You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Reasons You're Not Swinging

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

On this episode, learn what's stopping you from becoming the Mayor of Swingtown by avoiding these crucial mistakes.4 Reasons You're Not SwingingYou're trying too hardYou're not listening to the right stuffYou have bad time/control of the grooveYou're too dogmatic about what swing isBONUSInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Was that swinging at him? Extremely. How about this? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's not. Fair enough.

I'm Adam Annas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Daily music advice coming at you. Why are you so excited about that? I'm just excited about that phrase. We are sponsored by Open Studio Jazz.

Go to Open Studio Jazz. And check out our piano access pass. That's every piano course we've ever made and every piano course we will make when you buy the annual membership, save yourself a ton of money. Yeah. And we had a new YouTube thing happening, yeah? Yeah, we're kind of refreshing the YouTube channel,

so check that out. Just go to YouTube and search for Open Studio. You'll see us. Would you call it a refresh and reset? Kind of a refresh, research and reset. Yeah. Research and reset. We're having fun with it.

So if you want to watch some of the You'll Hear Pot, today is audio only. Yeah. So there's been a little bit of confusion because we do put a lot of the episodes up because we got the cameras. We're in the new pod suite, as it were. I'm excited to be in the temperature is perfect, the lighting. But today we're audio only because, you know, most people are consuming it as an audio

podcast. That's our roots, right? Also, we look like crap today. We do look like crap. But twice a week we're going to be putting a video podcast. And we kind of have focused in on stuff that I think you guys are beloved listeners. Yeah. We love you guys.

Thank you for sticking with us this year again. We're excited to be here. But we had some episodes last year, and I'm thinking, especially of note, was the four easy, four basic piano chords every jazz musician should know, which people are loving that one. And that was a little bit of a dent to my ego because I'm not on that one. But that's okay. It's all good. But we're going to be doing some more episodes like that on the YouTube's that really make use of us, the two keyboards. We're going to have a light up situation.

Hammer 88s. We're going to hammer 88s. We're going light up. You're going to see everything we're doing. So that'll be twice a week. check in on that. And we have some new tutorials, a lot of fun stuff being planned for you now. That's right. So today, though, we're talking about four reasons you're not swinging. That's accusatory. It's accusatory. And we're looking at each other now. But we're looking out at you in an audio

standpoint. And look, these are probably things, you know, swing is, we're not going to go into a deep dive on the definition of swing because that's super dogmatic. But we're going to try to kind of hit on it, right? Yeah, I mean, we don't, listen, honestly, swing is, it means different things to different people. That's obvious when you do any sort of researching of what is swing. Yeah. There are several definitions. I tend to trust the people that sounds swinging when they play. Yeah. When they talk about it. Yeah. So that's kind of where my baseline is for what is swing. But that's not super important. What is important is swinging. Swinging. And you know when you're not swinging and you know your audience knows when you're not swinging. Maybe you don't know. Some people don't know what I feel like. But if that's why we're talking about. If the other musicians around you aren't feeling it, if you feel like it, if you feel like it, maybe

this is something that you can work on a little bit when you hear yourself recorded back. Hopefully we have reasons to, of things you might be doing that you can kind of let go of. Because oftentimes, like, we often think we have, I have a problem. I need to add something to me to fix this problem. But often when it comes to things like playing music or learning something, it's really just getting out of the way. Right. You know what I mean?

So that's why I think it's so important that we're talking about the four reasons you're not swing it's because you're doing things possibly that are just getting in the way of swinging. Right. There may be, you probably have the essence of an understanding, like an intuitive understanding deeper than you think about what swing is. So if you get rid of some of these things and kind of get to what your core is, and we want to help you kind of have the confidence and to really demystify, we've talked about this before.

We don't look at swing as this secret scroll that you have to, you know, go to Charlie Parker's grave and then pick up another directions and then go to Paris and then go. Although that does help. That does help. Yeah, no, no. But I mean, we really think that this is just a basic, I mean, swing is just the basic groove element of this music, really. And there's variations on it. And we are definitely not jazz police about this in terms of this is swing.

