You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 5, 7, 11...Hey Emmet, What time signature is it?

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Peter & Adam address a listener's question how to identify odd time signatures? And don't miss the special appearance from Emmet Cohen.Referenced Video Link: Emmet Cohen | My Little Suede ShoesHave a question? Leave us a SpeakPipeWatch Live: YHI LIVE Mondays at 4pm ET on YouTubeWant more of Adam and Peter? Check out Open Studio Pro hereWoosh or No Woosh? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know which team you are onSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Interested 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. It is not Thanksgiving, but I'm thankful for something. Hump Day? No. Yes. Well, it is Hump Day, too. No, I'm thankful that this is audio only.

Oh, I know. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Music, advice, inspiration, and your burning questions answered. Burning questions. Let's speak by Wednesday, Peter. And it's our audio-only podcast.

And I'm so thankful because there's just, there's some microphones that goes into a little box. We're going old school. We're going old school. We are relaxed here. I want to put my feet up on the, on top of that turntable there and kick it over. For our dear listeners who don't know, we do,

we have our, we've got our hands in many pots. That's right. Is that what they say? Many, we're stirring a lot of, we're stirring a lot of, spinning plates.

We're like witches in Salem's stirring up. I'm, Caldrons of crap. We have, uh, eye of newt and a, and we've got a bad cable. No,

no, we do a lot of different stuff. We were just doing a live video and all, were we actually doing it? Nope. Nope, no, we were. I mean, we technically were, but everything was going wrong. And those are the days where you just feel like,

are we doing, are we trying to do too much? We've bitten off more than we could chew. That's right. And so this is funny, though, because we're audio only, of course. Yeah, well, we look fantastic on the monitors. Yeah, we still got all the monitors on. So we're still kind of acting like we're being visually examined as we do the pod. It's good.

Let's just go live. Let's go live. You know, we have some new listeners. I don't know if you knew about that. We do. We have some new listeners. So we want to welcome them. I check out the analytics every now and that.

Oh, the stance. And welcome you guys. And thank you for the ratings and reviews. We're going to start reading those again. I don't know if you know about that, Adam. We're going to start reading every rating review that we received. We get them a little bit late because of the apples. And we mostly get them on Apple.

Come on Apple. I know. But Spotify, we can start checking in on that. Spotify's getting a little hate lately. Yeah, Spotify. We might have to pull the pot off. Are we going to join? That's not even talk about it.

Is that going to matter? Because we're going to get a warning on our. Please. But yeah, please leave us a rating review, mainly just because it, It spreads the word about the pod that you'll hear at pod. So if you've gotten any value out of this, you can do one of two things. You can send us check. You can Venmo us.

Yeah. But we don't even want you to do that. We'd rather you leave a rating and a review, whether it's good or bad. Let me ask you a question. I don't want to talk about the politics of this, but I had a jazz musician friend on social media was talking about how, you know, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell is of this week pulled out of Spotify. And they were like, why does it matter if these millionaire musicians pull out? You know, they were like, if it were like the little guy, I'd be,

whatever. And I was like, like, like the implication being like, it doesn't matter because they're already rich or whatever if they're pulling out. But I'm like, but do you think you pulling out would make a difference? Like me. Yeah, like, well, yeah, even us. Like, if we pulled off, like, wouldn't make any different. Like, that's the thing. I know. It's such a behemoth, Spotify. Right. I love it. I hate it. I love it. But that's why it is a big, I mean, I really respects the big artist for, I mean, this is not a, we're not a political podcast. So believe what you, what you will. Yeah. But regardless, I always. I always. respect when people are willing to take us. And yeah, people like, oh, well, Joni Mitchell can afford to do that or

whatever. Yes. I mean, yeah, but she's also, I mean, she can afford to never have her stuff on Spotify. Anyway, she's an artist. She's, you know, dedicated her life. And I mean, think about the millions of people that she brings joy to every day with her music. So I'm sure she doesn't take it lightly, not because of the financial ramifications, but just because this is a place that, you know, probably more people are consuming, especially younger folks than everybody consuming her music than anywhere. So, you know, I really respect folks taking a stand. Yeah, me too, me too. Anyway, enjoy us on Spotify and every other part.

