You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Things to Listen for When Learning a Solo - #25

Episode Date: February 24, 2018

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I'm Peter Martin and I'm Adam Anus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today we're going to give you seven things to listen for with learning a solo. Let's do eight? I don't know. Seven. Come on. Well, you know what?

I'm open to eight if we have eight, but I bet we're going to come out to just seven. We'll see. Okay, we'll see. Okay. So when you're learning a solo, we're talking about, you know, either transcribing or just even better yet, maybe, just learning it by ear. and we're probably going to just skip over the obvious things like the notes and the tempo and all those kind of things in order to play it. We're going to assume that you're learning the solo. But these are things that you may miss.

And I think the important part of this are things to listen for while you're learning the solo. Don't wait until the end, as much as you can. I mean, it's a lot when you're learning a solo. You're trying to hear the notes, first of all, just to put it together. But these will be kind of bonus things that will really develop your ears, develop your concept, your improv playing. in general. And the first I'm going to say is interaction. So this one's easy to overlook because if you're learning a piano solo on a trio recording, you're obviously focused in on the piano. If you're learning a trumpet solo on a quintet recording, you're focused in because that's

the solo you're learning. But take advantage of that opportunity to learn how that instrumentalist is interacting with others around them because it affects what they play. Sometimes it can give you important clues as to what's being played too. Like, I remember learning, you know, Thelonius Monk's solos, and I couldn't quite tell, like, it would seem so simple where he was going harmonically, but I wasn't sure about it. And sometimes I'll listen for the bass player, and Monk would leave some space, and the bass would play a note that was easier for me to find, and then I would use that to kind of fill in what Monk was playing.

So that's, and that's not even so much interaction as opposed, I mean, it is sometimes, but it's just kind of listening to everything that's happening. But then you can also really listen to the interaction, like between the drummer and the pianist is always fun, between the bass player and the drummer. And if you're learning like a drum solo or just the way a drummer plays on a tune, so important to learn how he interacts with the bass player. If you're a horn player learning, how they're interacting with the drummer or the pianos, you know, all that. So just interaction in general and what else is happening.

I love that. There's so much to learn other than just the notes of what the musician is playing. I mean, the interaction, you can't take that solo out of the context of what's going on around it. And so, you know, don't. Really pay attention to what's happening. I love that. And I mean, the process of learning, the reason we put this first and kind of cautioning you on this,

is even if you don't want to take it out of that context, you know, getting inside of the solo and trying to learn, it kind of forces you out. So you have to be very conscious and make a real concerted effort to check out the interaction. That's right. All right, number two of eight is phrasing. You like that?

I love it. Phraising is an incredibly important thing to pay attention to when you're learning a solo because, again, with the context, right? If you hear a melodic phrase, pay attention to where that solos puts it relative to the melodic phrase that preceded it and that followed it.

I mean, phrasing cannot be ignored. It's as important where the phrase starts and ends relative to the form of the tune and where they are on the solo as the notes that they're playing. It's a huge part of the concept of the solo. So pay attention to phrasing, You know, when you learn a solo, if you're in sort of the analysis portion of it,

you can do a whole analysis of the phrasing of a solo. It's actually a really fun exercise to do to take note of where the phrases start and end and why maybe try to, you know, guess why the player chose those starting and end points and how long the phrases get relative to where they are in the solo. You know, like, I've heard you talk about, like, now you're going to hear, you know, towards the end, the phrases will get longer. And the beginning, the phrases are shorter. Those are all good things to pay attention to.

Yeah, and do it while you're learning the soul. It's going to take a little more time than just saying, okay, I'm going to get all the notes down, then I'll come back. Yeah, yeah. But you're learning it, the total amount of time actually will be shorter because you're learning that phrasing in the context of the actual phrases and the notes as you're learning it, and you're getting it. And, you know, really, along with phrasing,

is the dynamics of the phrase, the shape of the phrase, all that kind of good stuff. Number three, we're on number three, right? I believe we are. These are some good things. I don't know if I'm going to make it to eight. We'll see. We'll see. Number three of our seven to eight things to listen for when learning a solo is listen for the groove.

So we can never separate a solo, especially a great solo, a great performance from the groove that it's being played in. So you might think, okay, before you even start the solo, you've already got the groove down. It's swaying. It's Bosanova. It's Latin or whatever. But it's a lot deeper than that, I think. there's the general feel of what the style is

but what that groove is and how it moves and morphs as the solo goes along has an effect so if it's like a solo piano thing that's all coming from the piano but the pianist is providing what the groove is and I mean when I say groove

this is really you know yeah it could be swing it could be funk it could be you know Latin groove or whatever but it could also be a ballad you know it could be a to feel. It could be a lot of different things. Whatever the group is is what it is, but you want to know how, just like you're learning the phrasing, not just the notes, you want to know how those phrases are, as you're learning them, are laid and set into the groove. So you have to be

consciously, conscious and aware of that. Absolutely. It's just, again, as important as the notes that they're playing. That's how they feel. That brings us to our fourth point, which is the concept of the solo in general, the arc, the ups and downs. All of that, stuff in a broader picture. You know, we were talking about, I was talking about phrasing earlier, and you know, in this, you could consider this the bigger picture of phrasing, right? This is like

how many choruses does the soloist take? Where is the peak or the climax of this solo? How do they end it? How do they start it? You know, where does, where do they take the time to create tension? You know, I got into this

this phase last year of really trying to pay attention to where great solos that I love and know where they were building the most tension because there's always a point where they start to a great soloist will start to sort of diverge from

sweet, groovy things and kind of create a little bit of chaos and a little bit of tension only to be like rewarded big time at the end. I think that's an important thing to pay attention to so make sure that you pay attention to the entire overarching concept of the solo. Yeah and again do that

Don't wait till the end. I mean, I can't stress this enough. I made this mistake a lot. Like, music is to be learned in a, I really believe, in a holistic and organic way as much as possible, as opposed to breaking all these different elements apart and learning them in separate sweeps through the solo. As much as this you can get as you go.

