You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Super Slick Chords (And How to Use Them)

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

On this episode of You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam hook you up with some chords you can add to almost any tune to increase its slickness.This episode of You'll Hear It is sponsored by Anytune. If you want to improve your jazz playing and transcription skills, Anytune is the #1 tool you need. Just load any track you want into the app, and Anytune allows you to change the speed, loop sections, change the pitch to a different key, and so much more. For more information, go to https://anytune.us/youllhearit/Want every Open Studio course for free? That's right - over 300 hours and 1200 lessons can be yours with free lifetime access! All you have to do is enter Open Studio's 2019 Holiday Giveaway. Go to https://learn.openstudiojazz.com/giveaway/, or watch this video of Peter for more info: https://youtu.be/KsdhVXE5ovILike those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter, hey, exactly how slick are your chords? Uh, super duper extra, fragilistic, calidocious slick, bruh. Interesting. Yeah. I'm Adam Mness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Yule here at podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you.

You sound like you were going to say more? Well, no, we got the headphones back on. I was like, wow, I sound so super slick. You do sound slick, as do you, because we got the headphones on today. You got some chorus or some phaser or something on us? Man, it's beautiful. Nah. It sounds good.

Today's episode is sponsored by AnyTune, a music player built for musicians. Music practice, perfected, learn, transcribe, practice. AnyTune is a professional tool to help serious musicians learn and transcribe music by ear, faster, and easier. A serious app for serious musicians that helps bring more joy to the grind of becoming a great jazz musician. The Berkeley School of Music has been providing AnyTune to their students for over five years. Who? Who? The Berkeley School of music? Yes, teachers love any tune. They can export several versions of a song at different tempos, change the pitch to match the tuning of the student's instruments, record a student's performance so they can listen to every nuance and correct mistakes before they are ingrained, even slow down a specific section such as a tricky solo for a successful recital, and teachers can get any tune Pro Plus for free. Did you know that? I didn't, but I'm excited to know that.

And, you know, I was just thinking about, you know, some use cases. And I want to talk about that hip thing that you found because it's a Mac app also. Yeah, that's what I have. Yeah. And it's on the phone, iOS, or Android. But if you could, I don't know if you can hear that. Yeah, it goes up to the mic, Pete. Oh, sorry.

Like that? Anyway, well, that's Herbie Hancock. We're a tech company. That's Herbie Hancock on. Stella by Starlight. I have this, it's so easy to have this loaded in to your any tune. It can take anything that's on your library already on your phone. But then

as soon as you get that rolling, you can slow it down. I mean, this is slow already. Bro, bro, you have the headphones on? Yeah? Here's Herbie Hancock Solitude from... Oh, he's going next level. He's going next level. Excuse me. So this is at 80. Without losing pitch, back to normal

speed. No losing of pitch. I can go faster. Yeah. I got a loop set right now. Now, here's the game-changing feature for me. This is the killer feature. Change the game, bro.

Change the game. I can isolate the piano. That's not possible. Listen to that. Or you want to do this to the bass? That's right. How about the drums? So you could do bass and drums,

and then after you transcribe Herbie's solo, you could play along with it. That's next level right now. You could take the bass out if you're a bass player, just piano and drums. Look at that. Ryan's mind is blown. It's pretty awesome.

His head just exploded. And the interface on the desktop is so beautiful. Like you see these sparkling colors, and you basically just move the filter to take out whatever instrument you see. Dude, everybody on YouTube can tell, but I've got to tell our podcast, you have an enchanted look on your face right now. You are totally enchanted. That dude, Ryan, intern Ryan's mind is blown, but you're enchanted by any tune. Let's be honest. I've been using Anytune for months now before they were even a sponsor.

and they were so awesome at getting it right for musicians. We preach transcription and practicing along with records all the time. And in my experience, this is the best way to do it. Yeah, no, it's awesome. And so that's actually the play along with the band feature that they have. Mix yourself with the band. Combine any tune with an adapter and practice in a live mix of your song and your instrument of voice at your own pace and pitch.

Create a silent practice studio with an adapter headphones and any tune on your device so that you can... It's awesome. You know, don't play along with the corny play along. but play along with Vinnie Calliuda and Herbie. Yeah. So anyway, check that out.

Anytune. Anytune.us slash you'll hear it. Y-O-U-L-L-H-E-A-R-T. That's correct. That's right. That's not that easy, man. So excited to have the, what is this,

our second day of sponsorship with you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're awesome, man. So today we're talking about four slick, what is it? Four slick,

no, super slick. Come on, man. Super slick cord. Super-slip cord. Super-slipped cord. and how to use them. And how to use them. Well, we might not even say how to use them.