But we're a little bit jazz police about when you're not swinging. Yeah, we'll talk about that. It's one of those things. It's like, you know it when you hear it, right? That's how I define it. It's like, I've been surprised by that is swinging. I wouldn't have, like, I've heard a player and been like, that is so swing. And I wouldn't have defined that eighth note

or whatever they're playing as swing before. But like the way they played it and sold it and made it feel swinging to me. I've also been surprised when I see some people put the instrument in their mouth or get to the piano and then I'm like, wow. I did not think they were gonna be swinging. So that's always fun too.

Remember young Joey Alexander? When the first time I signed, I was like, that little boy is swinging. Yeah, I know. I mean, I figured I'm like, okay, they've hyped him up. He's gonna get up there and play a bunch of notes. I've seen that before.

Right, right. He's got chops, but he's got chops. But swinging is kind of a deeply felt thing, but I think that, you know, Joey's a perfect example of like, you're never too young to swing. It's not a thing you've got to wait until you're 58 years old or anything. So let's get into this. That's right. The number one, did we, yeah, we have some good ones here, but these aren't necessarily in order. We feel that these are all kind of equally important. Yeah, these are all just things that you could be doing that maybe should not be doing.

Okay. So for number one of our reasons that you're not swinging is you're trying too hard to swing. that's what I was kind of doing there in the intro is. And actually this is something that, especially when I was younger, I really had to keep in check of sometimes when we really want to swing. Yeah. We bite down. We, oh, I'm going to swing. We tense up and our shoulders come up and we get when we really try so hard to swing or we overcompensate.

The masters of swing are so relaxed with it. No matter how fast or slow. I mean, you have to. This is a light bob your head kind of. Tap your feet. Feel good. Feel good music. It's not something that you can just like push out, you know, of you. Like it's like you're just going to clench down and it's going to be so swinging.

I mean, we joke about the ooh face or the woo, whatever. But that's all just tension. And that only helps you not swing. It doesn't help you swing. Yeah. Kind of counterproductive a little bit. So every time you feel yourself, just notice yourself when you're the next session you're at or the next time you're even trying to swing at home. Notice yourself tightening up, tensing up when you try to swing.

Don't try to change it at first. just notice that you're doing it. And I think you'll be surprised at how often, if you aren't relaxed when you're swinging, how often we're trying to, like, coax swing out with tension? Right. And, I mean, look, trying too hard to swing, that's a noble endeavor in that you've recognized that it's an important element. So you're trying hard.

But the thing is, you need to try hard when you're practicing, when you're listening. We're going to get into some other things about that. But the time not to try hard is when you're playing. Like you've got to let your understanding of swing and be confident in your connection with the music And I think in general people underestimate their ability to swing Even beginner players Like I really believe that this is one of the most easy to grasp concepts

You know, certainly simpler in a lot of ways than say advanced harmony Or playing in all keys or learning complicated tunes And ear training and all these different things I think understanding the feel for music I mean you look at a great jazz listener someone who's listened to the music a lot and doesn't know anything about playing an instrument or how it relates to that,

they can tap their foot and you can watch them at a great jazz show swinging. Yeah, you know what I mean? So like that connection, and I think most people that are trying to play this music actually have that. What happens is when you get up there, you want to be part of that swing so bad

that you tense up. You try too hard, and as you said, it becomes counterproductive. So whatever you can do to just relax, you know, we talk about meditation, but really you just have to give yourself permission to not think about swinging at all when you're playing because if you're not thinking about it,

you can't try too hard. Now that does not mean you're not concentrating on the music. It's just you're not concentrating on, I have to swing. Like you so nicely demonstrated in the intro. Yeah. And so you're going to have problems if you're not actively thinking about it. But the feel and the swing, you can kind of do that.

