You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Build Your Solo Like an Architect

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

How do you play your solos the Frank Lloyd Wright way? Peter and Adam tell you how you can take some inspiration from architecture on your next solo.Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.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, Adam. Yeah. Do you live in a house? I do. How many doors does it have? Two. In and out? In and out.

How many doors does this pod cave have? One. It serves as both the entrance and the exit. I'm Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily jazz advice and counting of egresses and ingresses. Yeah, and maybe, I don't know, is this thing up to code?

This is not. I know. You got super nervous when you asked that. Well, I don't know. For people who haven't seen the pod cave from the outside, which is probably most of the world. Most of the world. It is, I mean, if you think it looks shoddy just right here. Well, that's the thing.

I don't think it actually looks shoddy the way we have the camera angles. And the suavness and sophistication that we bring to it, like, we don't think much of that. But to our loyal listeners and viewers, first of all, the listeners don't know what we're talking about. They think we're at, you know, I was going to say Studio 54 and, you know. New York, but that wasn't the studio, actually. No, no, no, no, yeah. They think we're at the world's finest studio because we have a wonderful production team here.

We have some great microphones. We have wonderful spin drift. Oh, my gosh, he's still trying to get this endorsement. Yeah, wait, hey, you are drinking it now. I do. I love the lemon. Oh, the lemon. The lemon has less, lemon only has three calories, and there's,

we've got one carb, and so, as you know, the keto thing. What a great diet in which you can only have, you can't even have three carbs. Except certain times of the day, you can go down to Papi's ribs and have 7,000 carbs. I mean 7,000 calories. It's so great. But we shouldn't slack off the pod cave too much.

Our intern, Ryan, spent a whole 10 minutes. 10 minutes last week. No. It looks good in here, man. It does look much better. We have the sound baffling is back in the house. It smells worse, but it looks better. It does, right. All right.

Anyways, what are we talking about today? We're talking about architecture. We're piggybacking up from yesterday's episode number seven. Because at the end of the episode, I don't know how many folks make it to the end, because that was a long episode. But we threw out some good info. It was very good. Yeah, if you're really interested in some of the more tactical stuff that we get into, things that you can apply.

I mean, look, you still got to do the work. We're not giving you a silver magic bullet. But these are really, I think, things that are like, we always talk about stuff that we say that comes up in conversation with each other here at the podcast and how much this has helped us in our practice where it's just a reminder of things for us to go back. And so we really do try to, you know, practice what we actually do. We practice what we preach, but we also have tried this stuff out for a while. And a lot of this comes from not only us, but talking to really good musicians, jazz musicians, specifically, that have applied these different techniques or things that we've observed in them.

Like I always go back to, like, you know, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redmond, these great musicians that were, you know, my peers, they still are that when I was young and I started to. seen like, I was so interesting like, what do they, how do they look at the world? How do they how do they, because I wanted to find things to do do because I didn't have a podcast. Yeah, yeah. Jazz podcast when I was growing up. I don't know about you. You're a little younger. I did not have a show millennial. But I mean, you know, so, but it's the same thing.

It's just sort of passing all, passing along the information and Mr. Millennial. You're literally the world's oldest millennial. We established that. We went to Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, yeah. So what we wanted to focus on was, was what the last kind of piece

of the puzzle was yesterday about improving your soloing. And that is this connection between the arts in general, but specifically architecture, that genre, is that a genre or a field? Yeah, field of study, field of adventure and all that kind of stuff. Like how we can kind of think about architecture and apply it to improving our jazz playing. And what I love about this is that, of course,

architecture is a physical art, you know, it's a physical manifestation that we can, can see that we're in. I mean, look, technically the pod cave is architecture. Did you know that? Yeah, no. That's what I was saying. That's what you're nervous about because it's a little shoddy. It's pretty terrible. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, architecture is something that we're always in. I mean, it's very utilitarian. It's made to be used. And I think that a lot of times for playing jazz and for our soloing and stuff, we need to do a little more of that. So it's a good application. Plus, we're always going into different buildings, especially if you travel or just wherever you live, like you can always look at

something differently. Most of us are going into buildings and not ever thinking about it, you know. And if you just kind of open your eyes and look at it, it can be fun, and then you can maybe have some ideas on how you're going to structure your solo, how you're going to, you know, maybe structure some things in your practice. There's a lot of ways to look at it. For sure. Yeah, sorry, I just had to update the card here, but on my little phone, because I still don't want to use my laptop. Wait, wait, listen, do do, do, do the world's smallest violin. So playing my heart bleeds for you. Go ahead. No, so I agree.

