You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Nifty Bebop Tactics to Deploy Now

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

On today's episode, Peter and Adam give you some techniques to enhance your bebop playing right now.7 Nifty Bebop Tactics to Deploy Now:The double surround "dopio" Cm7Chromatic!Double diminished melodic throw-downTripletsHalf-double surroundDiminished-augmented chromaticismDelay the harmony for the melodyBONUSWant more bebop tactics? Open Studio has oodles of lessons on bebop, and we've got them all in one convenient place for you: The Bebop Pack. Featuring lessons on a variety of instruments from artists like Peter Martin, Christian McBride, Peter Sprague, and more. See for yourself right here.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 and leave a comment for this episode.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey. What do you know about this? That's nifty, but what about this? Oh, how about? Well, what about? Very nifty. Deploy now!

Bebop, deploy! I'm Adam Anus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, we're sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio jazz. Oh, you're just needs.

I've been really into that. I'm sorry. I'll have to stop. You know, get on these trains, you know, where you see it with your eyes first. And then you hear it. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

We get into these patterns of things, and I'll try to, yeah, I know. So why are we talking about deploying bebop tactics? Are we about to go on a bebop, like, war? I don't know, but I am feeling like, speaking of things that we've gotten all, drop down and give me seven bebop tactics right now. Oh, the drill sergeant thing. Yeah, drill sergeant thing. Yeah, yeah. And when I see the word deploy in tactics, I think like, deploy, deploy, deploy.

Exactly. Well, yeah, I was trying to come up with that. Well, no, I thought that this would be a nifty way to, I don't know. You know, we just having fun. Oh, it's probably some military. people listening right now being like, my God, what these guys talking about? I don't like always doing the seven grade bebob licks for your jazzy affair. I don't know.

You know, we're trying to go next level here. Well, this certainly is. All right. So this was, this episode was your brainchild. Let's not oversell it, buddy. Well, I mean, it's obvious with the word nifty. I don't even know what that means. I don't, yeah, I think it means neat.

So, yeah, so we're going to do seven, like, fairly nifty bebop sounds is what I'm guessing, right? Right. Oh, wait, let me look. Is the name of it seven fairly nifty, I think it's seven nifty. Okay. Let's let's be a little more confident. These are tactics. Are these, is this a front? What is this? Well, I do think, um, the platoon, you know, tactics. We, you know, strategies makes it sound like so, um, like a bigger scale thing. I'm going to have a, I mean, really your strategy is just to sound good on every solo. That's your strategy. Tactics, I think, I always think of it as a little bit smaller, a little bit more micro, a little bit more mess. A little bit more meta. These are like little specific

things that are not about, like you don't want to take any of these ideas and repeat them over and over again because you're being in danger of using this as a tactic. So you know what I'm saying? Which is not one of our nifty. That's one of our stale tactics. No, but these are little ones for you to try out and these would definitely be good ones. And

you know, some of them were kind of coming to my mind from the 30 day challenge in January where I was practicing things in 12 different keys. I did a couple of bebop ones and I would consider those little nifty bebop tactics that you could apply really as always these are things to get into your ears to get into your hands if you like them

make that connection and then let it be part of the flow of your bebop playing and not only like oh I'm on a bebop tune no bebop is just it's a part of the language that we can pull out in any situation I mean I was just listening to some some Stevie Wonder what was it some kind of Stevie Wonder where he sort of sold

and he pulled out a little bit of Bebop over like a funk groove you know on the keys a little bit so it's a part of our language just like you know blues and different things all right well let's come the operation. Commence deployment. Number one, you have the double surround dopio.

What the hell is that? I just named that because, you know, we're trying to be nifty. So what this is, when we play it. One, two, three, four. I'll do that again, do that again? Oh, fancy. Well, that can be anything.