Not only you can, you need to do that by feel. And this brings us right to number two because you can't just try to swing and then swing. What you need to do is absorb swing and let it just naturally happen without trying. Let it come out of you. Like absorb it by listening to the right stuff. Yeah. So the number two reason then that folks are not swinging is they're not listening to the right stuff. Right. Maybe you're not listening to a ton of swinging players and then you get on a jazz gig and you try to swing and you're like, well, this isn't happening or you try to try to coax it out.

When really, you just have to absorb swinging music and then just let your personality fly on the gig. And if you're listening to stuff and absorbing it, it's kind of come out. Yeah. And when you're listening, so, I mean, of course, you know, we can talk about a lot, you know, well, some examples of really swinging stuff. I'll just throw if you out there, Clifford Brown, Max Roach on Sandoo. You know, we're going to voice some of our. Well, we think so. got some complaints about some other ones we're not even going to mention because people said we care too much we're too we talk about them too much we talk about oscar peterson tintendendo deo and freddie frelitter from win kelly's solo we say we're going to say though no no but but we we have more for you today so clifford brown max randu is a perfect one because it's so friggin swinging and we're going to have a uh spotify playlist right yeah i'll make a spotify playlist right now

link to these these are just kind of random examples but important ones for us in our development and certainly not exclusive or anything, but very important for us and just demonstrating swing so we don't have to talk about it so much. But these are things that if you listen to, you'll start to get the vernacular, you'll start to get the language,

the meaning of what swing is. I really like Grant Green, Miss Anne's Tempo. I think it's from Grant's last stand. Yeah, that's a great one. And then we have... How about a little Amad Jamal, but not for me?

Is that... That's maybe one of the most swinging moments in jazz history. And then Kenny Kirkland, Delphio's dilemma. Also known is Delphio's dilemma. Delphio? I knew that.

Good stuff. I'll follow black codes from the underground. That's right. And then Sonny Rollins, Blue 7, off saxophone colossus. That whole record, it's really swinging, actually. Yeah, so I mean, look, there's those, and you know a whole bunch of other ones,

but you need to listen to them. And then also, you need to pay attention, not just to how they're swinging, because there's all different, I mean, yeah, you're listening and learning the language and the dialect, but also listen to, like, the way that these great players swing. Like, we can learn so much from that.

Listen to the spacing. Listen to when they're not playing. That's not, swinging is not just about, how do you accent and articulate eighth notes. That's just part of it. There's triplets. There's phrasing. There's sort of attitude.

And mainly this kind of relaxed sort of vibe. And that's what's great about YouTube in that you can see, you know, what you mentioned earlier as far as like, you know, great players getting up to play and swing are relaxed, you know, and it's in a flow state of playing. And you can actually physically see that. Even players that sound like they're playing in a super intense or busy way like Chick-Cari or Michael Brecker are super. when you see them play, you're absolutely right.

They're so relaxed. So relaxed. All right, cool. So number three of our reasons that you're not swinging is that you have bad time. Oh, this is a big one. This is a little dogmatic, but it is a big one. But if I want to really, let's say I hear a recording myself and I'm like, that's just, it's not swinging the way I want it to.

This is correct. The first thing I'll do is make a playlist of things that I want to listen to to absorb, you know, the feel that I want to come out more. And then I'll start working on my time. And the reason why you do this is because, it's not enough to understand the groove. You have to be able to place it properly. You have to be able to place your time

inside the groove you're playing with and have control of that so that you can have freedom in the groove, that you can swing at will and be able to control where you place it. If you don't have that control, if you're just kind of playing and hoping it lands in a swinging spot,

it's not going to be swinging. Absolutely, yeah. And so that kind of gets to really the technical side of it. And a lot of times we think about specific technique on our instruments, but part of just musical technique is really working on your time. It's not the only thing for sure. But once you understand the kind of vernacular of swing and the different ways to do it,

you have to be able to place it in the music in a timely fashion. And this does not mean robotic, and it does not mean, because I know some people are going to be like, well, Philly Joe Jones on two-base hit speeds up. Yeah, but it's swinging the whole time. So, I mean, there's a range of humanity in there in the way that we play, but it's relaxed. It's in that flow state of swing. And, you know, I think that, you know, swing is like, we could have just said, look, when it feels good at swinging. That's right.

