You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Burning Questions: Help! I'm a Classical Pianist Who Wants to Improvise!

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

Peter and Adam are going to be streaming and taking your questions live on Open Studio's Instagram every Saturday for the duration of the global health crisis. In this episode, Peter and Adam will answer a question about diminished scales + dominant chords, and a classically trained pianist wants to know how to improvise.Links From This Episode:If you're someone who already knows how to play the piano but wants to dip their toe into the waters of jazz, we have the perfect course for you: Jazz Piano Jump-StartToday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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.Let 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.

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. How do you memorize a six feet distance to correlate with your habits of going to the park and also wanting to keep a safe social distance? I just think about my good buddy, my big buddy Adam, and I think of him laying down, and that is the distance. I need to be one Adam's length away from anybody else. Perfect.

Yeah. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. I'm six feet one inches tall and you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Oh, so that's good. So we're actually given an extra inch. I didn't even realize that. That's perfect, man. We're going above and beyond our civic duty. Yeah. Yeah. And if you get like an atom and a half, you're totally safe. Oh, man. You're woke times too. We are sponsored today by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com and check out all of our piano courses, including our piano access pass.

It's really one of the best values you can find for online jazz education. So go check that out. Again, openstudiojazz.com. we are taking questions from Instagram and we've got a great one to kick it off with. This is from Young Tony. And Young Tony says, how to memorize, I think how do you memorize the diminished scales

that correlate with dominant chords? Exclamation point. Young Tony is excited about this question. I'm excited about the answer, Young Tony, because the answer is extremely symmetrical and it stays the same no matter what you do. There are a couple ways to memorize which diminished scale goes with

which dominant chord. The first thing you can do is actually learn the half-hold diminish scale. Because if you learn the half-hold diminus scale, then you have, it's a one-to-one ratio of diminus scale to dominant chord. Mono E-Mano. If it's a B-flat 13, flat-9, you know that a B-flat-3 half-hole diminish scale is going to work great. Boom!

Boom! That's like number one recommended way five stars would memorize for sure. Now, but I know what you're saying, because when I first learned about the diminis scale, I didn't know about the half whole. I only knew about the whole half. And so I had to learn it from a whole other thing. Now, an easy way to do that, in my opinion, is to use the whole half half step above, right? But again, once you realize that that's just the half hole diminuscale, starting on the second step, just learn that half hole. And that's literally just a series and half step, whole step. Yep. And I'm not sure if I'm totally, uh,

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, Adam, or just in terms of how I'm hearing the question, kind of the next level, or maybe sort of, you know, in line with what you're talking about, the half-hold diminished scale, applying it to a dominant chord, and thinking about the different alterations, especially when we go into sort of melodic, you know, shapes that we can use for melodic improv, we're thinking about the diminished, going up the diminished chord, minor thirds, basically. So you've got the C-half-hole diminished scale, which works over a C-7-sharp-9,

sharp-9, sharp-11, flat-9. But still staying with that same core, it's C-7 altered, or not even altered, just sharp-11, flat-9, sharp-9. You can also move up to the E-flat half-hole scale. Yes, it's diatonically the same, but if you learn each of them as a different thing, it gives you different shapes that you can use,

and then up to F-sharp, and then up to A. So all those ones that are the same. Don't just skip over them and say, I already learn this, because I know the fingering. and I know that it's diatonically the same, actually practice them and think about those, because what I'll do from time to time

we've been known to do, is to play a C7-sharp 11, sharp 9, and then start improvising over an E-flat sharp 9 as like a melodic pattern. And that's primarily based upon a E-flat half-hole scale. And it is different than thinking about it as the C. Totally, yeah. And that's really for a lot of scales.

Like I had a teacher once who told me there's not one chromatic scale, there's 12 chromatic scales because you've got to know the intervals, like you got to know the minor six and the major six starting from any note. So to think about them. And in terms of timing, like when we play lines, that makes such a difference.

