You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Things NOT to Do for a GREAT Sound

Episode Date: July 26, 2019

On this edition of You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam take some inspiration from Christian McBride (who you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpUyTXs65wM) and list 7 mistakes to avoid in order to sound great.Are you an entry-level beginner pianist looking to get your first taste on how to play jazz? Check out Open Studio's newest course: Jazz Piano Jump-Start! This is a course designed for novice piano players with no experience playing jazz, and offers introductory lessons on the basic elements of this music. Learn more at https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-jumpstart7 Things NOT to Do for a GREAT Sound:DON'T listenUse a ton of sustainGet real excited/tightDon't use voicingMove your wrists/elbows/shouldersPlay/practice at the same dynamic levelComp for yourself without dynamicsULTIMATE TIPHave you been to the new Open Studio website yet? It's the same great taste with a whole new look! It's got all of the great courses from the old site, plus some new ones like Jazz Piano Jump-Start that are exclusive to the new platform. Plus, we've got a more user-friendly interface, faster load speeds, and new course resources - like quizzes over the lesson material. Visit https://www.openstudiojazz.com/ to learn more!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, Peter. Hey, Adam. I don't sound good. I don't agree with that. Your voice or your... Just in general. You got any advice for that? Poster.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, posture. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll hear podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you from the pod cave at Open Studio headquarters because we are brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJaz.com.

Check out our brand new platform. Have you checked it out yet? I've seen it. I'm familiar with it, and I've checked it out. and I'm loving it, as McDonald's would say, keep on frying. And, yeah. No, it's wonderful.

Did you just tell McDonald's to keep on frying? I mean, that's what they do, right? It's fried food, man. French fries. Good gravy. We have a little saying in the plant-based community. Don't be a, what do you call it, junk food, vegan. Like, you can go to McDonald's and eat French fries only

and be plant-based, hashtag plant-based. But don't do that. We don't work a man. We have a saying in the keto community. community, which is two more quarter pounders, no bun. Two more quarter. Duet mass. Good.

So today we're going negative a little bit, but we're going to flip it into a positive because we're going to tell you seven things not to do for a good sound. Yeah, we were inspired by our friend Chris McBride's video that he made for us called Your Sound is Your Signature. Andrew, can you put a link to your sound as your signature two minute jazz on here? That's our award-winning multiple 100,000. No, we might be up to millions of views on Facebook and YouTube. It's got quite a following.

And it's really just the coolest thing to see Chris. Well, first of all, he's playing while he's talking. He's walking this killer baseline. And he's talking about things not to do on the bass to get a good sound. Because the bass notoriously, people try all kinds of things to get his sound specifically. Because he's got such a beautiful big sound. They always like, well, it must be the bass, but I've heard him play on a lot of different bases. Yeah.

I mean, just like bases that were, we just did a gig in St. Lucia. And they had like a bass from the island there that actually wasn't horrible. but it was like he still sounded like the same. But the cool thing on that too is he's talking about things not to do for a bass, you know, for bass players. And even when he does them, he still kind of sounds good. So he kind of contradicts himself a little bit. Yeah, someone in one of the comments was like, step one, have massive hands like Christian McBride. I think that helps, right?

But I thought, you know, maybe this could be relevant to piano players as well. I mean, I know it is because I see, and I don't know about you, but sometimes I'll see sort of intermediate level pianists who are doing things. And I'm like, oh, bro, if you could just fix that, like, tweet that one thing, you would have so much more. Either control or just a better, rounder sound. Yeah, I love that. I'm so glad that you came up with this topic today because I love the premise of it. The premise is needed. And look, this is, we're talking about mostly pianists.

A few of these things that apply to everybody, though. Yeah. But, yeah, we are pianists. We are pianists. Yeah, let's be honest. Yeah. But pianists do not think about, we don't think about practice, concentrate, talk about our sound nearly enough. Like, bass players are always talking about that.

Man, did you hear a sound? Totally. Like, we're always like, man, do you hear that voicing? Maybe you hear that Herbie line, dude. You're right. It's underappreciated. Underappreciated. Yeah.

So I think that, you know, just thinking about what not to do is important because, and then we need to get onto some of the, what to do. But like a lot of these sort of technical challenges that have a direct contribution and corollary to our musicianship, learning what not to do can really open up doors. Like that's what I really learned from Christian in that video Because it's like, no, tell me what to do you. As soon as you stop doing some of those things, it's like, wow, you actually have a good sound there.

That's right. You're doing things that are keeping your sound from coming out. And it's pianist because it's such an easy instrument to like physically just sit down and play a note or even play a triad. I mean, think about it. You could treat, you could teach anybody with hands to play a C triad in about 10 seconds.

