You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 4th Style Voicings

Episode Date: April 16, 2019

It's another Speakpipe today as Peter and Adam break out the Keystation to play some examples of 4th voicings. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.The ending theme song for today's episode is "Children of Now" by Allamass (sent in by listener Mark Ford). To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail]'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. Jinks. Private Jinks. I'm Adam Anis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Here at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you with the third fall start today, Pete.

We're not starting out great, but we're going to end strong. I'll tell you why. Because we have the strength of literature behind us. Literature. Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. Oh, imagine that. Go to Oxfordamerican.org. slash YHI to get some great deals. You can get a year subscription for only 25 bucks. This magazine is one of the coolest quarterly magazines writing all about Southern culture, a lot about Southern music. There's been articles on Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Thlemonia Smunk. I mean, tons of applicable articles to jazz musicians. James Brown, John Cage, eclectic group that they cover over there. Yeah, I've learned a lot about the South, actually, in the months that we've had the Oxford American as a sponsor. So again,

Oxfordamerican.org slash y-h-I. Well, being someone that was actually born in the South and my family's from the South. You have a strong Southern vibe. I do have a strong Southern vibe. And you are from South County, right? No, I'm not even south of South County. South of South County. So you've got a southern bent as well.

Yeah, Missouri is a weird state in that. And if you go to Southern Missouri. Oh, man, watch out. That's the South. Missing teeth and meth. That's what we call. Sorry. Did I get too real?

I'm keeping it real. I'm keeping it real up in here. Yeah. Before we offend anyone else, let's go on. So today we have a user question. Another speak pipe. Thanks to everybody who sent speak pipes. Big shout out to Cape Girada, by the way.

Love you. A little bastion of humanity down there. Today, yeah, we got three speak pipes this week. We want five next week. So if you have a speak pipe, go to you'll hear it.com. Leave us a voice message about what you want to hear or your question or suggestion for an episode. And we, depending on if it's any good, might put it on the, Yeah.

Now, we're so desperate now. We'll put anything on. No, we've only, we've rejected a couple because of political incorrectness. Don't come with any. That's what I know. We've rejected because. Yeah, you know, our bar is low. Our bar is low.

No, no, feel free. Actually, I think we don't. Well, I mean, actually, I'm kind of pleased with this first batch. These are good questions, and I'm glad that, because I know people are shy. Oh, yeah. Or they feel like, oh, once I recorded, it's going to be gone. But you have a chance to review it and do it over. That's right.

Do it over as many times as you want. So when you press a little button, don't get nervous. Yeah. Terry's question yesterday about equipment. If you didn't check out that episode, check it out. It was fun to talk about. Oh, I checked it out. Yeah.

Well, I know you were there. I was there. And it was literally like we recorded it five minutes ago. So this is from David. And he has in parentheses, Los Angeles. Ah. So let's hear what David has to ask. Hi, Peter.

Hi, Adam. I had a question with respect to playing using fourth voicings, either pure fourths or so what style voicings. If you could give us some examples of, your use of these chords and your playing, that would be awesome. Again, great podcast. Love it. Thank you, David, for the kind words. That's right.

Nice to hear some love from the West Coast. West Side. What's up? L.A. So, fourth forcings, yeah. We've talked about those somewhat, I think. Maybe let's break down. He kind of alluded to two styles. So the first is just pure fourth voicings. Right.

So could you maybe play an example of like a typical pure fourth voicing. Well, yeah, that's one fourth. My man, I think David was referring to other. So I guess that would be... Like built in all fourths. Yeah. So there you have D, G, C, and...

Sorry, DGCF. Yeah, these are all perfect for us. But you know, I always consider... Like, we talked about this two weeks ago, I think. I consider that a pure fourth voice. For sure. A sharp four, a tritone. Because play E flat A.

A, D, G. It's a common voicing. That, to me, is in the same class as a fourth voicing. And actually, this one, do we used to call that like, Whitney Kelly or Red Garland or something? Like, kind of two-handed.

Some people, like, you know, Frank Mantooth had that voicing book that had all those, but happened way before he wrote that book. But, yeah, those are very common. And this is all perfect fourths with a tritone at the bottom. Tritone, of course, is an augmented fourth.

Yeah. And really, I mean, for force, you have either perfect or augmented. there's not really a diminished fourth. That would be a major third, my friend. But this one is like, you know, that's just E flat, A, D, G, C, F, F, F, 7. F-7, F-13, even, we might.

But I mean, this, I don't know, I kind of use this, you know, depending on the context, over C minor, like 11, 6-9. Yeah. Like that kind of thing. C-minor 6, I would do like, Yeah, maybe that.

But if it's like a C minor 13 or whatever, I want the B flat in there somewhere. Oh, my God. I know, I know. Yeah. But it's that clash between the B flat and the A. Yeah. But let's, we digress a little bit.