If you think about the chromatic scale, bu, do, do, boo, do do do do. Of course. And where you put accent on, or boo-ba-da-bib-de-da-a-da. Every place that you start, it's going to come out different. And then that's stuff that you're going to use in lines,

especially when you're using the chromatic, or the diminished as well as kind of a connector between two places. Right. And I mean, the good news about this is, though, you know, even though you want to memorize the different ways to think about it, because you want to have that at easy access. And especially if you do things like write music or arrange music or orchestrate music,

you need to be able to think like that very quickly about the relationships between notes, as you were saying, like thinking about that E flat half hole over the C7. But like the good news is you don't have to learn new fingerings for the diminished scales, because it's only the three. And they really do go together and you start, even though you might be thinking about it as like E flat half hole, like those patterns are there. They're there when you're thinking about it

as C or E flat or G flat or A. Those same shapes, those same relationships you have. Think about it. You're just reinforcing them by putting different, by framing them in different ways, essentially. Same thing with the chromatic scale. You don't have to learn different fingering or learn a different way to play

chromatically from C to C, even if you start an E flat, it's the same. Yeah. But just understanding how we frame these in different ways can just help unlock, really unlock, you know, how you can make your melodies, how you can build your chords in a, it starts to be a really robust way. But you do get that benefit of having to, what do we say around here? We're going to reuse stuff, right? Right. Recycle, reuse, and renew. No, what is it?

That's right. And no wish cycling. I learned that this week. My kids have been telling me, do not wish cycle. Wish cycle. Yeah, I bet you do that, Adam. I probably do. That's when you, like, say, heat something up in the oven with tin foil on the top, and then you take the tinfoil off and then you ball up the tinfoil and throw it into the recycling and you're wishing that you can recycle it that contaminates the whole thing and now all of it goes into landfill or like you're not sure of something like this little snotty paper does not go in the recycling i was told do i sound like i'm speaking from experience being you's gold on this you've been having your kids being at home with your kids all this time you're learning all kinds

of new things man i'm woke a f on the recycling game so i'm coming to check you for a wish cycling uh that's amazing yeah All right, so we got another question. This is from Diego. He says, he or she says, about being a classically trained pianist, I can't seem to access all the stuff I've played when I'm improving. Oh, does you think that's improvising? Probably. Okay, probably improvising.

How do you guys go about it? Okay, well, let me just start with saying this. You know, being a classical pianist or at least was one at some time. there's two kind of mindset things that will help you. First of all, it is not only possible, it's been done many times to be a successful and accomplished and engaging classical pianist and jazz pianist simultaneously. I mean, maybe not simultaneously. You're playing two things, but I mean, you don't have to say, I'm going to do it this year and the next year.

They're not that diametrically opposed that they can't coexist. And, you know, one only needs to look to a gentleman that occasionally his name has come up on this podcast Herbie Hancock, Artatim, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jared, who we were talking about on yesterday's episode. You know, so many examples of that. Now, so that's the first thing once you kind of, because there's always a thing when classical pianists are coming to jazz and a little bit less jazz pianos going to classical where it's like, oh, I can't do this. This is so differently. So we psych ourselves out of it before we even get in there. Yes, you can.

And then also, but then you want to recognize the different kind of mindset that you need to have when you're playing. Jazz. Classical music is very much about preparation in terms of executing what you prepared in a very inspired way when you perform to the best of the abilities that you've developed as you've practiced. Okay. And so jazz is very much about playing the best that you can, but it includes this other element of like taking everything that you practiced and developed as a musician, ear training, and understanding of rhythm and all these different things. But then kind of throwing them out and letting it come out naturally so that you not only can kind of hit the level that you're at, but you have a possibility of even exceeding that by the spirit of the moment.

You know, it's like a runner that's training at a certain time. They don't go to that next level time until they get to the race in hopes that all that, you know, will inspire them in the adrenaline of the day and the excitement will push them to that thing that could be dangerous for them to do all the time. So that's sort of what the jazz player. And I think with classical, you're really just trying to hit what you know you can do. So you prepare, you prepare, you want it to sound inspired, of course. But you're not really looking to exceed or add, especially notes and this type of thing.

