You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4 Ways to Practice Voice Leading

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

Peter and Adam list their top 4 tips for practicing voice leading on today's episode. And take a look at Ethan Iverson's blog for the Keith Jarrett interview Adam mentioned: https://ethaniverson.com/interviews/interview-with-keith-jarrett/4 Ways to Practice Voice LeadingBass lineLead line of the voicingInner movementCounterpoint - fluxToday's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let 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, Adam. Yeah. Follow my voice. I'm leading you. Unbelievable. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Barton. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.

Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Don't make me play your games, man. What are you talking about? Hey, I'm tying you to the subject today. Hey, this episode of the You'll Hear podcast is sponsored by the Oxford American. You can go to Oxfordamerican. You can go to Oxfordamerican.org. slash YHI for some really, really great deals.

you know, that's amazing, this partnership we've had with the Oxford American, so many great articles. Great article, in-depth story on John Coltrane, his connection to his birthplace of North Carolina. Amazing to visit, you know, the churches where he first learned music and incredible writing, as always. Yeah, and I was, you know, they sent us over some back issues, and I was just reading that article. It was the music issue from a few years ago. They always concentrate on their annual music issue for a different. geographic area, state or region of the south. And it was Georgia.

It was a great article about James Brown. And I was just looking to see if that was available on here. But that would be a good one for folks to check out as well. But everything on there. Oh, yeah, I started that. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's great, man. Cool.

Again, go to Oxfordamerican.org slash Y-H-I. So why are you singing at me again? Well, because you told me that today's episode is on voice leading. So I'm trying to lead you with my voice. It was a little pun. So you said, voice leading, voice leading. I don't know. I don't know what you're.

I'm not good at music. We just lost 75% of our listeners. As we should have. Yeah, 25% are deaf. They stay with us. No, we get asked this, and I was actually reading some interviews on Ethan Iverson's great blog. He had a great interview with Keith Jarrett, and they talked a little bit about voice leading and how they approach harmony. And I love voice leading and want to get better at it myself.

like ingrained in my playing. But we've had some questions about this too and I thought maybe we could just talk a little bit about some basic voice leading, some principles about moving notes in a way that's not just plunking your hands down on certain voicings. Because as you often say a voicing isn't good on its own.

It matters what happens before and after and voice leading is a huge part of this. Yeah, it's just like a word like what's your favorite word? Well I mean there's some cool words but it's like what are you going to do with them? Like they're in the context of a sentence is where the magic of them happens. And we just want to remind folks that are part of our new, a new piece of our stick, as we like to call it here, because we're like, somebody mentioned that we're

like the click and clack of, remember them? I am honored. I am honored, too. That was nice. We got that in the YouTube comments of jazz. That's my clack. I always thought we were like the kind of, you know, borsh belt of jazz advice. But anyway, as part of our schick, at the end, the very end of the episode, we're going to give

you Peter and Adams. ultimate tip for voicing. This was actually a real way. It was a little bit of a joke yesterday. Yeah, we were kind of kidding around. We're going to jump back and forth. We do have. We're going to change it up. Yeah, we do have some good.

Either that or we're going to forget. But we're going to do it today. So our number one here for practicing voice leading, our number one way, I think this one is the way that you can easiest hear when it's bad voice leading or good voice leading. And that's playing with a baseline. Yep. Pick some changes, maybe a blues or maybe a standard that you love. Comp with your right hand.

and play a baseline with your left hand. Because you're going to immediately be able to hear things that sound good or don't. Like, that's a good sounding baseline. That's right. Now, it's interesting, because when you said baseline, I thought you were going to say that we're thinking about voice leading, actually in the baseline, but you're talking about,

that's another way, but you're talking about with actual still copying, with actual chords. Just so you can hear the chords, but I'm talking about listening for voice leading, in the actual baseline. Okay. Because I do think that's an easy way to hear. Like if you're playing an F minor 7 chord, you know, as part of a 2-5 with your right hand

and you play some bad voice leading in the baseline, it's going to be pretty obvious. Like if you play, you know, an F-A-C, it's going to be weird. Or even like F-G-D as part of that F-Mite. Like it's not going to be a great way to go to B-flat or wherever you go. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think that this is really the entry point if you want to think about, you know, ways to really shed on your voice leading.

is like starting here and building up. And the whole idea of voice leading is like how do we take the vertical and turn it into the horizontal? You know, from a conceptual standpoint and a baseline is, you know, by its very nature, a horizontal thing. It's moving. It's moving in time.

