You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Ways to Begin a Tune - #26

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list their 7 favorite ways to begin a tune. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Let's talk about intros. My name's Peter. Hi, I'm Adam. Nice to meet you. Hey, how are you? Good. Now we know everything we need to know about intros. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily Jazz Advice, coming at you. We're back at the piano.

We're back at the piano, and we are indeed talking about intros. Yes. But not that kind of introduction. No. The awkward cocktail party. Hey, how's it going? I have my own internet-based jazz education. Man, the most awkward thing for me at cocktail parties recently in terms of introductions has been

that it used to be I wouldn't remember one person's name. You know the whole thing when you try to get them to say their name and they know it. So they're just going to like string you along as long. I wanted to introduce my wife here. And then the awkward time and then, but what I do now is I text people, you often, in fact, and say, what's the name of? What is this guy's name? I get this guy's name.

What is the guy's name with such and such? I do the horrible, like, Hollywood TV producer trick of immediately repeating their name like three times. Everybody knows what I'm doing when I do it too. Like, if we were to just meeting, I'd be like, hey, I'm Peter. I'd be like, hey, Peter, nice to meet you, man. So Peter, you know, and you were like, what's? Peter is such an interesting word. Where did you get the name?

Peter. This guy's saying my name a lot. He's trying to remember my name. I like that one, actually, Adam. I like that one a lot, Adam. I'm going to try to use that, Adam. This is a life hack, but it's a life hack. All right, what do we got today?

Oh, intros. Yeah, we're talking about intros. You know, we did an episode on how to end a tune a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago now, and we've been getting a lot of flak finot discussing how to start a tune. Right. Yeah, so that's what we're going to do. I don't know if we'll make it to seven. That's right.

Well, let's listen to the question, because I think this is a voice question, right? Yep. Okay. Hey, guys. Love your podcast listening from L.A. I particularly enjoyed your seven ways to end a tune, and I was wondering if you could have a similar one for seven ways to begin a tune. tune. Thanks a lot.

All right, thanks, David. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, basically just what do we do to start tunes? Are there any sort of standard intros? And there are, there are definitely. Yep. So let's just go through, maybe we'll kind of go back and forth, and I like to think about them for the kinds of tunes so that we can apply them. So maybe I'll just do sort of a medium swinger kind of one first. So this would be, with the

assumption that the melody is sort of like, like we'll take by-by Blackbird, where it starts on the one, because like really where you're starting, you've got to always reverse engineer these intros because how the tune is going to ultimately start. And look, that could be different ways. There's different possibilities. It doesn't have to be always the same way. But however you're, as the piano, so guitarist or whoever's doing drummer, the intro would be setting things up is where you're going to bring people in to start the tune, that way of doing it. So the idea is that we think about the different sort of buckets that tunes fall into. By-by-Blockbird is like the melody starts, there's no pickup to it.

It starts, you know, on the one, and it also starts on the tonic one normally, the harmonically. So those are the things that we're going to use to kind of decide which type of intro. So one that I like to do is... That sounds an awful like... An awful lot like one of your outroes. Oh, really? Would you think so? That's because it's exactly the same. That's cool.

I like to start a tune like... Yeah, well, that one might not work. But this one works, see? Yeah, but no, that's a great point, though, because I think there's actually quite a few intros and altruits I like to use. Sometimes if it's appropriate, even on the same tune, because that's a great little psychological trick you can play on the old bookends technique, right? Yeah.

But all this is is starting on the flatted fifth. That's right. So we're in the key of F, so you're starting on a B-half diminished. Yeah, we're just going down half, half, half, steps. B-flat minor, A-minor, A-flat diminished, G minor-7. Yeah. Now the idea on this too is that this gives you a little bit of a break, which is nice, similar

to what we did on the outro, and that you could go, yeah, and then, yeah. And so this is a really good one too if you're playing maybe with an unfamiliar rhythm section or like this sort of musically tells everybody in the trio, the rhythm section, the soul, you know, whoever's playing the melody, singing the melody, what to do. I love these ones. Yeah, they're very standard, but they're telling them what to do. Like, once you get to, like, you know, the time, you know, the bass player better come in to do something like that.

Better do something like that, yeah. You've got the two feel already established, the key, of course. There's no, like, is the intro over? Is it just like standard, straight down the middle? I use one that's kind of similar in spirit, but is a little different. And so if I were doing Bob by Blackbird here in F, I would do a C-Dub, I would do a C-D. pedal and I would do this sort of this movement starting on an F major six. It's 1943. What's going on? Something like that. You know, where it's like you're on and it doesn't have to be those exact

chords. You can do it, you know, make it whatever you want, but it's, it's a C pedal, it's usually eight bars, there's usually a break at the end. You know what I mean? It's the same kind of thing as what you're doing where it's, you're setting up the time, you're allowing the rest of the rhythm section to kind of get involved in the time and then set up for hopefully everybody coming in. Yeah, well, no, and I think everyone will come in if you do ones like what you're, like what you're, were just showing, which really the concept on it is pedal point, but you're setting up a pattern, a form pattern that even before you get to the end or even have to look at anyone, people know when it's the end.

Like once you started that, even if they're not counting or understand how this works, they know it's like an eight bar intro. Yep. You know, just the way a great drummer does an intro in a way, it shouldn't be like, oh, why don't you do an intro, give me four bars. It doesn't matter if you say that and I just get an intro, the way that they delineate that the form of the intro is going to set it up. so that you don't even have to think about it, you just come in.

