You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Ways to Use Pedal Tones

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

Today, Peter and Adam break in the new keyboard setup with some different strategies for using a sustain pedal.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.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, I don't have a pedal on my keyboard. Can we even do this episode? I don't know. Wait, let me see. Do I have a pedal? I got something I can kick, but it's not really a pedal. Andrew. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to you'll hear it. Podcast about listening and playing music better. That's right. It's our second day in the pod suite. We're starting to get comfortable. It's sweet in here, man. It's sweet. It's really nice. The thing I'm most excited about we're going to kind of use today, right? Yeah, so we wanted to kind of show off our new Flying V Hammer. 88s.

One day we're just going to do an episode just like music, like I'll ask you a musical question. And I'll answer it. My hands. Yeah. So what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about seven ways to use pedal tones. Bam. We wanted to use these hammer 88s to really break them in. And so we

thought we haven't really covered pedal tones or what they are. How do we do 400 episodes and not cover pedal tones? Yeah, they're kind of inside baseball a little bit. A little bit. They're super useful. And now that we actually, we really don't have pedals, so this will be interesting. Yeah, we can't sustain anything, so we'll see how that goes. Got to use that technique.

How are we going to sustain the success of this podcast? Ah, got it? Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Okay, so, well, actually, that'll probably be the first good thing we could talk about. Petal tones actually have nothing to do with the pedal, right? No. So why are they called pedal tones?

Because you are, you have a pedal point. Pedal tones are also called pedal points, right? So you have one usually low note. that the melodies and harmonies are changing over. Yes. That's kind of the most bare bones description of it. So you have one note that stays the same while the harmony and the melodies above it change.

Yes. I like to almost think about it sometimes as almost like a pivot point, if you think visually. Like you've got this place where the pedal point is and normally that's in the base, you know, in the lower end. And then everything kind of pivots above it, especially some of these in particular

that we're going to highlight today. of the seven, whereas that always, you know, not always, but usually would stay the same, the pedal point.

Yeah, and pedal points are used as a way to build tension. You know, it's rare where an entire tune is based off of one pedal points.

I mean, it happens, but it's rare where that's the case. Right. Pedal points are usually rhythmically a little bit ambiguous. Like, um...

Like kind of open? Yeah, there can be rhythm put to it, but that's usually almost an ostinato at that point. You know what I mean? I like it. When you throw

musical terms around big guy. But I mean, I guess you could do a pedal point where it's like, I mean, one of the more famous pedal points, which we'll talk about, is on Green Dolphin Street, which uses that... You can even stay on it, right? What's that? You can even keep staying on. Oh, you could stay in the bridge, but see, this is what,

this is what I was saying about tension. It's building tension, right? And then it gets released, right? And that release of tension in that first ending is so important. Absolutely. But that is a case of a... rhythmic application to a pedal point. But oftentimes, you know, in jazz, we use them to build tension.

You can use them even freely, like, amongst your solo. Like, I'll set a pedal point sometimes on a solo. You know, if I'm on that, maybe I'll do, you know, on that first inning there. Instead of going to the F minor seven, like a two five. Or the five, which is another one we'll talk about. That's kind of a popular one, the five in general, as being a pedal point. For sure. So in general, we use these to create tension and then release the tension by then

going back to whatever changes are with the root. But it's really just keeping a root on one point, one tone. Yes. And then the harmony changes above it. And it could be set or it could be improvised, but that is not that important at this point. Right. And I think just, you know, one thing as we go through these

and then the many other that we're not even going to get to because there's almost an infinite variety of these, it's important to kind of think about the pattern, be it a rhythmic pattern, a harmonic pattern. There's always some kind of a pattern. Yeah. Or even if it's kind of a random pattern. But there's something because you've got that kind of harmonic underpinning at the bottom there with the bass or with the piano.

Whatever is at the bottom and everything's building above it, there has to be some kind of a pattern. And when you kind of identify that, that's really what it's about the different kinds. Yeah. So we're just going to list off our seven favorite these patterns, essentially. Very common patterns that we're talking about here. And like I said, you can set these up in a way that's part of an arrangement. Yeah. Or you can, you know, if you're playing with a bass player and a drummer that are listening, you can kind of set these on the fly.

