You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Hip Ways to Get Where You're Goin'

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

On this episode, Peter and Adam give you 7 cool transitional phrases you can use to spice up your playing.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 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What's up? You'll hear it. Premium. Coming at you, we're excited about this new program because it puts us at the piano where we belong. How many times have we been told, get over by the piano where you belong? More than is appropriate. Right. But again, it's so true. So today, what we've got for you guys is seven ways. We actually have six ways, but we're confident that we're going to come through on a bonus seven.

By the time we get there, we'll have it. Because how do we know where we're going if we don't know where we're coming from? And this is this is premium, buddy. Oh, this is premium. All right, let's get together. Okay. So these are ideas. is the idea is, you know, seven hip ways to get where you're going, right? So we all know that

there's situations where we come where it's like 5-1, 36, 251, 1-4-3-6-2-5, you know, sometimes we just have to go someplace. But why don't we make the journey a little bit hip? And sometimes there's that one little cord, that one substitution. So we want to give you some ideas that you can use, try out, and of course, you know, incorporate them into your playing as you see fit, right? I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Okay, so the first one that I realized that I play a lot, and I kept getting asked about it, but I never really thought about it. Okay.

Now I have thought about it. See, I funk it. I went back and funk about it. And this is, you know, I think where I typically would encounter it, or at least it's easy to explain is at the end of the very thought of you. So, you know, the idea is there. It's very standard, very pretty, but a little bit boring. 36, 25, 1. melody super stationary that you can either do you know minor or half diminish

that's a little bit but there's not a whole lot to it so what I like to do is we'll look out okay so what I'm doing three six and then B major yeah yeah yeah so as opposed to like like because actually like a half step above wouldn't really work because I mean it's okay, but it's not great. For a dominant chord. Right, for a dominant chord. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Even if it's sharp 11. So we're going straight major. And then a lot of times I'll just sort of hear, okay, at that point, what do I want to possibly, like that feels like the right place to sub something? Yeah. And so if you think about wherever you are with the melody, especially when it's stationary like this,

as either the major seventh or the major ninth. And that can be a lot of different kinds of things, but here, I think it works good as a major seven. Okay? I'm just doing context. That's number one. Pretty. Okay, my number one takes place kind of in the same arena.

Okay. The same state, in the same zone, in the same. I'm just stalling now so that you have enough time to get where you need to go. Yeah, yeah. In the same area. Okay, you're here. So we have a 3625. Again, we'll do an E-flat.

Now, instead of subbing out the two, like you did so beautifully. I would sub about the six going to that two, and it kind of depends on what the melody is. If you're playing it under a melody, but if you're doing it during your solo, it's super effective because you can dictate whatever the melodic content is. So if I have G minor here is my sixth,

instead of going to C dominant seven, altered or whatever, I'll go a half step below my target. So I'll go to E minor 11. To that F minor 11. So, and you want to try to find some common tones here. So here, the common tones that we can find are really going to be D and A, really the first ones to come to mind. E maybe, if you want to make that Adorian, I don't.

So I would do just like that. And you can actually do this on any, almost any chord. Like if we wanted to go from that two, five to the one, we can sub out. the minor chord a half step below your target again I have F minor 7 here with that G on top the 9 and then D minor 11 to the E flat awesome yeah it's almost like a chromatic approach from beneath it exactly right pretty much always minor 11 right the way you're hearing it it sounds best I think in this context and it sounds best because it's two minor chords in a row yeah it gives our ear that even though you found a couple of

common totally well notice that they're both a minor third you know I think they sound great awesome cool good one I'm using that one I'm using it okay so next we have oh yeah so this is one that I didn't really realize ever what I played but when I went back to kind of find what it was I realized I was like wow what is that but this is like all right we'll stay in B flat I mean no what do we do you e flat Oh. You know, kind of thinking on a solo piano blues violin. He's got his shoulders going.

Yeah, so is. Oh, wait, now I messed it up. Wait, how did I do it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say. That's right. Okay, so sometimes it'll be, it's just a one with the three, like E flat seven over G up to the four.

Yeah. Right? And normally you could think about it as a half, just kind of like what you were doing with the minor 11 half step. So it's a half step below approach. So we're going like G7 to A flat 7. And then if you kept that tonic on top, that's like a flat 13. Yeah. Right.

