You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 99 Of you Will Ignore This Advice - #110

Episode Date: May 19, 2018

In this episode, Peter and Adam talk about the one thing amateur players don't do enough of. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast Warning, 99% of you will ignore this advice Dude, what's going on with you today? Seriously, are you okay? Well, but on a positive note, 1% We'll not ignore it. This is supposed to be a lighthearted daily jazz podcast

What are you talking about? Well, no, but this is important stuff we're going to talk about today. Okay, okay. And so, you know, we want to grab the people in and, you know, hopefully, I want to be proven wrong. You know, hopefully it'll be 97% Or even 79%. I'm open to it. But based on historical things of like the questions we get, like what I've given students and stuff, a lot of people can ignore this.

And the main concept for this advice is listen. That's right. It's as simple as that. Okay. So what goes along with listening is really a willingness to train your ear, to do the dirty work of listening when it's maybe quicker or easier to look at the page, which is what most people do. But if you listen, if you take the time to really listen and then learn by ear, you're going to be so much ahead of the game. But it's going to be a lot more work to get there. But once you get there, you're going to be happy that you're there.

It's so true. You know, so for those of you that don't know, Peter and I have a website called Open Studio where we sell jazz lessons online. A little Seamus plug. But also, we get a lot of requests for transcriptions of things and charts and music. Which we eagerly do. And we do it. But really the only people learning when we do that. are us.

That's right. Because we are the ones listening and figuring it out. And not that you shouldn't want to see things like that, but if you aren't willing to like take the time to listen to things and train your ear and do that, like you said, dirty work, then you're not going to get as much out of it, you know, then you should. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. And I mean, if you're thinking about all the things that can't be represented, even in the best

transcription or notational system, you know, the phrasing, the feeling, you know, how the groove and the swing and the rhythmic concept is played that you're just not going to get if you don't listen. So the whole thing is like, how much are you willing to commit to putting the biggest percentage of your workload to listen and imitate listen, and then to sit there for an hour or two and just get one phrase? But to get it so well and to know it in a way that you you'll never get from the page. Maybe then you sneak over there and look a little bit if you get stumped on something, but go for it in that organic way first.

It's really the most important part about learning any language, and we know the jazz is a language. And if I could give any advice about how to get better at this and maybe how to make it a little easier on yourself, this all changed for me when I got really good at setting up my own workstation at home that made it easy for me to listen. Like sometimes we have our piano, and then we have our stereo in the other room. You know what I mean?

Stereo? What is this? 1978. Dude, I'm old. Okay, I don't know what I want to say. But or you, you know, you maybe use your your earbuds and like it sounds weird and it's not fun. Take some time to set up your, your workstation in your, in your area that you practice, that you have easy access to your music collection and that you have physical speakers, not headphones. And this isn't going to be, you know, easy for some people, because maybe you have a family or whatever, but try to get physical speakers so you're hearing it in the space and you're able to play along,

easily you have an interface that you can speed up and slow down hopefully most computers have easily adaptable interfaces for that with garage band or logic or something or just or just be able to to go to different parts of the track easily yeah and be able to hear it in your physical space and play along in your physical space it'll you'll you'll see real improvements if you set that that station up like that i mean you really will yeah and do a lot of you know, as you're learning the phrases, and then as you learn the tune, as you learn the solo, playing along with the recording. You know, I mean, one thing you can do is every day take whatever it is that you've learned

and practice that, you know, four or five times along with the recording. Even if that's just the first chorus once you get that. Or four measures. Play along because, you know, you want to match your sound to what's happening on the recording, not to what's happening on the page. And you know what? If it feels overwhelming, like, oh, I don't want to have to transcribe. all this stuff. Just every day, take a minute and play along with one of your favorite songs

