You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Best of Q&A's (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

Thanks to all the listeners who've asked us questions over the course of season 7! Today and Monday, we're picking some of the favorite questions we've received this season.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Friday's Open Studio Live Events (All Times EST):1:00 PM - Fred Hersch Masterclass: Monk Tunes (for members only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I was curious about how to use the Frigian scale in my playing. I know it can be used over Dominic chords for a Suss flat 9 kind of sound. Ooh, is that correct? We'll get to that. But is it useful in other situations? And why is this mode of the major scale useful over dominant chords? Is it because it's a fifth above the minor mode of the major scale and implies a resolution to a minor key?

I don't understand any of this, Adam. That's my question to you. So are they saying, like, if you have an E7, and you can use an E Frigian. Are you Frigian kidding me, right? Are you frigging kidding me? I mean, you can do that if you want to get thrown out the jam session. Actually, that sounded pretty good.

I see what they're saying. Because it's... So, you know, this is actually... This is close to a secret scale that I came up with. I didn't actually come up with it, but... You add in that major third in there as well, that Frigium? Now we're talking. I don't think you can...

And then skip over the fourth or play the fourth? No, play the fourth. the fourth because if we're doing like a 5-1 to a minor right why you got to give away the a minor I'm not giving it away but but if so I actually use this scale in my you like that does that sound good to you no but there are instances like if you have to go like where you're going to need that a if you want to play melodically in the key of a minor even if you're on a five chord that be a block chord basic it isn't like this is why I was using this scale in block chords basics it's a perfect scale to do block chords with because you can't really use

altered scale if you want to like voice some of these melodies to standards like if you're voicing softly in a morning sunrise you know and you're you can't do that note with the altered scale you can't do that natural second right so you have to have a different way to do it so but i've never heard of using the friggin like this phrygian uh and maybe that's my own ignorance here have you peter ever heard of using a phrygian over the the dominant no yeah but let's talk about some with some ways to use it though because that was kind of the original question. Yeah, yeah. My favorite way to use it is over a three chord. So again, if we're on the E-Frigion, this is like the three in a three-six-two-five. This is like the most basic way to do it.

Instead of a Dorian, which sounds great, by the way, Dorian on a three-core sounds great. Right, so if you have like a-six-25 and C-major is E-minor 7, A-7, D-minor-7, G-7, and you're to the one. So that three-core, E-minor-7, instead of Dorian, which sounds great, by the way, use a Phrygian and then it's like all C, right? Then you're still, you have such a strong C major. A strong C major sound. That's one way to do it. There's another way that's even hipper, though.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so this is really, this is, I'm going to answer the question with the question. This is getting that Phrygian sound, right? Like when you're vamping? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really kind of hear this. It's a Chick-Korea, Kenny Kirkland sound. Totally.

But I kind of hear it as like a, or conceptualize it as a D-Dorian in this case, but basically a whole step down over an E, right? And if you take, what I'm going here is kind of just going through the McCoy voicings or so what, you know, over D minor, but over an E. With an E in the bass. Huh? An E in the bass. The bass, exactly.

And, you know, like what you were doing, I really like that to the A-7 or A-minor, It's a 36251. But you can kind of shift this in, I mean, of course, as a vamp, it's great. You can sit there for a while. But there's instances where you can use this as kind of a bridge or substitution into a 251. So it would be like three and then to a G7 and then to a C major. So you might be like D minor instead of D minor, G7 to C. D minor, E-freegin, G7 to C major.

That is so crazy hip. Do that again? Do that one more time? D minor and then E-frige in and then I mean normally

I'd actually even have more it'd be like D minor E-fridion A-flat major G flat makes my finger

in each yeah it's nice it's like we always think about substituting like a tritone or a half step

or something which is fine but a lot of times substitution like you can just think about and not as much as substituting

as altering your harmonic progression based upon things that you would do with the root movement so You're going from here to here, but you can go... Let's pick some chorus for those.

It's a D-Dorian over East. Yeah, because you're coming from that. You might be F-7, A-flat major, D-5. A lot of places. But you do see, you would see something like E-Frigian-Frigian marked in a chart that was like a modal chart. Yeah. And that's the sound they want. They want, and here, we'll just about this voicing, because this, I think this voicing here is crucial to kind of like what your expectation for the sound is.

His voicing is F, A, B, E on top. That's the voicing. If I see E Frigian, that's the first thing I'm playing. Almost always, like, I'm setting up the sound with that. Because that is, that rub is what I think is expected. Yeah. And I love it because, you know, unlike, I mean, obviously there's a lot of tension. There's a lot of mystery.