You know, you're looking to really execute it in an authentic and inspired way. So it's not a huge difference, but it is good to kind of get thinking about what that mindset is so that when you go into play, you can, because you're talking about improvising. I mean, that's the big difference. That's bigger than anything stylistic, I would say, between classical and jazz. Yeah, I mean, a classical player doesn't necessarily have to also be a comprehensive. composer and understand, you know, why the notes they're playing work. They just have to understand. I mean, that could actually help classical performance, but they just have to understand,

you know, the spirit of the music and how to play those notes in the most effective way. Side note, have you done anything on the classical realm in the last few years? I've done one thing and I couldn't sleep for like three weeks before because it was so nervous. Yeah, yeah, because it is. Yeah, it's a different kind of preparation. I mean, on one side, I'm the same way because it's, you know, I look at it in some ways as easier because you know exactly what you have to do. But the bar is kind of higher because it's like you have no, with jazz, you know what you have to do, which is make an inspired, cool improvisation. You don't actually know how you're going to do it until you get in the moment.

So that's whatever happens there. Yeah. To me, that's exciting, though. And I don't, you know, I think that these kind of, this duality here is so important and so cool and so. interesting and engaging in terms of how we approach the music, these two kinds of music. The part that people get stuck on is like, oh, classical musicians hear the time different than jazz. No, they don't. That's boring. Like, different styles of music have different grooves to them.

And different instruments approach time. Like, you know, when I've, I had played in orchestras and stuff growing up and sang in choirs. And so, like, when I started doing jazz stuff with orchestras or writing for it, you know, a lot of other jazz musicians would get frustrated because they're like, you know, The conductor goes dune, and then everybody, the violins, they're coming in late. And I'm like, they're not coming in late. If you understand how violin sections breathe, first of all, if you're playing in a section, if you're a pianist or drummer, somebody that's never played in a section, you should always play in a section. Because it's a different kind of musical mentality because you can't just come in right on the beat.

Because you have to, it's about coming in as a section and breathing your way into that. So that, that has affected the way that those grooves have felt. But it doesn't mean you can only do one or the other. you just have to hear them and you have to understand them and respect them and then once you step into it that way it's very easy but that's the universality of music i think and and we'll see that sometimes with you know going around the world and playing jazz and places that you know should have no understanding because their their music is so different than our music but all of a sudden they connect with it immediately or hip hop or classical or whatever i know there's a lot more there we have limited time so we'll just i'm going to wrap up our our sponsor into this last question question. Nice. For that, for that questionnaire, we actually have a course on OpenSudioJazz.com called Jazz Piano Jumpstart that was designed for you. For me? No, for the question. Okay, because you're pointing at me. Yeah, no, for the, for the person who asked the question, I didn't see their, their username, but it's for the someone who, Diego. Diego, for

someone who can play the piano, who's classically trained, understands the instrument, but wants to get into jazz and how that works. It's a whole different mindset. You can check out Jazz Piano Jumpstart over on Open StudioJazz.com. Thank you, Instagram. That's a course that we both did together, as I recall. We did it. You'll Hear It's Style, is what we called it. We did it, You'll Hear It Style, right.

I was eating a Bond Me as we recorded that chorus. That was made it You'll Hear in style. We had to start it three times. That's right, right, right. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, we leave us a rating of review. We don't even have time today to read them, but just know that there's seven stars.

That's all we get. And that was fun last week. We did an interview with the Switched-on Pop folks. So if you guys miss that, you can go back just a couple of episodes. It was a two-parter, brilliant guys behind one of our favorite podcasts on music. And we've been getting a lot of cool response about that. And so check that. They are a five-star podcast as are we.

We are seven-star. I'm sorry. Oh, my God. Did I even just say that? Oh, my God. They're a five-star podcast. We're a seven-star. So they probably learned something from us.

But, you know, birds of a feather flocked together. Until next time. You'll hear it.