We'll see. And we might go bonus five. But that's the reason we've got the headphones on. And that's the reason we've got... Oh, the key station. Oh, it's gorgeous. I can't hear anything. It's gorgeous.

You know what it is? I think my headphones are of... Because you've been in Japan, I think you've acquired some... I did just come from the future. Well, yeah, you don't have them plugged in, and so that's usually the first step. I love our long headphone cable. I think we purchased that onto the Amazon Basics program.

believe we did. Oh, there we are. Key Station. We got a little better sound. It's still not great. But coming in 2020, we're going to drip a little bit. You know, I'm bad about giving information away. We're going to have the whole new pod cave with the... It's coming... Are we upgrading the podcast?

Let's just say the key station is going to be tossed. It's going to be out the door in 24. Let me ask a question, though. Can we keep the general mustiness? Oh, yeah, that's going to be here. You're going to be here, and I'm going to be here. And Ryan's going to be here. And probably Andrew, too. the mustiness will be there for sure. No, but we thought it would be fun to come up with these super slick chords. Look, how many super slick chords exist in the world?

In nature? Thousands? Probably. Millions? Yeah. I mean, slick is subjective, but these are verifiably slick chords. And we have verified them with the Berkeley College of Music? No.

No, we have not. Sorry. With our own expert opinion. With our own expertise. And for our, you'll hear at premium members, look out on the premium dashboard. You're going to see a PDF of these. That's right. And if you're not a You'll Hear at Premium Members,

go to You'll Hear.com, become a premium member. It's super cheap, and you get things like, you know, PDFs of the episode. And I'll give you a little hint. Wait until, well, you can go do it today if you want,

but wait until Thursday or Wednesday. And, you know what I'm saying? Then join then. And then you're, anyway, you'll be hooked up with a nice discount because we got Black Friday coming. We'll talk about that later. Let's get into the super slick chords.

I think you've, no, is that the first one mine? Yours is the first one. Okay, this is my first one. Now, I wanted to think about how to explain this. Look, what you call a chord doesn't matter. You could call it a bunny rabbit with iguana ears. But don't.

But don't. Don't know. But what I call this is a C-sus 13. No-9. Of course, you can do it any key. I don't know why I said C-sus. So for all you judging music theorists out there. That's all it is.

I think that's pretty slick. So normally you're thinking of a, look, see in the bass. That is your truce. traditional sus-13. Am I calling that correctly, Adam?

You're well more trained. You went to the new school. I didn't go there. You graduated, right? I would call,

yeah, I think your description of this is accurate. But that, this is the chord I'm talking about. You hear how different

that sounds from this? Yes. That's, not corny, but it's a little bit a little jazz handsy. Would you call it? Agreed,

yeah. But you're moving one note that D goes down to a C. So we got C in the bass, B-flat C, F-A, but you've got this triad and you've got this one-two-five kind of shape. I think it's super slick. Yeah, that's very slick.

I mean, on the key station, it's moderately slick, but you put this on a Steinway-Grand or Fezioli. You're going next level. I mean, I think that's slick no matter what. I love that. And actually, spoiler alert, my second super slick voicing is related to this in some way. Oh, well. So on the key of music, bro. Songs of the key of life.

All right. So for mine, oh my gosh, can we even do this? We need, I thought I, I thought I requested a lazy Susan from Andrew, but it never came. Oh, she came. It was an actual person and she was lazy. Her name was Susan. I got a lazy Andrew. I'm kidding.

Andrew's not lazy at all. Big shout out to Andrew. All right. So mine is, it seems, it seems relatively simple. F minor 13, but the way that I like to voice it is very specific. Right. And it makes me think about it a little bit differently. A little bit related to you.

So I like to have an F minor triad in any inversion in my left hand. So we'll do this open 10th, F, C, A, flat. Ooh, look at that reach. Oh, I can hit that easily, bro. I think on the key station a munchkin could reach that easily. But you could do this, like, say here in second inversion. I don't like that.

Well, but so check it out. To make this a 13 chord, all you need to do is put the major 7 block chord in any inversion from starting on the note a whole step below the root. So in this case, E flat major 7, right? So this is almost like

an E flat major 7 block chord over an F minor 7 triad. Now I like it. Now I like it. And it's cool. Any inversion of either of these, the triad or the major 7, yep,

sound awesome. So like this is C, F, A, flat, right? That's the F minor triad. Yep. And then in the right hand, D, E, flat, G, B flat. Yep. E flat major seven in the... Beautiful.

Love it. Love it. I'm all over it. Actually, let's get some tremolo. Not that much. There you go. Nice. Awesome. Love it. Okay. So for the next one...