Of course, yeah. So, all right. So the first one we have is a descending or ascending triad. And this one's actually a little bit unusual, but I think it's very useful for a place like the kind that we're talking about that you can just throw in at any point, you know, not necessarily that it's strictly part of the changes. Yeah, but it can be like Green Dolphin Street is these ascending triads. Right, right. So, like if you had like a C, like a C. C-s-s-kind of a thing.

You can really go to any triad. Especially get a little rhythmic thing happening here. You're building tension here. Right. And you can kind of control it by how far you move away from. And if you were playing with a quartet and a saxophone player and you're backing them, you can set this pedal point at a certain point, right? And that saxophone player is probably not going to be like,

okay, now there's strict harmony to everything. and you can start taking these triads. And it's kind of understood that this is a way to go outside of the chain just to build tension. Yes. And I think also you can use this just as a melodic thing, say if your saxophone play, or any instrument,

but you don't have to wait for somebody else to set up the actual chord. So it could be like, you know, use that idea as a melodic thing where you're playing through the triads. Yeah, it's awesome. That's awesome. All right. Number two is the five over the two five one.

We talked about in our intro about the five being a very common way to use a pedal point. So I would say you could use this. Like say you're playing a rhythm changes, right? Like say you're coming around to your second chorus. Yeah. I would use this and do often use this as like a way, then break.

See how much tension that created? I was pretty much staying inside the changes so that you could hear the form. But if I was actually performing this, I would probably take it out even more. and build more attention. But it's just an easy way on a 16-25- or 251, you throw that five pedal over,

and it just builds all that tension going to anywhere you want to go. No, it's great. And then that really takes advantage of, especially like, as you mentioned, doing it on the second course or later courses. It takes advantage of the form already being kind of set for the listener. Right. So you don't have to set, like that's kind of a...

They're already hearing it. They're already hearing it. Exactly. So that you go to that, it's like an instant. And then you can, can play with the tension and release as you go through it in a much more fluid way. And that can be totally improvised. I mean, you can kind of set that pedal point with the bass player.

It's understood. You know, if you're a pianist, use your left hand to indicate what's going on. Right. You know, and the band will get it. And usually, you know, a good drummer in bass player will then switch up the feel. Yeah. The rhythm becomes a little looser and all of a sudden you have something really interesting. And that instance of the rhythm changes, you know, even if you're doing some pretty advanced playing, it can work.

you know, certainly once, what do you have it, it is 251, you know, but you can even play around with the first part, the ascending or descending triage. Yeah, for sure. I'm feeling these hammer 88s, buddy. Yeah, because when you get the whole point of it, that's what I was talking about with the form is like you've got that, whatever it is, 16 bars until you're going to get to it. Like, everybody kind of knows where it's going just in terms of what you set up.

So the more you leave from that, you have more, I think, of a leash to kind of, absolutely, to go looser on that. Well, and this is why the triads are so important. in the situation because that's the rock that people can cling to. Exactly. The shape of the triad is so familiar. All right, number three. Number three, okay, so this one is

like shifting between so say you're on a B flat sauce, right? You're on a B flat sus. You're on a B flat sus. You're on a B flat sus. You're going out to C. You told me to say it. And then you go Oh, yeah. So it's just a little bit of a change, but you could think about it. I know people think about these a lot of different ways.

It doesn't really matter what you call it, but you've got B-flat suss, and then you go to like A-flat minor 7, A-flap minor-9 over B-flat. Yeah. And then back to the B-flat sauce and then go to a Phrygian. That shape you're doing is that, so you have B-flat on the, the shape you're doing is B-natural E-flat F, B-flat? Yep. The Charlie's Angel at the commercial break.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's really only one difference between that. that G flat and the F. It's huge, but you're using that, then the tension and release harmonic, like this is such a stationary thing.

Even though, yeah, it does want to resolve, but you can sit here forever. But this tension and then release a little bit, and there's even more tension. And a little dark, too, right? But which fridgining?

Is that a B-fridgin? I always forget what that is. You don't know either. Good. Okay. I really don't. I really don't care. I mean, I can just tell it sounds like it from it.

Yeah, I get it in the reason. sound. Frigin is one that I always forget. You know what I'm in Greece, as I am from time to time, and I look up at the columns. I'm like, is that a Doric or Phrygian column?

I'm always getting confused on that. I think that's the nerdyum column? The nerdym column. The nerdium kind, exactly. Woo! We're hitting our stride in the new pod suite. Feels good. Okay.