It's really just the way I'm starting. And you can use it in many different. So a lot of people know about the surround. But what makes a dopio, double shot, is, so we're seeing, minor, light up keyboard where you had flying V's, what? So you've got

your C minor 7 so we're thinking about that jazz arpeggio. Yeah. So, and this could be 251, it could be wherever you want to go. But as opposed to just a lot of times we'll do the surround, right? Yeah, yeah.

That's a chromatic surround with two. Chromatic surround or even like a whole step on top and a half step below. So this is dopeio because you're going two half steps below. And then you're going two up. and coming down. And even one below again.

Yeah. Or it could be... It's fancy. I like going back below again too. But you can do it in the middle of a line too. Oh, man, dopio. That's like a quadro deployment right there. I love that one.

Drop down and gave me two dopos. So you know what's cool about this one? So we're going to do six more. But, you know, most of the ones we're talking about... This dude, math. They talk about Andrew Yang now that he dropped out of the race. We're going to put a math thing on you, man. No, you know what it is?

So what's great about starting with this one is this kind of has most of the kinds of bebop surrounds that you would use all encompass in this one. Like there's the chromatic, there's the, from the whole step. And we'll get into it. We'll break these down even further as we get into it. But this is a great one to learn first because you're kind of getting all of it. And you can take away or add as you need to. It's great. And then with all these, and we'll try to remember and highlight it as we go.

But think about the rhythms. That's why I counted it off. One, two, three, four. So that's starting on what is that. at the end of four. But these usually, like how they can kind of work and giving you ideas

for implementation of deployment would be based upon if you're starting on, I mean, on a general basic level, on the beat or on the upbeat when we're in 4-4 with eighth note. So if I did the same thing

starting on the beat, one, two, three, four. Or, like, it's a very different sound than one, two, three, four, Sto do, do, do, Bid, de, de, de, do, you can delay. I mean, a lot of,

fun things. I think, yeah, we get a lot of questions about like, what chord tone should be on the strong beats or whatever, and like the thing is. Exactly right. Like, you can, and often the master of this music, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Atholoneous Monk, would delay these or set these in places that were a little unexpected. It doesn't always have to be so

symmetrical. Absolutely. And I mean, when you really start to analyze and understand advanced bebop language, and like, as you say, from the masters, that Disney, Lesby, Ethelonious Monk, a Bud Powell, obviously that, you know, that it goes on and on. But like they seem to have such a huge varied vocabulary

and they do but a bunch of them are kind of subsets with rhythmic displacements and different approaches starting at different beats but the same kind of like harmonic approach to how they're using the melody yeah so I mean yeah it's varied but there's kind of like there's a continuity in there if you learn some of these just be open-minded about how you deploy them and know that there's many different possibilities they're based upon the rhythm awesome awesome all right number two is chromatic okay yes chromatic okay now talk about

ones that can be used in a lot of different situation. This one is probably the closest to like, as opposed to a specific dopio like last night, more of a mindset one. You know, there. Yeah. The key to this, I think, is not to just run. I know it sounds like I am just starting out running a chromatic scale. But how these work is how you get out of them when you leave the chromaticism.

Yeah. What rarely works would be like one, two, three, four. Yeah. I mean, that's right. But check this out. One, two, three, four. Ooh, yeah. Kind of come out of it.

So, but you want to get the chromatic thing. And you can go kind of next level with this. I know this is not technically chromatic, but if you're thinking about it, broken thirds on a chromatic scale, that's why it's so important to like as a pianist and whatever your instrument is, trumpet, you know, it's like really, you know,

broken fifths on the chromatic. You know what? I'm thinking of this as a pianist when we get into this kind of chromatic thing, like there's, because the chromatic scale can hit that thumb almost at any white key, right? Yeah. There's natural places for little turnarounds, and that could be a way to get out of it.

So I don't think you have to go straight from this to like into something else. You can literally do these turns when you hit your thumb. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's a natural thing to do. It's natural. And, you know, it highlights, you know, always with the chromatic, you can actually highlight.