And leave us a rating and review on Spotify. Yeah, exactly. Cool, we've got a speak pipe today from Stephen. Let's check it out. All right. Hi, Adam and Peter. This is Steve and Maryland. I wonder if you can give us some instruction on how to identify and count odd time signatures.

Emmett Cohen recently dropped the performance of my little sweet shoes that starts out and what seems like an odd time signature. but I can't really figure out what's going on in it and how the band stays together through the intro. So I'd love it if you guys could take us through it. Thanks so much. Well, I haven't heard that arrangement. But let's just talk in general

because I think some kind of global issues about tricky time signatures. We're talking about five. We're talking about seven. We might be talking about 11, possibly even 13. Let's check out. We can check out Emmett Cohen's version here. of it.

I know, we're probably going to get an ad from Grammarly. Have you ever heard of Grammarly, Peter? They're a sponsor on the podcast, apparently. They are now.

I hear it is. This is out of time, obviously. Yeah. So far. It's hip. Yeah. I think I've heard

Benny Green do this on like shiny stockings maybe. Uh-huh. They're right. Exactly. That's a good arrangement. Okay. Oh, so.

I can tell you exactly what's going on. Yeah, yeah. It's out of time. It's out of time. They're feeling it. What is, the time signature is the melody. So they are just playing the melody together. I'm sure they rehearsed this a couple times.

But it's just like, let's do it kind of like, bo-dugi-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-co-ca-ca-co-ca. Now Peter and I aren't counting anything here. We're looking at each other and sort of like nodding as they are here. Buda-di-di-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-gggggggggkkkkkkkkk And then you're end with the time That's all that's going on Analyze and explain

Hey but you know what? Good ear on you Let's hear that one more time because that is really hip Let's see if Peter Martin can play alone So okay, very important here what That's beautiful, isn't it? Check out what M-A- did here. So Emmett is setting up how fast

these eighth notes are going to be. Yeah. Right. He's telling the band, like, that's about where we're going to be. Right. They breathe. The horns... Breathe. Yeah. The breath is important. Even if you're a piano player, breathe. Yeah, you can even hear this, but the horns definitely give a nodding breath, meaning that when they breathe, you can see the trumpet player's eyebrows go up. They're giving a little bit of... I'm watching it.

There's a little body language. Yeah, that's a four. If you never said... And the rhythm section just has to wait for that eighth note cue. Yeah. It's hip. Yeah. call and response there and the saxophone is not always playing that first note so the trumpet is leading

yeah trump is leading it's better to not play it than to play it wrong but the saxon playing the trump player are literally standing a foot apart from each other they're hearing each other breathe you know what I was walking along so you know what though we might be wrong about this really check this up yeah

maybe that off the there's parts I feel like yeah yeah like quarter note triplets but Dung, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Flexi. Flexi.

Yeah. So, okay, so let's still talk about the question, though. It's an interesting question. It's just, I think it doesn't apply here, unless maybe five minutes into it. No, but it's a fascinating take on it, though. I'm so glad. Yeah. I'm so glad they.

And really, it's sort of, so it's kind of the inverse or the converse of what I was going to say, which is. The converse? Oh, the sock. of what I was going to The Sockney, New York No, so I was expecting it to be, you know, in seven or something And then talk about how

When we play tricky times, whatever, tricky time Odd meters. Odd meters. He was an odd fellow. He was a tricky fellow too. When we play odd meters. Meeters.

What time is it? Oh, you know what? See, we didn't have that coffee today. I know, man. We got all caught up in the, sound and we got a yellow turntable. I don't even know where we are anymore, Peter. Okay, tricky meters. Hey, that Cohen's playing tunes completely out of time here, man. And we can't even get all the time. Okay, yeah.

Fix that for you. Please, Harry, fix it. Harry plays tricky time. Can we get Harry in here to do ourselves? Odd meters. Yeah. Okay. So what I was going to say was we want to make it sound and we want to understand it. We want to internalize it. We want to communicate within the band in a way that does not sound odd to the listener. So this is kind of the converse of that or the inverse. I'm not sure. which is which is which. Yeah. But in that it's not an odd time, an odd meter.

Nope. But it kind of sounds like it almost convinced, like we were trying to find a way in there. Well, I think you could probably play that melody in those dotted quarter notes, recorder note triplets. Like, you could do that.