on one of your favorite recordings. And without any ideas of transcribing anything, I guarantee you're going to find something that you're going to be like, wait, what is that? And you're probably going to transcribe a little bit. And even if it's just that little bit, it's all the better. And even if it's just you playing along with great players, that's all the better. So just take a minute and play along with the track every day. Yeah, you should be doing, if you're a serious jazz musician, or no, it's not about serious, if you are a musician that is trying to

get better as a jazz player, every day that you practice you should be doing something for your ear training. And that's what it's really about. I mean, we're talking about learning solos, but it could be learning anything by ear. And, you know, it's very easy to think, well, then I'll get this phrase and I can

play it like this great player, whatever. That's really the small part of it, the big part of its ear training. So, I mean, you could be, you know, you could be learning a Taylor Swift line or something where you have to pick out the notes. It doesn't even really matter for the ear training part. But you have to go through that exercise. And it's painful because it's difficult and you're going to be trying to find the notes.

But that's the biggest skill that you need to play this music because you use the ear training to kind of like reverse engineer and take your personality and have it come out as a player. But you don't really have to work on your personality if you think about it. We all have personality. Now, some people have bad personalities, but you know, you're not going to be able to change that anyway. I like what you said about it. It doesn't have to be even a solo. I'm reminded of when I was in high school, I was playing in this group, and the guy had all these Art Blakey charts, right?

Like all these transcriptions of whatever. And we were working on Blakey's version of Caravan, you know, that recording. And I'm playing that line that happens in the beginning. Doom-Baboo da-d-d-d-d-do-bab-and-and- I can't get it. Because I'm reading the music. Oh, it looks so complicated. It looks so-com. I don't think I've actually ever heard the arrangement.

And then I got the CD. I got the arrangement. And as soon as I started playing along with it, I mean, it just light bulbs went off. Not just about that line, but about feel. And I was like, that's how these eighth notes feel. And I mean, from then, from that day forward, it was all so much easier.

I sounded so much better on it. You know, I wasn't thinking about it as much. Yeah. And the reason that we were being a little bit harsh in saying 99% of you are not going to listen to this advice is because I think we've both. gone into you know coach high school jazz I mean high school jazz bands you go in and they're playing like a great bassy chart Sammy nestico Duke Allington yeah good music well then not always but if they

are even if they are playing something good and then but it doesn't sound right and yeah okay it's young players and then you know they'll stop and I'll ask them how many of you have heard a recording of this and maybe like one or two raises their hand and I don't want to call it the band director too much but I feel like just going and slapping them upside the head and saying you know even Even if you don't know what's going on, at the least, you've got them this chart or whatever, just come in one day with a client and just play, actually not one day, every day, have them just listen to the track. Because it's going to make it that now they know what they're going for.

And it's like, you know, you've got a football team and you never, I mean, most of these kids are going to watch a football game on TV. But if not, show them what it's supposed to look like. That's right. Now, they're not going to be able to do it like that, but at least they know what to aspire to. And some of you might be in a stage of your development where you're learning a bunch of new tunes. Maybe you're learning from a real book. Maybe you're learning them at jam sessions.

This is a stage everybody goes through, but you should make it your goal not to know a single tune that you don't have some kind of reference recording for. You know what I mean? So many people will play, you know, there is no greater love and have no idea what it, what, you know, a recorded version of the song sounds like or autumn leaves or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. Find a reference recording that you like, that you can mimic, that you can learn the intros, that you can learn the verse, that you can, you know what I mean? And you said something very important that you like. That's the important thing.

Don't just get the one that we say or that you see on some list online or something. Get the one that you like. If that's the Taylor Swift version, that's, you know, sorry, but no, no, whatever. Because you're going to be listening to it over and over again. And if you like it, it's going to be a lot easier than to internalize it and use that, you know. Yeah. So bottom line, you know, this sounds harsh, but sometimes it takes a little tough love. That's right, right.

I mean, to the 1% of you out there, you know, great. To the rest of you, come on, step it up because you'll hear it, hopefully. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hearat.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. Wait, you can do that. Absolutely. All right, and if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below. Thanks.