You think it's going atonal, but it doesn't have to be. If you're like, hey, watch your mouth. Oh, at tonal. Okay, sorry. You know, if you highlights different scale tones. Oh, that's awesome. A lot of times you hear that Charlie Parker, like, on. on ballads and stuff, a lot of chromaticism,

but he's got such a great feel for the harmony. Awesome. All right, number three, you have double-diminished melodic throwdown. Come on. Is that... I don't remember. Double? Oh, this is double diminished.

Oh, yeah. Okay, so this one is... So this... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, I was going. So in the key of B-flat, we're thinking about the B-flat major to 2-5 back to B-flat major. So what's that first one? What's the first one?

It's just a B-flat. Diminish triad with the major 7th And then take that up a half step So B flat D flat EA Yeah And then go up minor third To T flat Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

Yeah so you're kind of like And this could also be like a C7 maybe And then C minor 7 Yeah You got that option Could you do E then after that? It's all legal buddy Yep

Yeah and you can be like The idea is you're just taking some of that Diminish but not just a straight Because that's a little corny Yeah yeah yeah And then that gives you some melodic ideas. Oh, that's nice. You know, however you're going to kind of come out of it.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's great. Bam. Double diminished melodic throwdown. Drop down and deploy. I don't know what that is. That was the throwdown. Would you get kicked out of the Army if you tried some of these techniques?

I think so. Oh, yeah. I don't think they allow bebop in the Army anymore. Number four is triplets of various usage. So how are bebop players using triplets that, you're like straight ahead or modern players? So this is one that's kind of basic. and you think, oh, I know that. Oh, let's go.

I'm a basic guy. Yeah, me too. So you've got like, let's see. Oh, yeah. So when you're like the triplet in the middle of a phrase, I think is important. That's a really important. So do. Now you can start out your phrase.

Or booby-de-de-de-de-de-be-dib-d. That's a little bit. It can be a little corny. But if you, do-de-de-de-d-a-bo-bo-le-a-lo. That's great. So one of the ones I did in the intro, This is something I transcribed from, I think it was Bud Powell years ago,

but it has this great triplet in the middle of the phrase. Tap-o-dupa-da-da-da-da-da. And then the usage of the triplet like that is so different. It almost sounds like a different approach, but it's rhythmically the same as... But if we're going do-be-de-de-de, as opposed to biddy-de-de-de-de, like going in one direction, up, down, boo-bib-boo, or, you know,

Bibu-de-bo-be-de-bo-d-d-d-d-d-you-d-d-d-you-down, you know, down and then up, up and then down, one direction. Would you consider the... the 16th, like, turned to be a part of this family, too, like a... It's a little faster. It's a little different. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Clifford Brown busted out a lot of the fat fat, Fats Navarra, I'm thinking. But Powell, for sure. He kind of went through both of them. And there's, it's not a right or wrong, but it's fun to kind of identify it. And if one of them is not, yeah, is not part of your vocabulary, you can add it in. What? Oh. Yeah.

Yeah, something like that. That's great. All right, so number five, we have the, so you did the double surround dopio. So I thought of the half double surround. So this is actually, it's encompassed in the dopio in your first one, but. I love how that's a thing are.

Like seven minutes ago, that was not a thing. Now it's part of the standard vernacular. This is the half double, or the half dopio, or the semi-dopio. Sehedo, Dr. Mepredo, Doepio. Fredo, my son, you let me down. If we're surrounding the sea, it's starting either from above or below by a whole step.

Yeah. and you can either surround it then with a half step, either from below or above, or you can surround it with two half steps and then a half step above or below. What I like about this one is this really gets you,

it can be put in the middle of the line, first of all. Yeah, that's where I think this one shines. Like it's all over the place. Like you can just throw these in kind of at random on any target note that you can pick up. If you throw it at the right time like you are, you're talking, you're back on 52nd Street?