But that would be another thing because it still has a groove and a flow to it. And it would be in four or four. So it wouldn't be, that doesn't really apply. And even if the drums was phrasing just the melody like he's doing. You know, but the whole point is like,

how can we play with the listeners, you know, with the drama that's conveyed to the listener through just what the groove is or what some people might think is a lack of groove here? But even this has a groove, whether it's in time or out of time, it's a fun thing for us to analyze. But to somebody listening that doesn't sit down to analyze, I think it sounds like, whoa, they're playing in another time. They're going into another dimension.

going to another place and then that's why it makes it so satisfying when they go into the actual four for for groove yeah at the bridge it's that happens at the bridge right yeah yeah so it's got a real like you know kind of you're playing with it and then it settles in it's a it's a tension and then a release there so really they're using this as a as a storytelling thing of tension that starts right off from the beginning the melody's there they're all playing together which kind of heightens the tension because it's like wait is it going to go into the time is it not are we in time are we not yeah and that's for the analysis but even for the listener i think they feel that can i make a suggestion yes i think you should call em at cohen right now get him on the phone i was thinking

about that give me a call just put your speaker up to the mic okay rick be auto style right right right if we could totally do that i'm calling him now we're gonna find out this is gonna be we're gonna have to cut this out if he doesn't answer um yeah so i don't i don't know i think yeah well this will be interesting if he's like you know another thing though stephen if you actually do want to internalize odd times like getting the big Oh The guy doesn't even have his phone on

All right We're going to leave a message here When you finish recording You may hang up Little suede shoes My little suede shoes What's up Emmett Peter and Adam calling you here

From the You'll Hear podcast We're actually live recording And we had a listener question About your arrangement On Little Suede shoes Hey play a little bit Just so he can be familiar With that again

I'm sure he knows it Oh yeah He probably right Super Hip arrangement They were just here All right, cool. Anyway, I was going to ask you if, that's like out of time, right?

Because someone was asking what is the tricky meter or the odd meter you're playing. So anyway, whenever you get this message, hollaback or somebody to text, let me know, is that totally out of time until you guys get to the bridge. All right, say bye-bye to the You'll Hear a podcast. Literally a voicemail on the podcast.

That's the only first. We've had callers coming in. That was a famous callers coming in. That was an outbound. It was an outbound. Not many people. Emmett Cohen's pretty cool. He gets a voicemail from a podcast on a podcast.

On a podcast. That's right. Amazing. Yeah. So that'll be interesting to hear. But let's just talk a little bit about if it was an odd temple, like some ways to practice. We've talked about this before, but it's an important thing. And it's something people struggle with.

Yeah. And I would just say beyond the framing it from the standpoint of like the left hand, like, or you're offhand. If you're right handed, your left hand, your offhand, how do we get it to be able to have the kind of independent? and the agility and be able to do the things that our main hand can do. Well, we got to spend more time with that. We got to spend more time with practice. You got to work on your weaknesses. So it's the same thing with tricky tempos.

That's the first. And do you want to know something that like if you're having problems like feeling the, an odd meter in general? I'm going to fix that for you right now. I really am. So there's a couple of like key ones that you can, Stephen, that you can focus on, five and seven. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So five, you can group the eighth notes into two beats. So the famous one, of course, is Don, right, like an even separation of this one. So what this is is three and then two, right? So you know, one, two, three, four, five. Right, this is like, you know.

Oh, yeah, three plus two. So three plus two, right? So, and the way this is phrased is in a dotted quarter note and then two quarter note clavage. So it's like, Duh, uh, don't, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

now that's not just the rhythm to take five. That's a common clave that you hear in five, four. And you can even do the opposite version of that. You can do two quarter notes and then two dotted quarter notes. So that's like a two three. So it'd be like three, four, five. Dun, dun, dun, uh, done, uh, done, uh. And that would usually be kind of dictated by the melody or something else is happening.

The melody will you say it. And then the other one is seven, four or seven eight, really is you can group it as like, so that's a bar of four and then a bar of three and the way that you clave that is two half notes one two three four dunk dunk dunk one two three four dunk one two three four dunk I can't believe that's what you're playing here that's your that's your we do this clave and you choose that when you could do

oh the theme of the podcast is in this Claveh. So our theme here, Stephen, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, um, dun, um, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, so that's two half notes and then two dotted quarter notes. Yeah. So you'll often hear and see players, especially as they're working on this, you'll see their foot tapping in this clave. You hear them and then you see them. That's right. As piano players, actually, we've got a good advantage here. We can put this in our left hand. Yeah. Right. Right. So my left hand is just playing the clave. The voicing I'm choosing here only moves one note. So I don't have to think about a lot. That kind of work, working on that clave is that'll take you to the promised land so you're not just like, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, three, four. You're feeling like the big beats, right?

