Robert Sabin has 20+ years of experience teaching applied, ensemble and classroom music courses at the college and secondary level. This includes extensive experience with small and large jazz ensembles, as well as harmony, aural skills, musicianship, composition, transcription, applied rhythm, African American music, music production, and applied double bass and electric bass in both in-person and online formats.

He regularly presents topics, papers and workshops at global music conferences including International Society for Music Education, International Society of Bassists, and Association for Popular Music Education amongst many others.

He is currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Molloy College, the Rutgers University Summer Jazz Institute, as well as having served as faculty at New York University, Hunter College High School, Teachers College Columbia University, and having been the director of the New York Summer Music Festival’s jazz program for over a decade organizing, creating curriculum, teaching, conducting, and performing with recognized students, faculty, and guest artists. He has also led programs at the Ronald McDonald House in New York City, providing instrumental music instruction for children and families from around the world being treated locally for serious illness. For a full curriculum vitae click here.

Sabin’s philosophy of music education involves a praxial and holistic approach to both the student as well as the area of study.  This involves active engagement and participation in culturally diverse actions and pedagogies that outline tangible technical outcomes as well as intersecting the student’s self and the larger local and global communities. The approach emphasizes meanings and values evidenced in actual music making, professional situations, listening, and personal outcomes while enabling levels of openness to experience that fortify a student’s ability to adapt to the ever-changing musical landscape. Sabin recognizes the conceptual widening of many areas of study such as music theory and jazz history that encompass larger elements of African American music and Afro-Latin American music that form the bedrock of contemporary music. As a developer of curriculum he recognizes the urgent need for continued work in the de-colonizing of traditional jazz, theoretical, and classroom canons and philosophies as well as the need for reevaluation and dismantling of an often predominantly white-European racial frame in these areas.

Sabin’s research focus is rooted in the experience of improvisation. His doctoral dissertation Gary Peacock: Analysis of Progressive Double Bass Improvisation 1963-1965 followed three years of study with the bassist that examined traditional and avant-garde jazz performances from with players such as Bill Evans, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, and Albert Ayler. Recent research projects have focused on bassist Andy Gonzalez, Charlie Haden’s early work with Ornette Coleman, minor improvisations in early bebop recordings, and a 500+ collection of transcriptions Progressive Jazz Double Bass Repertoire distributed at no cost from this website. He is currently developing a two-volume method of embodied rhythm for the improvising bassist.