It's 1949. It does. This particular one, I think, is one of the ones that can really give you that, like, that sound that... It does. It does. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, if you feel like you don't have it, you don't quite have the feel in the accents, right,

adding a couple of these in there, especially in the middle of your line. It's easier to learn these at the beginning of the line because you can kind of say, like, you can practice and say, okay, every line I'm going to do over rhythm changes or Donnelly or whatever bebop thing you're doing, you say, I'm going to start every phrase. So it'll be like... But instead of just plank that, you're like everyone. It's a very conscious way of practicing, but it's a good way to start to infuse that sound at the beginning of your phrases.

Then it'll start to come in the middle of the phrases. Just deploy it at random. That's right. All right. So number six, I have the diminished slash augmented chromaticism. So this is a technique that I actually learned from Barry Harris. Just drop that name. Whoa, bam. Barry Harris' name, dropped on the ground.

But, you know, we use these diminished arpeggios, or augmented arpeggios. And between each one of these, you can throw in chromaticism, either two notes between the diminished, right, B, C, D, D, flat, then D, F, A, A, flat, finish the diminished, or...

What? Finish the diminish. Finish the diminished. Or between, like, if I'm doing a G, augmented arpeggio, G, B, E, flat to G, I could throw in from the G to the B. and you know they're all on the beat

they're all on a strong beat or from the diminished and it doesn't matter which one you do like that's the beauty of it it's because they're all these are two symmetrical systems you can throw it between any two notes

in the arpeggios nice yeah finish the diminish I'm going to use that so yeah I'm trying to think of famous Finnish people you call the so yeah

Barry Harris talk about like like da da da da like just throwing and you can, and he would say like you can go as far as you want. You know, you're just a chromatic scale. Yeah. And then you throw in the diminished wherever you want

or the augmented. Nice. Number seven, delay the harmony for the melody. Oh, that's so good. How do you know? Oh, I told you beforehand, that's right. I mean, I happen to know a little bit about Bop myself. Okay, the best way I think I could describe this is just

we're going to think about Donnell Lee, because it's laid out in the melody. Donnell Lee, of course, based on Indiana. The chord changes to Indiana. And then the melody... Or is that Ohio? I don't know.

Indiana. Pennsylvania? Upper Midwest. So we're going... The melody, Donnelly. Of course, you know, is basically a Charlie Parker solo, as it were, as you would do.

If you're an advanced bebop player from Kansas City, Kansas. Hey, hey. As he was. So, but check out the melody. flat major F7 right one two

one two three four A flat major Oh this is hard hold on one two F seven but what the melody We're still A flat major Is that legal? No Yes in Indiana no

Kansas City it is So the idea is you know if you're you know we're stretching this a little bit we're not going crazy with it unless you're Charlie Parker and or an advanced B-Bob player and or an advanced B-B-B-B-B-B player. But the idea is you have to know, you have to internalize the chord changes so that you can float anything above it. Now, we've got an advantage for this delay as pianist, but anyone can like learn the basic stuff on the piano, root and shell or whatever, so that you bam. Then when you improvise and you want to delay like the melody's delay, one, two, three, four.

That's so hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you can practice it either like where you're actually once you get the form, where you're delaying the changes with your root notes as well, or your chords in your left hand, or you can just lock that into the correct ones and then flow above. Either way, you'll start to get that kind of independence that you need. I love it. And you know, you hear the bebop masters do this all the time. They would delay these changes. Exactly. You know why? Because you don't have to do some kind of square robot voice to put everything, you know, in some kind of like grid system. Right. It sounds, Bbop is like, it's a language that's joyous and can float above. Like you think about these changes. A lot of times we look at the page and we're like, it has to

fit in here because I'm a robot. It's four bars, four bars. But interesting melodies can start and finish at any time. And the harmony, the more that you, even if you're floating the rhythm over the changes, but you're always shifting exactly when the chord changes. And that's a little trick. Like a lot of times people don't catch this because they're like, I got the feel, I got the vibe. But you can always tell a more intermediate player when they always, as you said, stick to the grid for the harmony. For sure. And you know, that's exactly right. That's what makes the music human is when we kind of set up expectations for this grid and then go beyond it in a way that's surprising and human. You know, people often compare bebop to like broke music or Bach or something like that.