I like this idea. I mean, I liked it so much when you started talking about it yesterday that I thought this does deserve its own show. So you started yesterday by talking about egresses conveniently about, you know, at a certain point you have to have a door. No matter if you're building some kind of like elaborate crystal palace or just a basic, you know, two room house. Yeah. It has to have a door. Yes. Usually.

Yeah. Or an elevator, something, some kind of way in. Yeah. Right. And so it's the same way to think. about it during your solo. And I love this kind of analogies with other forms of art because it really, for me, it makes me think in a completely different way than I think how I might have been taught or how I even observe other musicians. Like it just kind of is a different perspective

on things like how to get into your solo, how to, like when I think of a door, I don't think of like how I get in. Right. I think of how I let others in. And that's something, just that little psychological twist about how I can begin my solo and let the person into this building that is, you know, this solo that I'm about to create, I think is brilliant. Well, and I think you hit the nail on the head there is that like this is not about an architect does not design a door that's for them or for the owner. It's for other people coming up to the building. Right. So like too much worth thinking about how do we want to get into our solo?

Totally. And that really doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter. Now, there's all different ways to do that. Just like, so then you can start looking at architecture. I was just at the Roby House. I don't know if you know about the Roby House. It's up in Chicago. Frank Lord Wright, one of his prairie style, early Prairie style beautiful home.

I love a Frank Lloyd Wright. It's great, man. And it's a museum. And it's owned by the University of Chicago campus, and they do a great tour there. I was there years ago, but I got to go again in the summer. But, you know, Frank Lord Wright, especially with his residential architecture, he loved to do this thing of the door being kind of hidden. I mean, not totally hidden, but a little bit like on the Roby House, it's sort of not

where you would expect it. You can see it. I shouldn't say it's hidden, but it's a little bit obscured. And you have to walk a little bit back in the property a little longer than you would expect. And then it's just not, it's sort of diminished a little bit in terms of the overall architecture. It's not like a grand door.

But you can see it, though. There's a way to get in. It's not like you're going to walk around for an ounce thing. I can't get in this building. It's not confusing to find how to enter the house. No. But it's not expected. It's not expected, yeah.

And you do have to, you know, look a little bit. But then when you come into it, and look, I'm getting a lot of this. I'm not a genius in architecture, but I'm getting this from the tour guy. Yeah, yeah. Really good to explain this. But the idea is that once you come in this door, and it's a small door, you know, for a man of my frame, it's perfect. For you, it's so small. You might even be doing a little bit of...

You might be ducking with my groceries at the end of day. You might be ducking a little bit. But apparently Frank Lloyd Wright was... a man of average stature as am I, and he was known to have a little bit of a Napoleonic concept, so he would do some of his doors to his height. I mean, hey, he's the architect. Yeah, yeah. You can do what you want to do there.

Wait, wait, we were saying for the soloing. No, you can't. You got to do it for the listener. Oh, anyway. No, no, no. But you go in this doorway that's small, not like hobbit size, but on the smaller side. But then when you go in, their entryway is not particularly huge. But it feels really grand.

It kind of, like, he's really thinking about what you're seeing then and your first impression of the house. Right. And so because you have this sort of sublimated doorway, and I think about a jazz solo, like, it's almost like you're underselling at the beginning of your solo. You're giving that entry, but you're not playing all your stuff.

You're like playing some really nice stuff, but then you kind of let it evolve out to something. And I would think that that's a really high level of thinking about architecture and then architecture of your solo also. And just understanding, I mean, this is something we've been talking about all day to day in different contexts, but understanding the journey of your listener, like understanding where they are in the journey.

Because you know what? It's funny. Like, I like this idea of we're taking ourselves out of this, because when you think about your listener's journey in this experience, they're not, they don't have the same experience with this music as you probably do. Not that you have to simplify it or cater to it, but understand that you're these first moments in the solo, when they're coming through the door, you're setting up what's happening after that, big time.

You're setting up expectations. You know, they found the door. They're into the solo. You found this way. And now what you play at this point is that entrance way where you're setting up the experience of the structure.

Right. You know? And so even if like, and I'm not saying like you have to like predetermine what this is going to be at all. And you shouldn't. No, the drama and unexpected is great. For sure.

But recognize that what you're playing there in those first few seconds, those first few measures can be used later to mess with expectations, to add novelty, to change it up. Yeah. Or to be used as material to draw from. Well, and I'm just thinking of this entryway analogy and how we apply this to jazz. We're talking about great ways to do it and Frank Lloyd Wright. Let's talk about some things not to do.