And I would even say that same thing as for learning tunes in general. Like, I love to really work on a tune and learn it and memorize it at the same like while I'm learning it and so that means you got to go slow it a little bit deeper but by the time you get to the end of it you have a understanding of it the dynamics the form the groove and all these things that's a little bit even deeper I think that's awesome so that would bring uh bring us to number five I believe see I'm telling you eight's gonna be harder than you think to get to but we're getting close I got a plan I got a plan okay so for number five I'm gonna say um really pay attention and learn the harmonic concepts of the solo and like how that

interacts with how they're solo as you go, as opposed to waiting to the end and going back and analyzing and saying, oh, you know, at this place, he used this harmony to set up these melodies or whatever. I think this is something that non-pianists have to struggle with, but we might take for granted. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, sometimes it's not only easier to hear with, like, what I'm thinking about is certain substitutions or different kind of harmonic exploration or areas you might go into, especially as the solo gets more developed.

Yeah, yeah. For the piano, you're going to actively hear that in a way that's so debilions. demonstrative with like the other voicing and stuff. Whereas, but it very much exists, you know, with vocalists, with, with instrumentalists in many different ways. But it's great to be able to understand that as you're going because it can help you to learn the soul. Like if you know that it's over an E minor or something and there's like the shift up to

another place and then a shift down, if you kind of understand that harmonic shift, you can use that to figure out what some of the notes of the melody are and then like how it gives it that tension as opposed to waiting until the end. And then you're like, oh, if I had known it went up to G-flap minor, I would have been able to figure those notes out so much easier, you know, again, just sort of a holistic approach to it. That's great. Well, that brings us to our sixth point, which is the tone and the sound of the soloist you're listening to. This is such an important part of learning a solo. It's not, again, about the notes. It's all about the notes. It's not all about the rhythm or the phrasing. Sometimes it's about the actual sound. I mean, all the time. It's about

the actual sound that that musician is producing. That's the thing is the sound. So if you're transcribing a Thelonious Monk solo, there's nothing wrong with trying to emulate Monk sound. In fact, that should be one of your main goals, right? Because how else are you going to learn how to maybe get that sound? Now, you don't want to copy Monk exactly all the time, probably. But if you have a good attorney, you can do that.

You've got to lower you up first. People have been known. But it is one of the more valuable things you can learn is how they get that tone on their instrument. I mean, it's such important information. It's really, you can only do it by transcribing and playing along with records. I think it's impossible to just do it as you kind of think it should sound. You know, you really have to get in there because it sounds different than you think it sounds. Right. You have to emulate it as you're listening, I think. Right. Well, that brings us to number seven. And what I was going to say for that, you just started to do,

but it goes really well with that tone and sound. And then to extend that would be to learning the vibe and the feel of the solo as you go instead of at the end. And so this would incorporate tone and sound and feel and groove and all those things. But I think the way to get this is to play along with where you are in the solo. So let's say that you're learning a five chorus solo of Charlie Parker.

You're learning a five chorus solo of Charlie Parker. This is what you're doing. This is our... You said, let's say. Let's say it. That's the pretext of where we're going here. So maybe the first, you know, day you learn two phrases. That's great. But you're really paying attention, you know, to the phrasing and to what the groove is, to how the band is interacting, all these new things we were giving you. So you deeply know those two phrases. The way to really get the vibe and the feel of what's going on then is to play along with the recording. So you might just take, say those first two phrases or the first nine bars or whatever, you know, play the recording. And I think it was Ulysses-Owins, the great young drumming. from Florida in some of our classes with him, he had this idea about playing it instead of with headphones. Then he said play it on the speaker. Play it on the speaker. That's a great tip. Yeah. And he was talking about for drummers, but I think we kind of extended this just

playing in general. Like if you play it loud enough that you can hear everything, but not too loud that you can't hear yourself. And then you play along in real time with that part of the solo, those first nine bars. And just try to, don't worry about the tone and the sound and the groove and all that. You've got that as you're learning. But take this opportunity just to try to get the vibe in the feel and try to match what's happening so that before you go on, you're already in that vibe and feel and that spirit of the music. Yeah, the idea is to recreate, you know, real world situations by playing it through a real speaker. I think that's a great tip. Well, and I think it's, you know, and it's, you know, we're learning a language and we're learning a particular person's way

of speaking that language. So you've got a video or just an audio of them speaking it. You learn how to say it like them with the inflections and everything. And then you say it along with them to see how quickly you can match their vibe. Okay, I think I have an eighth one. All right, the pressure's on now. So this is to listen for mistakes so that you can feel better about yourself. Does that count? I like it, yeah. Listen for mistakes. No, absolutely, because you want to stay encouraged as you're going through this very difficult process of learning a solo. I think maybe we should just stick with seven. Okay, well, either way. That's a bonus. A little bonus Jonas there. Nothing feels better than thinking other musicians or jive. Pro tip.

Absolutely. You'll hear it. That's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to openstudio network.com slash podcast.