You know. Number four is you're too dogmatic about what swing is and not dogmatic enough about how to play it. Yeah. So this is a huge one because, you know, you can get, I know, we're being a little dogmatic, but. I love it. Yeah. But we also say, like, you can't be like this too narrow. what your definition of swing is, where you say the swing era.

I know a lot of times people get those confused. And so they're like the big band era or the swing era. If it's not Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman or whatever else was happening just during that time period. Yeah, boo-da. You know, like, and that's great. That's great music. But that music progressed to something else that was still swinging. And that was part of a lineage.

So we don't want to go back and just check that. Jelly Roe Morton, very swinging. Scott Joplin, maybe the beginning of swing, at least from a rag stamp. point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we don't want to go back and get stuck just in that era like we're playing Baroque music with Baroque tuning, and we ignore everything that came after that because you're not going to be able to swing in a modern context. And this is a modern involving music and it's improvised. So it has to be constantly updated. And you're one of the ones, you, the listener, that is updating it every time you play. So you need to find out how you place your story within

the tradition of swing. And that does not mean exclusively in a big band. And I do see some of that dogma coming out. It doesn't even mean in a straight ahead context. I mean, we kind of were talking earlier before we started about Herbie and the stuff in the 70s with the headhunters. A lot of that is, to me, swinging. You know, some modern non-swinging records from people like

Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, even folks like Tribe Called Quest and DiAngelo, I mean, that stuff to me is the same as swinging music from the 50s and 60s. Like, it has the same bounce. Because it's coming out of that lineage and it's updated. And it's not the only way to

And it's not to say that you can't play a big band in this day and age and swing. Christian McBride's big band. I mean, there's a bunch of... No, that's what I'm saying. But it's a much bigger field than I think a lot of people tend to narrow it down to. Because it really is about this relaxed bobbing feeling, you know, this push and pull against time. I think a lot of the meters swings. Everybody looks at them as kind of, you know, not if not originators, but like really definers of a funk, the funk genre in a lot of ways.

and but I see a lot of that, a lot of swing influence on what they do. I know you're talking about Herbie and we talked about actual proof and Manchild and like, I would dare anyone to say that that's not, he's not swinging on that entire,

those records, you know. I agree with it. It's the tension and release between. Freddie Hubbard, CTI. Oh, and all that stuff, man. That's great stuff. Cool.

Well, hope you found this helpful. We do have a bonus, you know. Oh, that's right. We do have a bonus. But before we get to the bonus, don't forget to go to openstudiojazz.com and check out our piano access pass a lot of super swinging stuff on that.

Of course, is from Peter Martin, Jeffrey Keiser, myself, Aalvese, which the Brazilian stuff swings. Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly. In its own way. Absolutely. And if you get a chance, give us a little rating and review of, if you're enjoying this podcast and you made it this far on, give us a rating review of wherever you consume your podcast,

be that Apple podcast, Spotify. We've been climbing up the Spotify charges. Stitcher. We're in the mix and Stitcher. We actually, when we were a Jen and did our live, you'll hear. We had an audience member that consumes this podcast on Stitcher. Yeah, what's up to that one person? Well, it refuted what you believe.

That was nice. All right, so what is the bonus reason why you're not swinging? The bonus reason that you're not swinging is that you play... This is so horrible. Why are we doing this? Should we do it? Yeah. Okay.

You play the... You know, the violin, the accordion, the kazoo, the slide whistle. The trombone. Just kidding. That's a joke. That's obviously a joke. They're all a joke. Yeah, they're all joking.

Yeah. No, you can swing on any instrument, of course. We just thought we'd be a little cheeky there. I'm about to go swing on the Melodica tonight, buddy. Well, you'll hear it.