So let's do this exercise. And this is the easiest most basic way to do it. Let's take a tune like all the things you are. Why don't you do just the roots and add one note between each core change, right? So you have the first chord is F minor, to b flat minor seven just add pick one note that would lead to that b flat minor seven and i think you'll you'll hear what i'm talking about when i you're like baseline yeah add one baseline note between those

two roots oh so we're just baseline got it so exactly and you may some people may question that one when i got to the d flat major um i'm going to d minor so you might think repeat it which you could do and i know i took a leap but i was thinking ahead so i went down a perfect fourth and then down and augment it forth because I know I'm coming up G and then 5-1 I think it works I think it works

but it's like listen use your ears because your ears are going to tell you what sounds good or not now see if you can But it's not always I just want people to know it's not always just the thing

that's closest Yeah or if you do do it close change it up then you know But you'll notice though that those half step leading upwards always sound pretty decent

So that's like kind of a rule that you can hear fairly easily And one thing I did on that I think I started F minor instead of doing a half step on the first one.

I actually did the whole step. And the reason I did that because I was thinking I'd want to do it the next time and I didn't want to... Sometimes there's also like the chest thing of you're thinking a couple steps ahead. Totally, totally, yeah. Surprise is part of this as well.

I wonder Peter if you can do that same section, but maybe intentionally try to... Hell's yeah. Intentionally try to do bad voice leading so they could hear what not great voice leading sounds like. I can tell you some things not to do. Yeah, let's hear it.

I'm just playing something wrong. notes do though. Is that okay? No, I mean, but that's bad voice leading. You know, these are all parts of it. It's, I think doing this exercise where you just have these changes where you're adding one passing tone in between each change is a great way of, of being able to hear very easily what sounds good and doesn't. Yeah. And I think the goal of this, and you, you know, you can certainly see this in isolation where you don't have, you know, four part harmony, three part or bigger voicing that you're trying to voice lead in is that you're trying to create a melody. And so what I just did not only were some of the notes wrong, even if I played correct notes within the chords, but jumping around, like, it's hard to have a melody. Like, there needs to be something than just a jumble of words. Yes. You know, even if they're good words. And it's even in the baseline, actually, especially in the baseline. Yeah. It has to be melodic. Yep. And so, like, if you think about things like kind of classic baseline, it's about thinking ahead and knowing that at that fourth bar, you want to be back on the tonic. Yeah. This is just one way to do it. And so,

It's like, how do you get there? You could do... And that's okay, but I mean, if you were going to go... There's nothing wrong with jumping around, but maybe if I go... And I've been jumping, now walk it down. You know what I mean? Exactly. Just like when you're soloing, you know, you don't just do all arpeggios all the time or all scales up and down.

You know, you want to switch it up. You know why? Because that's whack. That's whack. So our second way to practice voice leading is to practice the leading line of your voicing. This is for pianists. but for arrangers too. So in other words,

getting comfortable enough with voicings and inversions. Sorry, I got to move all sorts of stuff around. Oh, you made me tape that. You're doing it, buddy. You're doing it. I was like, why is he worried

about the slack on this? Okay, sorry. So, the pod cave is small. It's not a big room. It seems like it's a big room. We're in a big room. It's kind of odd that it's such a small. For our listeners,

we tried to get the cables together because, you know, we're on YouTube as well. And now, cable management. I'm not able. to access the key station, which I'm super upset about. No, you got it.