There's a lot of, you know, what? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But it's also. Frigian, Frankie. Of all the different places we can go that have tension in them, that want to resolve somewhere. A Frigian, when it's played in the way you were just doing,

and where we're talking about sitting on it, is really a stationary thing. It doesn't actually want to go anywhere. That's why I was a lot. I mean, yeah, we could talk about the, you know, resolve. But it's not like that. It needs to go somewhere else before it wants to go there. So you can sit on it, even though it's got mystery.

It's more mystery than tension. the kind of tension that's itching to resolve. You know what I mean? Yeah, it isn't. You can sit on it. It isn't really itching to resolve. It's just kind of angrily sitting there. Yeah.

It's tense. It's really typified, I think, by the... It's an E minor, but it's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got none of that optimism of the... Yeah. I don't... Yeah, because it does it...

Because to me, it lacks that tension, I don't see it being a great dominant scale, like a dominant chord scale. No, it's not, because it's a minor. It's minor. It's minor. It's minor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, I hope that helps.

Ask an answer. Ask an answer. We got another question from Dan. Dan's, I think, a long-time open studio follower. He says, how do you improv over a stagnant suss chord vamp, like Maiden Voyage? How do you create voicing movement in the left hand over that stagnant chord? Yeah, you know, so I always think of like stagnant chords, I mean, susses, I think that there's, at least three different kinds.

And as we go through these, we'll probably discover even more. But I think about like, okay, so Maiden Voyage, you've got, um, this is what I call like kind of your real happy,

optimistic. So, right? Yeah, sparkly. And, and it's a major suss. I mean,

let's be honest, there's either major or minor susses, right? I know we're not supposed to say that. It's in the jazz police. But if you just see D7 suss, I'm thinking it's a, it's a seven suss.

Like it's a, it's a D7 sus. Exactly. Exactly. But the whole point of it is that we're not revealing that. Right. We're just, we're occasionally revealing it. I don't see that's what I'm saying, though. Right. But, but we're also like the dominant, no pun intended, the dominant, the dominant major sound to me is actually a whole step below.

So you've got D-suts, but it's really C-major 9. It's so interesting. You think about it as C-major 9. Yeah. Yeah. Because those two triads, that gives you the resolution. You got C triad and then you got D triad. But we're doing more C triad that, you know, I'm always thinking about try. I'm a basic guy.

What can I say? I'm a basic guy with basic needs. Basic pop. Yeah, yeah. And so it's really more C. And then you've also got, you know, a G triad in there. Of course there is that as well. What about left hand movement?

So when they're talking about like, you could, you could definitely like just kind of plane, planing. Yeah, where you just like, if you go on like a D dominant scale, right, and you just move the voicing around that. Yeah. You definitely do that.

But there's also some little, there's some little melodic things that can happen that you hear, especially like on Maiden Voyage, I always think of that between. So here I have a... But that's really, that's all triad based if you think about it. I mean, you know, E triad, D try it, C try it.

Like, that's the actual sound of it. I hate it when you're right. You're right. Well, no, no, it doesn't matter if you think about that or not, but I think that that is, it's such a foundational sound that when we find those. See, this is so weird, because when I think about this, and I play Maiden Voyage a lot, when I think about it,

I think about it as A minor 7, almost, A minor 9, to like A minor 7 major, a minor major 7. Yeah, but that's just the C major. That's just a variation of the C major. You know, A minor, C major. It's just a different inversion of that jazz arpeggia.

But I think that, like, which one you go to, I do hear. different almost like little mini progressions within there so like it might be like

even D B minor 7 and you are you are a triad machine on this stuff but it's really fascinating yeah

and then I like the ones where you're actually suspending the third even without the fourth so over the D and like you know to the point of what you were saying

about you know the voicing's in the left hand if you look at and I'm going to put in right in just for fun because it's a melodic thing too but you got D suss if you go C F sharp B like you can you can go up and down from the triad again to the G triad or even the C major and like create a little bit of tension and resolution so

when you're that kind of party and then you got another party now you got the F yeah and they I'm all like E flat tried F tried E flat C minor G mine The real question is, on Maiden Voyage, is when is the point on that D that you just give up and you just go? Well, we can always call that an homage to Herbie. I mean, how many different places are there? The one that you should not do is, well, actually, that's okay. That's the one I started with, the F-sharp. How can we always get that look at it?

You know, we always get that? I don't know. You know what? Herbie doesn't do that. You know what Herbie does? I know what Herbie does? I know, I know. No, but sometimes he gets that super, like, joyous kind of.

He does. Like, he's even surprising himself with some herbiasms. Um, all right, nice.