What other, you know, how long would that take on a bass to be able to play a C triad even, you know, first of all, you can't really do it. No. I mean, you can. but that's very advanced, you know. So there's always this assumption that it's easy to get a good sound. So let's kick it off with number one.

Can I take this one? You got it. Okay. Number one is don't listen. Okay. Now, this is a little confusing. So let me rephrase the topic here because we're going double negative. Seven things not to do for a good sound.

So don't, don't listen. So basically listen. Yeah, listen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, if you're not listening to your sound, especially as you practice, it's not going to be good. I know. And this seems easy and.

simple and funny, but it's true. I mean, you have to listen. And I like practice what you said. I mean, we listen all the time, but if you only wait until you're performing on the greatest piano at Carnegie Hall to start listening, you're not going to be able to get a good sound. So you better start listening at your crappy little chickering.

Yeah. One thing we've been doing more of here at Open Studio, Open Studio, Jast.com, is these guided practice routines, and in them, you know, we kind of set them up by saying, this is your opportunity to listen for your sound. And really, that's all you should be listening for it when you're doing the technical exercises.

That's right. Simplify and isolate. Yeah. Definitely applies. If you're running scales, you know, after three or four times, you probably know all the notes. That's right. And you probably are close to having the fingering pretty much by rote after, you know, three or four sessions, let's say. You have it by rote because when you first started learning it, you wrote it down, right?

Okay. Okay. But if you're an experience, especially if you're an experienced player who maybe knows already how to place, you know, your scales. Yeah. When you practice scales, the real purpose of that practice is to, Pay attention to your sound. You have to listen to how everything sounds, how even you are,

how in control of the dynamics you are. Yeah. How light is it? How heavy is it? That's right. How staccato, how legato. Like, you have to make these decisions, and that is the time to work on it.

And when you talk about practicing skills, you want to make sure you are not, you want to be doing it enough so that you do not feel like you're a fish out of water when you're practicing scales. Fish out of it. I got jet lag. Sorry.

It'll get better. It'll get better. I'm trying to get Andrew. Nope, he's not laughing. Not laughing. Okay. So that was number one. He's actively frowning, actually.

He's just totally distraught and bored. Okay, number two. Okay, number two is of things to do for a good sound, and that is use a ton of sustain. Can I clap for this? No, I'm not clapping for using a ton. I'm clapping for not using it. Yeah, if you don't want to sound good,

use a ton of sustain. Yeah. I get this a lot. Anytime I take on any live student, which actually isn't that much anymore, but whenever I do, it's usually the first thing I have to say is, like, why is your foot on the sustain pedal?

Why are you playing so much sustain on everything? That's right. Why is every phrase sound like it's underwater? You know what I mean? The sustain pedal is used as an accentuation. And crutch. It can be a crutch. No, but I mean, if you want to get a really great sound,

you need to develop a legit legato. And to develop a legit legato, you have to learn how to keep your one finger down while moving to another finger. And to do that, you have to tie your foot to the piano bench. If that's what you have to do, do it. Because I promise you, you will get a better sound in just a couple of weeks if you practice without the sustain. Things we have never said.

Wow, you have such a great sound and your overuse of the sustained pedal really contributed nicely to it. It's so true. If you are using the sustain pedal pretty much at all while you're practicing, it's not good. Things that I've never said also is like, wow, I listen back to that recording of myself. I wish I'd use more sustained pedal. Never. Never. Never.

All right. Number three, this is number three of our list of things not to do for a good sound. And that is to get real excited and tighten up. Yeah. So, yeah, when we get excited or nervous or anything that would cause tension, fearful, but I think you're even talking about even in a positive way. No, I think a lot of people try to put energy in by tightening up or get, you know, stank face or whatever. You know what I'm saying?

Well, stank face leads to good sound occasionally. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. So we want to really, and I think this is about, you know, I mean, look, when you get into the flow of a gig and stuff, who knows what's going to happen. But especially for when you're practicing, it's a really good time to make sure that our physical skills are developed and those good habits are in place so that we're putting ourselves in the best position to make a great sound. Yeah. Because it's a lot, it's a technical challenge.

Like once you really start listening and stop using the pedal, I mean, if you do number one and two, number three, you're going to have to do. Because when you listen and let go of that pedal, then you're going to start to be exposed. That's right. You're going to be like, whoa. And so if you get, if you tighten up and stuff, that's going to come out even more. Like with the sustained pedal, a lot of this can be covered up and you can be stank-faced and tighten up and it's going to sound. Well, you're not going to sound great though. No, you're not going to sound great.

And you know what? If you're out there and you're saying, well, what about Keith Jarrett? What about Oscar Peterson? Hello. They are relaxed from about the shoulder down. Yeah. And you know how I can tell? Because they sound great.