Oh, man. It's like a lazy Susan. Lazy Andrew. We could call this the lazy Andrew from here and now. Okay, so this one I call... What did I call this? The block chord diminished. literally just made that up. You made that up. Because I never knew what this was, and there's a lot of different functions, but it's basically just this. And then... Now, that is slick. That's slick. That is slick. And I kind of remember when I stumbled upon this, I had been hearing it,

and I think I transcribes, like Herbie or somebody, or Chickoria playing it, but I never quite got the concept until I played it and started moving it around chromatically and really understanding it. But the reason I call it block chord is because it's within an octave. Yeah, well, you have an octave on the outside. Right. And I don't even know if that makes it a black chord. No, but it is in that family for sure. It's blocky. It makes it blocky. Right.

And then the diminished is... On the inside. Not the corny diminished. I mean, I shouldn't say corny. But you've got the... Yeah, on the inside, you've got the D-flat, E-natural, G, and C. Well, but the C is part of the outside. I would consider that, right?

Because you have C on the bottom, C on the top. Ah, that's interesting. But I think about it as part of this because it's the major seventh, which fits so well with that fully diminished. So I have an idea on how to unlock this. this for our folks out there using the corny version, right? So what Peter was playing was C, D, flat, E natural, G natural, and then C on top, right? Yeah. So if you move these outside notes down a whole step, you just get a corny diminished chord, right? Don't be messing up my super slick chord, bro! But that's how you think about it. Yeah. Right? So I have this diminished

B-flat, D-flat, E, G, B-flat. Not. Slick. No. Not slick. Super slick? Move those up. Exactly. You know what I mean?

I like that. Yeah, I never thought about that. But it's always great to have a couple different ways to conceptualize and to hear these because that's how it sorts to seep into your consciousness and into your playing. But you don't think of that as C diminished. No. I think about it as actually as like when you're playing over like a C dominant kind of situation. Like a flat nine situation.

Right, right, right. A little thing that I wrote with Juan Tiesel a few years back. Don't kick us off YouTube for that. Okay, so, and then like, I think with this one, think about it chromatically, movement, but also think about... Minor thirds. By minor thirds, going through the diminished scale. I mean, diminished pattern. Like any diminished concept, you can move this around in minor thirds.

Hello. It's great. Hello. But yeah, I would use this, and I do use this over, like you said, like a C-7, you know, all of those. Just sound great. All right. So my next super slick chord is a G triad over a C. G triad raise up.

Now, the very specific voicing is a four-note voicing where it's literally just... It is not a triad. Yeah, we literally just C, D, G, B. How is that a triad? That's four notes, dude. It's a G-triad over a C. Oh, but that's not over C in the bass. It could be.

It's either way. Got it. But this very specific... Sounds good. That's all it matters. That sounds great. But wait, play that up there with everything. Now, start throwing some different bass notes

because there's a bunch that work on that. Well, this is what I was saying. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no. With your, you know, when you were doing your C-s-sus, no-9, right? This could be D-sus-no-9. Nice. It's the same shape.

Here's like... But I like to use these on, in replacing, like, a major seven chord. You know, I'll just take out the third. You know, I think they just sound great. There's D, A over D, you know, anything. I think they sound super slick. That's super slick. Because look, when we talk about super slick, it has to be a good functional core,

but it's got to be like, there's got to be a little bit of woohoo. It's a little bit unexpected, a little bit like, oh. Yeah. Hello. Well, speaking of unexpected, we have a bonus number five. That's four. That's all we promise. That's all you get.

Oh, wait, no, there is a bonus. There is a bonus. We're going to get to that a minute. First, we want to talk to you about our two sponsors now. First, any tune. We talked about them before. If you want to learn voicings, like, say you hear something and it like passes by and you're like, man, I want to do that. That Chick-Korea, that Keith Gerard, that Herbie Hancock, that Winton Kelly.

Get any tune. It's not going to teach it to you, but it's the tool that you need to be able to transcribe, to be able to practice, to be able to loop, to be able to do all these wonderful things with any of your recordings. Anything you can get into your phone, any kind of track or on. to your Mac or PC, you'll be able to do through the AnyTune app. It's elegant. It's easy. It's got a bunch of features that I don't even totally understand. But what's great is as you dig in and learn more, you can, like, you don't have to use all

the features. It doesn't overwhelm you and bombard you. Like this thing is intuitive. When I downloaded it, I had played with it before. And then when we talk with them about possibly doing this, I was like, let me check out the app. Make sure this is going to be good enough for our you'll hear at listeners. Oh, it's good enough.

Yeah. I mean, literally, I downloaded it. And within like 10 seconds, I was listening to something slowing it down. It's that intuitive. Yeah. And it's that elegant. But it's got a lot of power behind the scenes. The interface is absolutely gorgeous and super easy to use.

