Likewise, it is argued that the hundreds of students graduating from university jazz courses in recent years sound too similar to each other because they have all been through the same system. Yet it is now recognised that formal, classroom-based education was a significant element in the musical experience of many jazz musicians of all generations, and that it can save students time and focus them on key concepts and skills efficiently. In the earlier part of the century, apprenticeships as sidemen allowed musicians to learn to play in jam sessions and big-bands. In jam sessions, learning tended tobe slower, based more on the ear than written music, more on the lived experience of the music than abstract facts and concepts. This approach, favouring practice over theory, remains a guiding principle across jazz education today, because it forces learners and players to recreate and embellish the tradition interactively in a long game of jazz Chinese Whispers.
Apprenticeship often involves the learner in working with key mentors rather than teachers.
Armstrong had King Oliver, for example. Mentors are sometimes just friends with big record collections or musicians seen in brief but crucial encounters where advice is given. They may also be older more experienced players in a band who guide the learner's developing practice. Learning from notated transcriptions of solos and directly off records is another approach established early in the history of jazz education. Direct imitation of recordings is a vital means of learning important and often unnotatable elements of jazz style, including feel, phrasing, internal dynamics and sound.