Exactly. Like if Oscar Peterson is going, is doing his like, uh-uh, thing that he kind of gets into whatever. I guarantee you that his hands and his wrists and his elbows and his shoulders are relaxed. He's doing that. He wouldn't be able to do it without it. There's no way. He would sound. He would tighten up.

I wonder if we should change this to seven things not to do for a great sound. Should we? No, no, I don't know. I'm not trying to. No, I'm doing it right now. Well, the other thing about that, talking about Oscar Peterson. I'm capitalizing every letter. Keith Jared and Oscar Peterson.

The other thing is like if you think they're tightened up and something they're playing and you want to do that, that's fine. As soon as you sound as good as them in your own way, then you can tighten up. No problem. All right. Number four is don't use voicing. Not voicing. Right.

You want to use voicing. Yeah. And again, we're double-negative in here, so I'm confusing myself. So don't, don't use voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the seven things not to do for a great sound. Yeah. So by this, we mean, like, and I mean, I think that there's a lot of different things.

There's voicing, there's the voicing, voice leading and all this stuff. But in terms of voicing is like playing several notes at the same time and playing them all the same would be not using voicing. We want to voice out the certain melodies and really next level on this is to be able to play each of the different notes with the different fingers in a different way. Different volume, different kind of sound. That's what gives the piano just a beautiful, complex sound. And we typically look at classical pianists and like Horowitz, Vladimir,

I'd be referring to, the Russian brother. You know, he, I think one of his great abilities, and look, they're playing classical music that's written so they can kind of plan this out and practice it. But his ability to voice out with all of his different fingers, these beautiful lines all the same time. It's basically sounded like however many melodies and chords were going on, separate people playing it in their own way, but beautifully.

Absolutely. That's next level. Absolutely. And the easy way to practice this is, let's say you're playing some kind of solo piano arrangement of whatever standard you want. Just make the melody note that's on top of your chords louder than what's underneath them. That's like level one. That's level one.

And then you can try to make that the loudest thing and maybe the bass line, the lowest note, the root, second loudest, and the chord in the middle. middle, third loudest. Right. Then we're getting into more things. But man, I'll tell you what, if I'm on a really nice piano and I'm playing a D minor 11 chord and it's kind of clustered in the middle, bringing out that G all day long.

That's right, right. Well, plus when we want to voice, we talk about voicing out the melody, which is often at the top, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the bottom. But if it's at the top and you're getting like a big, thick D minor 11 or whatever is happening, if you're not voicing out that melody and sublimating those other with a different kind of sound, then melody's not going to be able to be heard and

voiced out. Especially if you start, you know, clobbering the poor old sustained pedal. Totally. You know what sound we're talking about? It just sounds like there's so many notes happening. You know, it sounds like hot doo-doo on a hot summer sailor with sidewalk. But when you hear a great pianist who's experience of doing this, it sounds like ice cream cone. That hot doo-doo has been turned into a beautiful Ted Drew's frozen custard.

Ooh, I like it. I call that doo-do custard. Okay, okay, number five. But yet we digress. Number five. Yes. If you want to sound like total do-do, then you should be moving your wrists slash elbows

slash shoulders a whole bunch. Right, right, right. Lots of random. And, you know, the corollary for this with Christian McBride was what he called the chicken wing. The chicken wing. He's like, don't be doing the chicken wing when you're all in and out, you know.

But it's like economy of motion, not tight, but economy of motion so that all of the energy can be put into the instrument to produce the great sound that we're trying to do. Go look up, who am I thinking about? Oh, Peter Martin. Go look up YouTube. is a Peter Martin playing some fast eighth note passages,

and you'll see just this beautiful, very still, hand-wrist combination. Really, you're not pronating. You're not, what's the other one? Pre-nating. There's a lot of pre-natal care in my playing, I can say it. No, but it's all very even, all very relaxed, and that is, I think, that'll tell you all you need to know,

that you can get this big snap of a sound without having to really, like, lean in or roll or whatever kind of BS that you might be doing. So if we want to, yeah, if we want to think, about like a chicken running across, like a chicken with the wings running across randomly. We don't want that. But maybe a kitty cat.

You know how they have those great cat YouTube videos? Just prancing elegant. No, we don't want that either. Okay, let's move on. Number six. Number six. Okay, don't do this, if you want to sound, have a great sound. Practice at the same dynamic level all the time.

Don't do it. Yeah. Play, you need to. Oh, man. I just like to stay in a nice mezzo forte. Mezzo forte, you're killing me. So, yeah, just because you can play with a great sound at Metsoforte, what happens when you need to, like, you know, play with some phrasing and bring out a line and go up and down, play quietly. It can sound like doo-doo on the ground.

That's right. And the technique that is required to play with a great sound at different volume levels at the piano is not just as easy as pushing harder. That's like, so they have to be all being practiced. They have to be controlled. And it's just as important. It's like, I mean, think about trumpet players or saxophone players or vocalists. How much time they spend at different volume levels trying to develop their sound. how different the technique is.