So what I was talking about with this, this lead line of the voicing, is that top note of the voicing almost becomes a de facto melody, even when you're comping for someone else. And you want to be aware of that. It's the most important one to really make melodic, I think. So let's hear it when you don't have good voice leading of that top line, and you're jumping all over the place.

Yeah. I mean, each one, this is like, to your point, each one individually sounds just fine. All right, now play it with voice leading as a consideration. Nice little melodic ideas. Yeah. And I didn't even do it any jump. So it was almost more of a challenge to make it interesting because I kind of kept it closed.

Yeah. This is a very important way to practice voice leading. And I think it's really good, too, to expose some of the deficiencies you might have in your voicings. If you can't voice within a reasonable amount of real estate from your last melody, you probably are missing some kind of inversion or voicing that you need to get. Yeah. And in this kind of situation where, you know, as to your point you mentioned earlier, that when you're copying behind someone

like this is very important the top note because if there is any kind of you know hearing of a melody and attention to voicing it's going to be that top note oh yeah and if you're accompanying a singer this is crucial the skill to have

because you can really help them hear you know I mean a good singer is going to be able to hear anything but if you're clashing with them it gets really hard for them you know all right next we have yeah sorry are you done with that part

yeah can we move on now I'm all done okay good voice leading is like a good friendship. You got to know when to push things forward. I was definitely clashing there. All right. Number three, we have inner movement.

Inner movement, right? So this is kind of next level voice leading. This is when you really start to take it to, we're on the path to each voice we place has a way to go, has a pathway. Yes. And a way to practice this is with some little inner movements. Okay.

So just like we were talking the other day about being in a minor tonality, that walk down from the root to the major seven to the dominant seven to the six on a minor six chord. Yeah. Is one example of some little inner voice movement to take you, you know, like, let's say we're doing like that kind of thing. Yeah. You have those little motions where you know what your next voicing is going to be.

And so you can kind of put a little bit of voice leading in between. It's no different than the top line of the melody of the comping or a baseline. Same kind of relationship supply. Yeah. And I think a good way to practice this is kind of like what I was just doing where you keep the top note and you sort of rhythmically add that movement only into that middle voice. And I started with just three bass,

note, top note, and middle. Yeah. And then you can expand it out to more. Can you try that again one more time? Yeah. That was bad. That was an example of what not to play. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the thing to listen for, especially as you kind of improvise as you're, I mean, not improvises in a solo, but you're not playing something that's written out or when you're trying to do this on the fly, is listen to where that middle line as a melody starts to lead. Because if you're doing this right,

you should not have, you should have some choices at the beginning, but then every decision you make almost like gives you less choices. It's that whatever the opposite of exponentially increasing. It's exponentially decreasing, almost to the point of like what I think I ended,

like that pretty much, like the top note can go up, but that needs to be. It has to resolve. It's the same thing. Come on, man. I cringe. I recorded this record,

my very first record I recorded, and I'm guitar, and I have this one moment, I still think about this to this day, because I had a, it was a, it was a 5-1, and the seventh didn't resolve to the third. Come on, Adam. I know, I know. I can't listen to that record. That's what punching is for. I know. Well, I didn't even hear it.

I didn't even hear it. I was so young. Anyway, so number four, this is to get a counterpoint or a voice leading resource and go through some exercises. We talked about this before, but I just want to reiterate that a great book that I've, used to help me understand the basic rules of voice leading and counterpoint is the study of counterpoint from Johann Joseph Fuchs's Gratis ad Parnassum. And it's a classic... That's what we call it a fussy title. Well, but it's like a super old book. I mean,

it's the book that Hayden used, that Beethoven used, that Mozart had an annotated copy, apparently. So you're going to sound like that era, that Hayden era, I mean, you're not going to sound like Hayden, but you're going to sound like that era of voicleading, but it's a great way to kind of, it's such a cleanly written book with cleanly written exercises and really start you off simply and builds. And so I highly recommend that you take a look at that.