That's why it's the highest rated app of its type on the Apple podcast. I mean, the Apple, I mean, on that podcast, of course, ours is the highest rate of that. But on the app store. It's a different story. In Poland. In Poland. Hey, don't be laughing in Poland, man. That's number one, baby.

I'm digging Poland, man. You're kidding me? Okay. So, anyway, go to anytoe. dot us slash you'll hear it in coming days we'll be telling some more stories about how we use it and some more features that it has i think today the big story was about the uh you know being i mean that's i don't i don't know if people totally understood you got you got to play with it to understand this you can put a trio on you can put the bill evans trio on and take out bill evans yeah that's basically

what you can do on that's on the mac app right i'm not sure if you can do that on the we have to play with that on the actual mobile app but you can also take away everything except bill evans so you can hear and transcribe what he's doing without the bass and the drums getting the way. And you can slow it down. You can loop it and do all those fun things. Play along, man. That's great. Yeah. It's called levering technology to be a better jazz musician. Love it. Man, we should have called this podcast. Remember we called it the daily jazz advice? We should have called this that you'll hear a podcast leveraging technology to become a better jazz musician. That's not nearly as catchy as daily jazz advice. Daily jazz advice, but we're also helping

you leverage technology to become a better jazz musician. All right, let's talk about our bonus. No, we're not quite there yet. We're going to give you the bonus chord number five. First, we're going to talk about open studio jazz.com. This is a very exciting week. We have our biggest promotion ever and our biggest giveaway ever because it's our first giveaway ever. But if you go right now to open studio jazz.

com, scroll down and you'll see the nice little thing about our giveaway. Sign up. All you got to do is give your email. But if you want to go next level, there's a number of ways to share to maybe play that you'll hear a theme song where you can get a bunch of extra entries. see it all there. We have three big prizes. Really big. They're really good. Yeah, yeah. They include things like free Skype lesson with Adam,

free Skype lesson with Peter, unlimited access to every course. Let's talk about this. Every course on OpenSitoJazz.com now, but forever. So like let's say next month we signed Stevie Wonder to do a songwriting course. Come on, man. Don't tease me like that. I'm saying what? Let's say we do. Whatever we do. And we've got Christian McBride, Diane Reeves, and Peter Sprague already. So, you know, anyway, it's everything we have now and everything forever. First prize is, is valued over $10,000, swag, giveaway, a bunch of stuff.

So go sign up. It's also your best way. Am I talking fast? I feel like I'm fucking fast. Jeez. I'm not on drugs. I'm on, well, I am.

I'm on caffeine. I was going to say, man. I'm excited. This is a big week. Big week, big week. So go sign up for the giveaway. That's going to be your best way

to be notified, possibly even early about our big Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion. It's going to be important to sign up early. Yeah, you're not going to spam you.

We're going to send you great things. We're going to send you great things. So we're going to keep. Keep ramping it up. Listen to tomorrow for even more teasers. Teasers. And then definitely listen Thursday, Friday, for the real deal. Yeah, because we are toying with the idea. I don't know if we're sure about this of giving something extra special just to you'll hear. The promotion is going to be awesome and it's going to put a smile in everybody's face. And it's going to be the biggest discounts we offer all year. But we're thinking about doing something special that you would only hear on the You'll Hear podcast. So you want to check that out.

So let's go with now the bonus chord number five. Are we still on this episode? We promised them a bonus, man. It's it only Tuesday? Man, if somebody listens this far in, and we didn't give the bonus, that's kind of jive. All right, you got it, you got it. How you like that? I like it.

What is it? Pretty slick, kind of like an oil, like an oil, like oil flowing in the Gulf of Mexico after a spill. Again, it's our voicing here at the top is the same voicing we've used a couple times here on this episode already. That is a massively useful voicing. It is. But this just shows you. So it's very similar to where we started with the C-13, as I called it, no nine, but with the root, but diatonically same thing, but the root staying the same.

So we got C in the left hand and that A, B, flat, B, flat, E flat, G. And I like to call this and kind of think about it as a, um, A flat two sharp. A flat two major seven over C. That's fussy, but. It's accurate, though. But you kind of, an E flat triad over A flat over C. Yeah, exactly. How fussy can we make it?

I don't care. You can call it a purple banana. But the idea is that. that you've got C for sure in the base. So you've got a little bit of that Aeolian vibe, if you're Greek. Big shout out to the frats and sororities. Shout out to the Greeks. What's up?

Giannis Able with Combo! Okay, so it's definitely got that F minor, 11 over C kind of sound. Anyway, I love that. I think I'm rechristening that shape at the top there. That's just going to be the super slick shape. Super slick, you'll hear it voice. All right. So consider becoming you'll hear premium.

You can download the PDF. That'll be up there soon. And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.