It's the same thing with the piano, different technique, but it's actually just as challenging. And just as important. And again, I think because there's this myth that playing the piano is just like button pushing,

you know, that we think we can get away with this, that if we know enough... I am a computer. Right, that if we gather enough information will be good, but that's not how it works at all. Like, you have to work on...

Info in equals sound out. And we get a lot of emails just like that about, like, if I just acquire enough information, how I play it isn't as important, but it's actually way more important than you're giving credit to it. So learn how to play with dynamics and practice that.

When you're practicing scales, practice your scales at pianissimo. Practicing as softly as you can get them. Practice them as loudly as you can make them. That's right. All that's important. All right, why don't you give us number seven? And then we actually, I think we do have a bonus for the end of that episode.

But go ahead. Number seven is to comp for yourself without dynamics. So still in the same dynamic kick, kind of in the same realm as you were talking about voicing. But when you are comping for yourself, when you're soloing or maybe even playing a melody, and you're comping for yourself at a, I hear this all the time,

at a very loud level. Right. You know what I mean? Learn how to comp at a different dynamic than what your melodic content is. Absolutely. If you were comping for someone, hopefully you're not just throwing your hands

at the keyboard as hard as you can, like a brick and playing as loudly as you can. You have to learn how to control your left hand and make it a different dynamic level than what you're trying to bring out, which is the melody. And it doesn't always have to be like that if you're wanting to bring it out,

but make sure that that's your decision, that you have control over that and you're not just doing it because you're excited or, you know, especially like if you're building tension or building dynamically with your right hand, that doesn't mean that your left hand

has to go with you in that regard. No, absolutely not. Great. Well, we hope you enjoyed that. That was our seven things not to do for a great sound. So don't get it twisted and do these seven things.

Do not do these things. Am I getting that correctly? You are totally correct in that, sir. Am I not, not. Correct. You are, you are, yes, you are, yes, you are not incorrect. Good, got it, got it. All right. Well, what do we have to talk about today? Oh, you know what I was thinking during this? Actually, it would be nice. Our sponsor, our official sponsors, Open Studio. And we have a new course actually for beginning. We say novice pianists, but it's really just for what we'd say is like kind of an ultra beginner, beginner, beginner, to jazz. An ultra beginner, beginner, beginner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe you, you know, have some good, great classical chops, but you're interested in jazz. We want to invite you over because this month, we just launched it, and we've had so many great folks from around the world. Hundreds have signed up already and are enjoying Jumpstar Jazz, which is kind of our baby.

Yeah. You know, and the guided practice, which could work out very nicely, as you alluded to, for working on your sound as well. Yeah, we do the guided practice. We talk a lot about working on your sound and the guided practice. And those are practice routines, video practice routines where you're practicing with me four times a week for seven weeks. And it sounds awful, but it's going to get you. playing great. That's right. And we go over scales and tunes and voicings and all sorts of things

in those practice routines. And you have no excuse as to, I don't know what to practice, because I'm telling you literally play this. Well, they could have some excuses. Let's not be so dumb. We're trying to take all the excuses away. But check it out. It's been really popular, man. We've sold a lot of these things. Yeah, we have. Ah.

I should have made it better. No, it's great. And the cool thing about the jazz piano jumpstart, too, is that we made it kind of you'll hear it style. Like, we're just kind of doing it like this, but at the piano and with a little more intent behind it. That's right. And a workbook and transcriptions and practice routines and quizzes and a whole bunch of other features.

Go to jazz piano jumpstart. Wait, go to you'll hear it. No, go to Open Studio Jazz. No. Where are they going? They're going to Open StudioJazz.com. Yeah, openstitojazz.com slash. Just go there and then go to piano courses.

You'll see it. Jumpstart. Jazz Piano Jumpstart. Tomorrow. Well, we give our bonus. Oh, we've got to give our bonus. That's right. What do we got? So the bonus, this is something to do. If you want a great sound, something that you can do today to work on that is to whenever you're practicing, whether that's scales or tunes or anything, practice getting an even sound across all your fingers on both of your hands.

I don't want to hear your thumb is way heavier. I don't want to hear your fourth finger and your left hand is way weaker. We will take a ruler to that hand if we hear that. The way to do this is simple. Listen. Listen to play a C major scale and then listen to where the notes are weaker than the others or where they might be stronger than the others and then adjust and be honest with yourself. Evenness is the most important.

The control of the evenness is important. Play the C major scale, see what you can hear. Then play the B major scale. See what you can hear. Play the C major scale. See what you can hear. Play the B major scale. Be what you can hear.

How about that? And until tomorrow. You'll hear it.