That's actually one of the easiest ways to do a great intro is to look at the drummer and say, give me four up top. I mean, it always works. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Unless the drummer can't count the four. Or can't count accurately in the floor. Okay, let's move on to, those are a couple great ones, let's move on to balance, because this is the time when we really get a chance to stretch out.

Yep. And I'm gonna go with a kind of unconventional one, but it's very simple, and let's pretend like we're doing Embraceable You, and it would just be this. Classic. And then the head nod. Well, you're really nodding at the time. Right. So this is just a Roboto chord, one chord.

And, you know, depending on this, I think for me, when I use this, it's more about where we are in the set, where you are in the recording, where you are in the moment musically, if this is the time to do this, what you just played before. I don't know, sometimes I just sort of hear this. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'll do like four or five minute, you know, avant-garde intro to a ballad. That's another approach, too. This is a daily podcast.

We don't have time for that. We do not. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, there's, like, you know, it's surprising how often on a ballad that just a... Yeah. And it's such a great contrast. Now, you need to do this with, like, really good rhythm section musicians. So that, like, the feel, like, because you're not delineating anything about the feel.

And normally we talk about intros is like, it's a setup. You're setting up the time, the harmony, the form, the feel. the feel, you know, to feel ballad, whatever. So this has to be, there has to be a real understanding there that when you come in, you're going to be on the same page. Yeah, and if you're playing with musicians that you know, this is a great, simple thing to do that really draws the audience in, I find. Yeah, and I mean, you know, almost always it's going to be some kind of five chord.

And this one I like... I use that one. Because there's some, you know, it's a G triad, 13, flat nine, but it's got some foreshadowing, you know, of some things that are going to happen in the tune, which is kind of cool. Yeah, if you give someone a five chord that's a... a straight triad, that's not good. No, that's not good. If you're playing with a singer,

they're going to think that's the key. Right. You know. Yeah, you're going to be here. They're going to be like... Yeah, it's not going to be good. Yeah. So to kind of piggyback on that one, I think a good one, you know, for ballads are really anything,

but that also sets it up... The old grab something from the end of the tune, yeah. Just the last four bars, the last A section of a tune. And now we're in the time. and everybody knows where we are. I like it. Using the melody, using just the last phrase of the melody often, can be a very effective way to start.

Absolutely. And that's for ballads, for modern tunes, for anything. Yeah, no, that's great. Good. Okay, should we do one more ballad one? Yeah. Okay, so I sort of mentioned the sort of free-form thing. I won't do the real long thing,

but there's, again, and this depends on the situation and the performance, doing this at the appropriate time, where it really feels right, so you need to experiment a little bit with that. but that is playing something from an area, an intro basically, that is not going to set things up outside of sort of the mood and vibe. So you're not playing in the harmony. You're not playing in the time. You're not playing the last four bars.

It's almost the opposite of that. Are you trying to mess everybody up? Well, I think there's a time, like, okay, there's a tune that we're always messing with, which is Wayne Shorter's. Infanise. Okay. So I think it works good on a tune like this because the melody is so strong. and because there's already this sort of esoteric melodic and harmonic area at the beginning of because of how it starts. So what I might do on this would just be like this.

You know it's almost like kind of a little bit of spontaneous composition. So but real like I usually use real short melodic ideas and just the sort of beauty of the instrument and just sort of see where it leads you know and I'm not thinking at all like you know even though that's probably where I'll end that five to the G minor. but it doesn't really matter because I can almost do anything. It's just a matter of like when is the sort of

initial improvisation, the intro improvisation finished and then you just go to that chord. So, you know, and it's all roboto gives us some really good separation and then... Oh, actually,

oh, I'm messing out of... Yes, fourth, start the melody. Time. If Wayne heard that. Yeah. If you heard my horrible intro and then, you know, messing up the melody.

I love the intro. I love that concept. And I think that's really cool. I do that, too, with tunes that are even in time, where you just set up a groove that really doesn't have anything to do with it, but it's like you said, short, simple phrase. Okay, you always go back to my high ridge party ending. I love it, man.

But that is one that I would use. I know. Just kind of sneak it in there. Cool, man, I love in these piano episodes. You know, if you have a suggestion for us that you want to hear at the piano. Go to hell. No, just kidding. No, go to You'll Hear.com, which is our version of hell.

No, okay. And leave us your recommendation there. Just pop and say hi, questions, comments, ratings and reviews. Yeah. And yeah, you can buy a T-shirt. You can sign up for our newsletter. Is there anything else they can do? Well, I want to challenge somebody to, did we talk about this, buy me a T-shirt?

I feel like, am I asking you too much? So Peter does celebrate Hanukkah Kwanza and Christmas. And Ramadan. And Ramadan. Yeah, we celebrate them all. It's a multi-cultural household. Yep. And so with the holidays upon us.

Oh, that's right. We're not there yet. That's why it hasn't. Okay. If you want to buy Peter a cassette shirt with the big you'll hear it on it. Yeah. I don't know why. It's not like this cat is like homeless in the street. No, but I'm not that, I'm one T-shirt purchase away from it. Really? You just want to see who the suckups are, I think.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, if you're that suck-up, you'll hear it.