We do. No, we progress. We progress. We need to digress. We do. So the second voicing that David alluded to was the so what style voicing. Yes. Very similar to a fourth. I mean, it's based on a fourth voicing, but at the top of it, we have a third.

Yeah. So play D, G. Oh. Yeah. C, F, and A. So all perfect fourths, and we've got four perfect fourths, and a major third on top. Yep. And then we go up a whole step.

That's your classic. Why did I play that so corny? Baddam, ba-dum, ba-dum. Someone about this key, the key station 49, man. Keyboard does not help you out on cornyness for sure. It's hard to phrase. That's how you realize how much phrasing has to do with swing feel, actually. We always think about the rhythm, but it's the phrase.

I mean, it's all part of it, right? That's so true. Yeah. So, yeah, so these are, you know, can be used. You know, we always talk about voicing. Let's remember to think about them as progressions and how they fit in. We went over this a little bit last week, but think about voice. Oh, because didn't we do something on voice leading?

We did. Yeah. Come on, man. I'm sorry. I put it all behind me. No, but I mean, anytime we're talking about voicings, we're thinking about where we're coming from, where are we going. never a static thing because if you're on D minor and you just sit there.

Boring. Oh, you're bored even by my demonstration. Unless you're going to groove a little bit. Are you going to groove a little bit? Oh, hell. No, it's true, though. It's like, even if you get a hip groove, you got, you know. So we're thinking about where we're going.

And of course, we can move up diatonically with these so what voicings. But what I really like, and Bill Evans definitely like doing that. Yeah. But another way is to move in and out of the pure fourth voicings from the so what. So that would be like. And then the next one, instead of diatonic, we're going straight diatonic fourths. Yep. So we got F, B, and this is the one I was thinking of, because it's sort of like...

Yeah. Like the 13 voicing we had before. So we got a tritone on the bottom, and then perfect force on top. That's good. F, B, E, A, D. So it's like a 6-9, minus 6-9 as opposed to a 13. Totally. And then those are pure force, no, I mean, all perfect force.

So David, maybe the point here to get into this is take both of those voicings first separately and move them around diatonically. It's easy to do in D, but it's harder to do in like B-flat minor. Yes, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, so I mean, you've always got the diatonic, you've got the chromatic, but I think diatonic, look, I'm a guitar player.

I'm just moving my fingers up and down. Yeah. But then B-flat. And we're going Dorian, right? Yeah, for this. But the thing about it, too, like if you start going chromatically, it's definitely good to get those shapes and to get the finger to get the shapes but in the terms of the application

talking about progressions and like using these in a hip way you might be like so you've always got that option and that's really when we're sitting with the exact shapes but also moving in and out of the perfect fourth to the so what ones so another thing oh come on Peter this I'm blaming you for the cord not working

I'm trying to bring the keyboard over to me Peter wanted to tighten up our chord situation tighten it up too much I'll make it work you gotta go to YouTube another suggestion for this David I would do is to get your left hand voicings

together I wonder if this yeah there you're going so for comping you know you can do three note voicings in fourths for pretty much anything and these can be very very effective

you want to get that sort of more modern sound or like that kind of chikaria ish so like if I'm doing a two five one in the key of B flat, a common progression I would use for the C minor 7, I would actually start on F. Yeah, I like that. You know, F, B, flat, E flat.

You got that third on the top. Yep. For the F7, then I'm taking that down diatonically to E flat A, D. And because you're moving diatonically, no matter what, you're going to, it's going to stay in force. It's going to stay in force.

And then for the B flat 6-9, diatonically again, down D, G, C. So you have this. Sounds so good on the key station. Phrasing. And here's another cool one you could do with a different inversion. For the two, starting on the C minor seven,

so we start on C building up. This will depend on your range too. And then do a little tritone sub. Watch yourself. Just up chromatically. You can do this whole thing, these three up chromatically. So again, that's C, F, B, flat.

C sharp, F sharp B, that's like a B7. And then for the B, B flat six nine again. Yep. And that's nice too because, well, both those examples. Yeah. Reaver. Sound.

The next frontier. Those are nice too because for both those ways you just demonstrated, they are, there's voice leading. Yep. You use voice leading. It wasn't just about. This is a hip. No, that one time I heard you, you slipped out.

That one time. No, but I mean, it's like, it's, these are hip voicings, but in the context, like this can make simple voicing sound ultra- hip. Chikaria is such a great, like you ever check out the way he, his voice leading is so hip, like even when he goes to unexpected things, there's so much logic to the way, like his left hand. Yeah.

I mean, his two head of comping is great too, but his left hand comping behind, like it's so easy to get lost in all his hip soloing. Yeah. But his voice leading is ultra advanced, you know, and effective. Next level of this is to go through something like a rhythm changes and just try to get these three note voicings and fourth.