Yeah. But when I think about box music, I think about someone who was a master of creating these grids, you know, these harmonic and melodic grids, and then who would do something completely human. That's right. And out of, like out of left field and you're like, break the rules, break the rules. And it would always give you stank face. Straight parallel fists. For sure. Against the law. Against his own rules. Yeah. Still did it, but it sounded good. Exactly. Yeah. That's where it's fun.

That's where the fun stuff in. Yeah. So experiment with this, you know, at first, just a couple of beats and just play your phrases and let them organically end without you feeling like I have to shift to the harmony than I'm on now. But you have to, but you got to know the form really good to do this. This is the thing. It's right.

You have to actually be able to play on the grid before you can play off it. See how we do that? We're just like, yeah, have fun or whatever. But then we flip it back with a little dogmatic. We're about to get dogmatic on you. Be one of the cats, but dogmatic. What? Only play on the grid until you're a human.

That's right. Deploy now! Changes. Okay. So today we're sponsored by Open Studio Jazz. Go there for a ton of stuff about Bebop. We have Beat the Bebop pack. Do you? What do you know about that? I love the Bebop pack. People like you and Sean Jones and Greg Hutchinson and Peter Sprague talking about Bebop. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah, that's a nice little combination. Let's link to that, the Bebop pack, because that was a really big thing when it first came out and it's kind of flying under the radar. But the idea is we took really organic lessons from different courses from all different instruments. but things that could apply if you just want to get like it's fun to kind of work on bebop for a couple of weeks like you're still practicing other stuff but you're practicing the language and then you start to it's better than saying like i'm gonna go in a time warp and dress up in a zoot suit suit and pretend like it's bebop the days of beaub don't do that that's corny but how do you bring this language and pull it into modernism so when you see sean jones talk about solo over Cherokee yeah he's not going back in time he's taking the language updating it and placing it in a modern style that's super hip yeah it doesn't mean that you're going to become like a straight bebop music It just means that like you're learning part of American improvised music that is super important. Exactly.

All right. So what's our bonus? Oh, our bonus. Okay, this one is kind of fun and I think I think some folks will know it. But if not, this will be a nice one. So if we stay in the same key here, A flat major and like normally we're going to get all these opportunities for two, five, one. And you might be like, or so maybe a little longer, one bar each. That would be kind of a typical thing to play, B-B-M-op style.

but what about Oh I don't know My cheeks just swelled That's right Woo my lips curled So we're just going Half step up We just do a little half step up

So we got one bar So we got to contract everything A little bit So we got one bar of B minor 7 Two beats each To E7 Two beats

And then B flat minor For two beats And then E flat seven Simple Yeah But we're floating a melody Over it That's organic

And connects it That's the key to this You don't want to be like I am in the grid Because I'm a Bop robot No It's like That's nice.

Yeah, and sorry. But I mean, like, you can, a little bit of well-placed chromaticism from one of our early ones. This rhodes does not sound like bebop. What about this? And then if you combine that with a little bit of chromaticism and a little bit of delayed

and don't feel like you've got to hit the grid, then you'll be on to something. And you don't have to always, like, play a harmony in your left hand either. So if I'm going kind of a thing like that, it could be, or you could go. Oh, that sounds great. Because you're floating it quickly and you're connected with the melody and the rhythm, so you don't have to worry about shifting it.

I love it. Awesome. Well, this is a great episode. Well, let's let the people tell us that. Don't get too excited. We feel like it's good. We're confident. And until next time.

Deploy now. You'll hear it.