The study of counterpoint by Fuchs, that's FUX. That's right. Be careful when you tell you mom, you want that. That's right. And wait until the very end of the episode for our ultimate tip, which I'm actually really excited about because this is good. But I mean, all these I think we're good. The four, let's just review real quick. We had first,

and this is our four ways to practice voice leading was baselines. Yep. Starting on the bottom, working your way up, really paying attention to that melodic movement and the harmonic implications

of the shape of your baseline. Yep. And then we had the lead line in the voicing, which is typically going to be the top note of your voices. Again, starting simply and building up two notes,

root shell kind of situation. Then we had inner movement. Yeah. And number four was counterpoint. Get yourself a good counterpoint. Another one I think I did was, well, the Walter Piston Harmony book.

You've talked about this. Yeah, yeah. I haven't checked that out yet. I got to check that out. I mean, I think they're all good. They all kind of come from different places, but it's the kind of thing, like rules are rules. And yeah, you can break them and they do and the masters broke them, Charlie Parker, J.S. Bach, whatever.

But you've got to be able to hear it first. It's really, it's honestly very helpful to know these classic rules, to know the standard. All right. So before we get into our ultimate tip, don't forget to go to Oxfordamerican.org. slash YHI where you can save big time money on a subscription to the brilliant Oxford American. It's $25 for a full year. It's a quarterly magazine that means that the quality is of the utmost importance, the photography, the poetry, the prose, the journalism. Yeah, the qualities of the utmost, not because it's a quarterly.

It could be bad. The quality is good because it's awesome. Not every quarterly. It's great. But it's so good that you savor it even more when it comes quarterly. It's awesome. It's awesome. So again, that's Oxfordamerican.org.

Y H-I. And we want to encourage folks, you know, we're on a little bit of a rant, a little bit of a crusade for, I mean, not an ugly kind of crusade where you go kill people and takeover lands, just a friendly crusade to get people to send us a speak pipe. Yeah, don't let Zoom from Vancouver. That's right. Zoom wants to be joined by you guys. He does. Zoom has great questions, and we want more of those kind of things. So go to you'll hear it.com to the contact page and send us a speak pipe of voicemail. Yep. Yeah. And you might get featured on a future episode. That's right. Okay. So now are we ready for it?

This is Peter and Adams' ultimate tip for voice leading. So my ultimate tip is to grab a hymnal. Yes. If you're near a church, they'll likely give you a hymnal. But I acquired somehow a Lutheran hymnal years and years ago. And playing through those hymns is such good exercise in voice. I mean, the Lutherans, you know, that's Bach right there. They're serious about their hymns.

And they're serious about their voice leading. So you can get some. some additions that have some really great voice leading, four-part, five-part voice leading. And if you live in a part of the country or the world that there is no Lutheran church, i.e. anywhere but the Upper Midwest. No. I mean, Lutheran, I actually, it's funny because I learned off of a Methodist hymnal. Yeah.

Which is great, too. I think that there's Lutheran light. Yeah. Lutheran light. Relax Luther is. Sit in Lutheran. Well, it's right. I grew up Methodist, but I somehow got this Lutheran hymn. Right.

I grew up a vegetarian, actually. No, that's not. No, so yeah. And then another little tip I'll add in there is just playing them, teaches your voice leading. If you want to go next level, play them, and then omit the part that your voice is at. So like, I'm a tenor, almost like a bass. I could kind of do either one. But if you're alto sopran, just omit that note and try to sink that part. Such a great example. And that'll whip your ears into shape. All right, what's your ultimate tip?

That was. You're not listening, bro? Oh. Oh, good tip, buddy. Obviously impactful. No, I went next level. I said, you're taking it and you're leaving out the note to sing. Oh, you're singing. Okay, got it. Remember you said, oh, that was good.

Okay, well, I'll hear it. You'll hear it. Sorry, I was waiting for it. What's your tip? First of all, you stole my damn tip. I came up with it anyway. You stole it and turned it Lutheran, and then. I thought it was Bot Correll's.

I said that, too.