So B-flat major seven, like this is an exercise I like to do because I think some of the voicing that are hardest to see unless you get them in your hands are like diminished voicing in three notes and fourth but check it out. So B-flat major 7

starting on A, D, G now if we want to do like B diminished Wow. Right? G sharp D G. G. Oh, B diminished right, right, right. B diminished, yeah, yeah. So and then of course that works down minor thirds

any of those work But it's an inch, like, you wouldn't normally think of this kind of what we would consider to be like a dominant seven sound, but it works really well. That's that same left-handed 13 voicing we did at the... Exactly, yeah. So I think, I was thinking you were going to do... So, wait, you did? Yep. Which way did you start?

A. Okay, right. And then you went? No, you went... I just flatted that A to A-flat. Oh, that's right. Voiceating, man. Minimal movement.

Oh, wait, let me move this down here. Yeah, now it's confusing. So we go. Yeah. and then it could be Yeah, either one. So another way you could go be I was thinking like D flat diminished.

Yeah, yeah, that works great. And I think this idea what you were saying about challenging to go through voicing, and I like to practice these in both hands. Like these are, you know, in terms of left hand we're going to use them.

You turn me under this. It's been super helpful. Yeah, because because we can use these. Ooh, I should have say this is my special little thing. I know, man, you wasted it. Now I got to hit next level for that.

I got you. I got you. I got you. But yeah, always try to learn your left-hand voicings, you know, four notes, three notes in both hands

so that you can use them as shapes for melodic ideas. Agreed. Okay. Cool. We nailed it. We nailed it. As usual.

Yeah. The key station tried to pull us down. And we do. We still have our... I mean, you're going to have something? Yeah. Okay.

Well, don't forget to go to Oxfordamerican. org slash YHI to get that amazing deal on the Oxford American. $25 for a year subscription. And by you saying, do we have something, let's just clarify, in case someone is like just crawling out of a rock, from under a rock, I guess you don't crawl out of a rock. No. Okay.

You listen to me, man? No. No, but if you're crawling from under a rock and you've been in hibernation for the last 16 months and missed all of our episodes. At the end of it. Has it been 16 months? I don't know. I just made that up, buddy. Come on, big guy.

But, yeah, about so it would be, we're going to give you the ultimate, Peter. Adam's ultimate tip for fourth voicing. But you gotta wait until the end of the episode. Little thing. Well, we're here now. No, we're not here. We've got a couple things we gotta do. What do you got? We've been having some reviews. Which is amazing because we've been slacking

off with asking for them. So if you are new to the podcast, you might not be aware that we are always constantly asking for seven stars, seven star reviews. But we haven't been doing it lately. Well, I know. We need to do it more. Andrew hasn't reminded us. He doesn't care anymore. Seven star reviews only. And that is impossible, by the way. It is not.

We appreciate you writing it in. Yes. Write in vote seven stars. And also as a reminder, this podcast is unofficially now sponsored by Open Studio. Jazz lessons from Jazz Legends. You remember that little place? Yeah, but it's where we are. Yeah, go over there.

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Later. It's not happening. Later. Okay. So should we read a review before we get out of here? I mean, I feel like you really. really want to read a review. Well, I, where do we keep those?

I can't remember a podcast. Buddy. Here we go. This is from Soflah, John. You know what that stands for? Southern Florida. Come on, you know, Florida. That's what I'm talking about.

I'm kind of, I'm from Central Florida, but not too far from Southern Florida. Okay, seven stars. The title is All Time Favorite Podcast. Seven stars, so you're wrong. You can do it. I look forward to enjoying your insights and experience every morning during my coffee and breakfast.

very informational and insightful. I also enjoy discovering new artists and rediscovering artists that I hadn't listened to for a while that you mentioned during your conversation. Thanks again. Thank you, Southern Florida. John. That's cool, man.

We love that, especially, you know, when we delve into, maybe we'll do that in later days this week get into some recordings and stuff like we usually do. That's always fun. So leave us a review and rating when you get a chance

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No, we will. And don't forget to send us your voice question. We need five of these things for next week. If you have a question, now is the time. And how would they do that? A speak pipe, you can just go to you'll hear.com. It's right there. That's right.

One click. Come on, let's do it. Are you ready for the ultimate tip? Yes. Let's give it to them. Okay, so that. Peter and Adams' ultimate fourth voicing tip. So that original sort of dominant seven style voicing? Yeah.

B-flat, dominant. You got A-flat, D, G. How about you throw some octaves on there, buddy? Oh, come on now. Move it around. Yep. It's almost like a modern block chord, right? Take that.

I like it. I was going to do another one, but this is clearly better, so let's leave it with that. And tonight, tonight. It's like, it's a two o'clock in the afternoon. We already know. Most people, like, listen. Have you seen this recurring thing about coffee and breakfast? People are listening to it.

So we got to, well, we drink coffee sometimes. And then one guy said he usually finishes the episode on the can. I was like, what? All right. TMI. We're going to end here with a listener tune. Send your tune to Andrew at openstadio network.com if you want to hear it on the podcast at the end.

This is Children of Now from the band All Amass. This was sent in by our listener, Mark Ford. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Mark. You'll hear it.