All right, number four. Yes. Major to Suss. This is made famous. I pulled this from Dolphin Dance. It's just a great way to build tension. So if you have like a long major chord. And there's all different ways to do this, but it doesn't have to be just Suss.

It could be minor. But you're just delaying that major and coming back to it. It sounds really great with this Suss. Yeah. And this one seems so obvious because it is how Dolphin Dance starts. Isn't that the beginning? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we don't use it enough when we could throw it in on a pedal point.

For sure. Because it's not one that's based on the five. It's really the one, and it's like immediately pulling you away from that. Yeah. You know what I like to do? I like to do this move. on, what is this?

Oh yeah. I like to throw in the major instead of the same sauce as like a little homage to dolphin dance. I like to infringe on Herbie Hancock's copyright two times

on one song. As much as possible. All right, number five. Okay, so this one, this is like taking some pattern and moving it down chromatically, right? So I'm taking this

and I always think about that one or two high I don't even remember where it starts you know like getting somewhere to where it becomes a five but it's all it's kind of like the triad's chromatically moving but you can take any shape

even a diminished maybe and then move it as a whole tone so you're going in whole steps it just gives it another kind of shape of its own over the so that's like whole tone descending we call it. That's great. Yeah, like that one.

Number six so this one is kind of a composition technique, although you can use this, I think, to set up intros, to set up outroes. And this, I'm just calling all in the one. This is where you take a nice major chord, your tonic. And there's really so many options, diatonic chords that you can put over this, and chords that are outside of the harmony. I mean, this is going to be very similar to like ascending or descending triads, but it's not really about ascending or

descending. It's about coming up with a nice little cadence, whatever that may be over this major pedal point, you know, this time. So I use these. No, exactly right, yeah, yeah. But I love using these as intros, you know, or even outros, but I think they're really useful as composition tools. And then also, like, when you're writing an arrangement, to use these as a way to go in and out of a tune can be super effective.

Because then when you release from that, you know, if you come out of here, all of a sudden, like, feels totally different than if you're just a way. you would have just started with like, I mean, you don't have to play that corny ever the way I just played it. That's a nice little, you know, dichotomy there. Yeah. Hip and corny.

But like that one like the dolphin dance one from earlier, it kind of highlights the less common, but the main other pedal point. They're pretty much over five or over one, right? Yeah, yeah, it can be over anything, but generally, yeah. Yeah, if you go, I mean, whenever you go to it, That's the way it's probably going to be heard, typically, at least in these kind of examples.

So even if you go to the three or something, it's going to sound like it's pedal pointing the five of a new one, you know, which is another technique. It kind of sounds like a new one. That's the thing. That's why it's a, that's why it's so powerful. Yep. All in the one. I like that one. Okay.

Our seventh and final way to use pedal tones or pedal points, depending on your nomenclature, is, uh, is, uh, oh, yeah, this is kind of a diminished. This is like a variation. Well, there's many different variations on this one. I like this one. This is one that you can kind of throw in at a time, especially like a vamp, before a vocalist comes up or something. So you're not just sitting on a five.

But the idea is you're going to go to the one. So I'm doing this over A, A7, Suss 4. And then the G minor seven over A, back to the A7 Suss. And then G minor set, G minor, major seven. So this is kind of similar to that earlier one when we did the sort of friggin that we didn't know. But it's like setting up a pattern of four.

So like if you extend this out, and then you can add in some of the whole tone stuff or chromatic or whatever if you want to get more attention. But I find myself, you know, it's funny. Like you never think we're going to keep finding ourselves in these situations where you just have to kind of play something until something else happens on stage. It's almost like musical theater, you know. I like it for that. So there you go. There's seven.

There's seven. Well, we are brought to you today by Open Studio. Go to Open Studiojazz.com to check out all of our courses. That's right. Shout out to, again, Dan and Andrew for working so hard on our brand new pod cave. This was really nice. This is awesome. I'm excited.

I'm hyped up now. I know. I feel like we can do more of these episodes where we're playing because that's really fun. That's right. We don't have to crowd over by the keyboard. Or even worse, turn around. Lazy Susan it? Oh, that was.

Cranick and Bach. And, Andrew, did you guys take the Krenick out and Bach out back and shoot it, put it out of its misery? We're talking about shooting it and burning it, like a book burning, which I'm, like, as you know, I'm against those. You know what? I'm not, you know what? I'm not for burning. Like an old farm horse that broke its leg. Take it out of its misery. Well, till tomorrow. You'll hear it.