We love doing that in the words of Christian McBride. Let me show you some stuff not to play. For sure. Okay, think about the house with the beautiful golden door, gaudy and, like, you know, grandiose and everything's great, and it's right in the middle. Bam, you come up big, double doorway. Then you go in and it's kind of a crappy house in the inside. So don't, like, oversell your soul if you don't got anything to play afterwards once. Or don't play, put all your best materials on the outside of the house, and then you've got nothing left for the inside.

Yeah, that's right. The drama is key to this. have to have somewhere to go. Yeah. I mean, this is why when people start talking about, you know, if you go into like a class or something with a teacher in a combo situation or whatever, like they'll often say like, you know, start out by not playing a lot. Take jabs, you know.

Right. And that's because it, for a beginning level, like, it gives you somewhere to go. You're like, you're good enough that you could start off busy and end and still take the listener somewhere, right? But you're still not going to give them what would happen, you know, one minute. two minutes into your solo. And it still needs to, like, yeah, I think in order to get away with stuff like that, even if you can do it, is very much, you know, we can learn from architecture too

in that the door can be somewhere unexpected. You can have some crazy stuff going on. But then the form and the connection stuff, you have to pay even more attention to it. That's right. You know, if you're not doing like a standard, like, you know, here's the door in the middle and there's a window here, you know, what kind of what people expect. then that's fine, but you've got to make sure that there's a way to get there.

And then when they come in, they're not tripping as they get in. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You know, because you can, a lot of architects have kind of outsmarted everybody. And, I mean, at a basic level, architecture, you're not supposed to be dangerous, right?

You know, you walk. It needs to be a structure that's going to... It's supposed to be safe, unlike this pot cave, right? Well, I'm so glad you brought up Frank Lloyd, right? Because there's another aspect to his architecture in particular that I think is very, very analogous to, to, to, playing a solo and that's the way he uses the the surroundings of a structure as part of

because you know you're you're you're inside the house stuff now you're looking out you're looking out and so he the way he frames the nature around or the surroundings of what's around I think is very similar to when you're inside your solo yeah you know to I mean we said all the time listen but be you know make sure that that you're setting up what's happening around you make the drummer sound good interact with the you know the bass player whatever it is but like you need to be aware of your surroundings even if it's like you know sometimes I'll think about like okay I'm in a fairly big hall so I probably can't get as small as I would get into like a 50-person club when everybody's right

there you know that kind of thing I think is really good to think about and be aware of as you're as your soloing that's great and I mean I think you know we're about being aware of your environment, the physical space, aware of the personnel, the other musicians on state, aware of the audience. For sure, yeah. And, you know, very much architecture is like, Frank Lloyd Wright was, I guess, a specialist in this idea of being a part of the

landscape, the prairie landscape at first, and then when he moved out to the desert and, you know, the Arizona, but being a part of nature. And so that's sort of the environment maybe for us in terms of playing. And then, but then houses and buildings are made. made for people and for visitors to come in. And so, you know, it's the audience, too. That's part of the environment of what we're doing.

For sure. And should have some impact at some point on how we structure our solos, how we structure, how we play this music, you know? We have that advantage to be able to do some structuring of it as we go, you know, unlike music that's totally predetermined in terms of what the notes are. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting to think about. I mean, I think it's something that you just sort of developed naturally

when you're performing a long time, but these analogies are so crisp to these two seemingly different worlds. Yeah, yeah. No, I think about it. The more I've gotten into this, the more I think about this. Like, I don't know that I necessarily think about it as I'm soloing, to be honest, but I definitely think about it, like, when I'm listening to things that I've played.

I think about it when I'm practicing, and really just when I'm sort of conceptualizing what soloing is. Composition for sure. And I just believe that the architecture, which is kind of like almost like the timeline of what a solo would be, you know, is very important. And I mean, I think that where we can really draw inspiration from physical, you know, architecture that we see is just in the variety of it, you know, the different kinds of things, these specific ways, but also just when you see someone like, wow, this is so unusual. Does it work? Does it not work? Yeah. And then, you know, how can I apply that to my playing?

That's right. Some fun stuff. Yeah. We did it. We did it. Made it through another day. Another day, another dollar. Free podcast.

Oh, no, but you can join and support us. How? We haven't been hyping that enough. We haven't been hyping that enough. And because we haven't, we've got a little bit of fall off of membership. Oh, no. Nobody's left still.

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We're trying to keep the pod cave elevated, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you're going to say from falling down, but that's already happened. Exactly, exactly. We couldn't quite do that. But yeah, no, it's fun.

We have a nice little community of folks that's growing over there. Yeah, it's awesome. Fun stuff happening. Cool. Well, until tomorrow.