Yeah. And then, you know, as you progress, and this could be months, I mean, if not even years, but like. Decades. Yeah. But as you get more comfortable, one thing is like you never want to get locked into with the same way like if you're playing in 4 4 or 3 4 we don't feel the need to always play the one but for some reason and it's understandable why

when we're learning tricky tricky what do we call it why is this so hard for me odd meters and then you make it look so easy odd meters it just rolls off your tongue two short words Peter three syllables so the idea is that like we don't we don't want to do that every time So as you practice, you can keep that same left hand going like Adam says.

So I kind of was purposely practicing not playing any ones. That's right. And then playing your phrases, and this is kind of more advanced, but you could do it over to say that maybe slightly simpler, take five, you know, example clave over the five. Yeah. So try to play a phrase over that. And you can get like a, you know, you could loop a baseline or something

or you could play it yourself if you can do it. But try to play phrases that are not limited to one bar and don't start on the one. that they float over at least two bars, four bars, that kind of thing. Can I give you my Sean Jones hack on this too? Yes. Something else you can practice? Go back to that.

You'll hear it motion and motion. So the way this works out, what's seven plus seven, Peter? 14. Odd meters. 14 is not odd. 14 is even. That's an odd year, though. It's a weird year.

14. That was a tough year for me, age 14. So I do half notes over this beat, right? I keep doing that. Check this out. I'm going to change it up. Easiest gig in the world for me. So what's happening here is,

that so the first chord that Peter's playing here is D-flat G-flat 7 right? Because it's in 7 here when it's on the D-flat and I because I start on the beat on the D-flat it's on the beat the two half notes or the four half notes

three and a half and then on the G-flat it's on the odd on the off beats and then you to play over at least two, well to play exactly right the phrase after two bars it comes back onto the one yeah so that's something that's like really super fun. You're kind of like extending the entire phrase to two bars and then it becomes even again.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I mean, you can do that like part of the thing of like doing these kind of tunes that have baselines. You kind of have to force your left hand. I mean, you should do it with the right hand first as you just explained. But you need to force your way out of always playing on the one for every bar. It's like, because that's all that is is the half note is it's like a device with which you can start to expand beyond just hearing one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. One Tuesday. So like if you, if you, doing it faster one like you start to hear those bigger phrases that go over that so with the left with the bass line it would be like so you just play the one that was four bars right and then they start to feel it feels less odd meter yeah even though those yeah that just rolled off my tongue that was great man congrats yeah you know what he is listen no no no it's not now i messed it up no but you know But it's interesting, like, if you do that half note as the downbeat,

there's seven of those over two bars, right? It's like exactly. So it's kind of like a long seven. Yep. And you can do whole notes and do an even longer seven. Yeah, or dotted half. Like, what would it be like? One, two, three, one, two, okay.

I'm starting to breathe out the wrong nostril. We got to stop this. That was good. That's fun. Well, let me see if I'm going to call back. Maybe he lost my number. I don't know what's happening. Anyway, if we get an answer.

from him, we will confirm what we believe to be true based upon our intuitive sense. We think so. We think so. But we could be wrong about that. But we'll confirm it next episode whenever we hear it back. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. I'm just getting a message from Emmett. Wait, let's check this out. All right. And I'm in Mexico right now. Sorry, Mr. Call.

Yeah, so that thing is totally out of time that's cued by the horn. B do do do... Bda-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Who called? Come on. da, da, da, da, da, da, do, de, da. And it's just kind of this little figure that happens. A friend of mine, Tim Jago put that together at the University of Miami many, many, many years ago,

and I've been kind of expanding upon it ever since. But yeah, that's the story. All right. Well, there you have it. Bam. There you go. The man himself. That's right.

Thank you, Stephen, for the speak pipe. Thank you, Emma Cohen. Yep. For responding to your voicemails in a timely manner. And we're doing this all in real time. That's how we do it. That's how we do it. Until next time.

You'll hear it.