, about the fundraising concert to help collect funds to send Joel for a two week summer course at the prestigious Los Angeles Music Academy in Pasadena. It seemed like pretty much every musician in town turned up to play a few songs and the money was duly raised.
Now Joel's back from the States and I had a chat to him about how he enjoyed L.A. and what you actually do at a Music Academy.

As to the Los Angeles bit, it sounds like it was a blast. The highlight was a concert at the Hollywood Bowl where Joel saw BB King play for the first time (and if you're going to see BB play it might as well be at the Hollywood Bowl!).
The show also included Liza Minnelli, and James Galway, but it was BB King that Joel had wanted to see and although the master is confined to playing seated now - as old age and a stroke take their toll – he fully lived up to expectations.

But what about the Academy?
Again Joel is just buzzing.

There were about 40 young musicians on the summer course, with students from Italy and the Netherlands and all around the world. For the first week they studied rock, blues and funk, and during the second week it was jazz, fusion and Latin.

A typical day started at nine o'clock in the morning with an hour long lecture, during which the teacher would discuss a selection of three musical charts (charts are what musicians call sheet music). Then for an hour the students each choose one of the charts and played it accompanied by a band made up of professional L.A. session musos, getting comments and ideas on their performance along the way.

After a quarter of an hour tea break there was a performance by the various teachers at the Academy, which Joel said was fascinating as you got to see the people teaching you actually playing and, just like musicians everywhere they had strengths and weaknesses – some were great readers, some were great improvisers, but all were top class. Then lunch.

After lunch the students were broken up into groups and tasked with writing an original song. Players would rotate and spend time with the different members of the band while the teachers would make suggestions and point out possible approaches and variations that could be used. There were also private lessons once a week and other diversions.

Joel loved it. To be immersed in music like that was the whole point of going there and it particularly opened his eyes to the joys of jazz and Latin music, two styles he's never really delved into. Since returning he has joined the Tauranga Big Band and is actively studying jazz to add to his arsenal of blues and rock chops.

But the larger aim of the two weeks was to see if he was able to get a two year scholarship to the Academy, without which it would be prohibitively expensive to study in the States. And who knew what the standard would be? Would all the other students be near-geniuses and leave Joel behind?

Good news. It seems Joel was in the upper echelon of students. He says that the standard of students was actually very similar to at the Polytechnic here (where he's still studying), with some dedicated and passionate players and some no more than average school guitarists. The tutors were most impressed with Joel's technique and feel, and assured him that he was definitely scholarship material.

So the next step is to apply in November for the full course (which starts in the US fall of 2009) while studying like a loon in the meantime to get his Polytech grade average as high as possible and saving as much money as he can for the many living expenses you need in Los Angeles.

We'll get back to him at a future date and see how it's going.