But I'm going up to that minor third. But I've still got that G7 going, yeah, major seventh and the dominant 7. But because you're about to resolve it and that stays with that blue sound, it kind of works. Yeah. And it gives that tension. Well, you know what's so great about that is nowhere in that G chord is that F sharp anywhere a possibility. Right.

But because it has that blue scale sound, that connotation, that E flat blue scale sound, it works. It's a great example of how theory means jack. Exactly. And I think too. Because that sounds great and it shouldn't. Because the voice link usually kind of is sort of like that. But yeah, it could have just as easily if not worked, but it did work.

Okay, so for my second one, I'm going to do something else with the three six, and I'm going to sub the same chord. I'm going to sub out the six. Instead of doing that half step below, targeting the two, I'm going to do a chord that starts with the root of G flat after the G minor 7. So you're my thinking, oh, this would be a tritone sub. It's not a tritone sub. It's kind of a diminutive. You could kind of think about it as a diminished voicing. But it's not really a diminished voicing, and I'll tell you why.

there that is not in the G flat diminished or the a flat diminished which is sort of a sister diminished scale right so I think about this almost as a B7 sharp 11 over F sharp so you can hear that that full disclosure I totally stole this from Bill Evans never mind I think he even did something like that you know But I love this for a 3625, especially if you're doing something roboto. You know, like, one of my favorites. All right. So for my last one here, this is, well, yeah, this is kind of where you're going.

This is more like once you end up where you're going. What do you do? Let's do something hip. So let's change it up to F just for fun. And usually like a turnaround or something. boring. So you've got all that time, two bars where you're just sitting on an F major or doing some kind of turnaround.

How about a little vamp? Could be an ending maybe. One bar, I mean you could do a two beats too, but I'd like to kind of sit there for middle. One bar on the F major seven, the one. Then we're going four, minor 11. Then back to the one. That's major seven.

B flat minor 11. And you know, sometimes you can play around with like some resolution or that kind of thing. Major 7. So if you wanted to do it just as a straight turnaround kind of where you're getting to next. Three, six. And you're so close to stealing my next one. And it's one that you love. I know.

That's what got me to think about. No, but I thought this would be a nice little segue to that way. Well, I thought since today's... Because that's over ballad. Since we only have six ready today, I thought maybe the sixth one, though, could be a lightning round of hip ways to substitute the one. Because oftentimes at the end of phrases, especially at the end of the tune, a standard, like a great American songbook standard, you have all this time around the one, right? So this is a great opportunity where you can slide in some really hip stuff. So the first one that I thought of that we were joking about is the, you know...

So that's... Yeah. If we're in the key of F, two, five, and instead of landing on that F, E flat, suss. A little step below. D flat major seven over E flat, I want to think about that. To F seven cuss. I think that's what really makes it hip too, because you're not going to the major seven. I mean, you may go to that.

You could. Yeah. But it's nice. It's kind of. All right, so lightning round. Another one I like to do here, to 5-1 is the diminished. And then definitely I love to resolve it. Yeah, yeah, that's nice.

All right, lightning round. Okay, so let's just sort of see where things go since this is lightning round, because I think a lot of times we like to... Lightning round is fast, man. Oh, okay. So kind of a delayed resolution where you go through, and you know a lot of times I'll just take one type of chord and see how many different places I can go

and try to get a little bit melodic, maybe with the root move. But I think that one was like, so it's, I'm thinking all sort of major six, major seven, A flat major, G flat, E flat, D flat, G flat, yeah. I like that one. But it could also be, and actually, even if you're sitting, you don't have to link up the notes for some reason, if you phrase it right, you can basically play any chord. That's true. I was going to say, one of my favorite ones like this is all major seven chords, but with

that root on top. Yeah, nice. That kind of thing. Yeah, nice. Again. Yeah, because you're moving through it, and the voice leading and the kind of harmonic flow of it is what makes it work. I think one thing you might notice, people might notice, is that we're barring a lot here from the realm of like B-flat, you know, D-flat major.

Yeah. I guess it's more A-flat major, right? But this like, sort of barring from the minor fourth above it. So, because another one I like is, you know, D flat, E flat to the F. That's a good one too. Yeah. And then let's not, let's not look past the classic half step above. Oh, yeah.

It has premium content right there, brother. That's why they call this, you'll hear it. Premium.