You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Burning Questions: Strange Time Signatures, Even Stranger Internet Problems

Episode Date: June 1, 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. On this episode, Peter and Adam talk about transcribing small sections of language, staying in the pocket on odd time signatures, and how to keep a podcast episode going when one host loses internet.Links From This Episode:Stuck wondering what to practice every day? We've got a course for that! The Piano Guided Practice Pass includes daily Guided Practice Sessions with Adam Maness (and the occasional guest), our new Guided Practice App, and plenty of resources to help your routine. Go here for more info.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)4:00 PM - You'll Hear It LIVE Featuring Connie Han on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkIn light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.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.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. Uh, yeah. Hey. What's the foreign language that you know just the least amount of, but you know, like, one key phrase? Uh, to be a Portuguese. Arrivederechi. Nope, that's another one, sorry. Bostcatsha Musica.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. Peter, what do you like about Open Studio right now? The community, by far.

Our members, the beautiful community that we've built and seeing all the great connections folks have made during this time of separation, seeing all the progress that our students and members are making has been extraordinary, you know, and it's been inspiring me to make sure I'm making progress every day, you know, because you start to see what's available. But, you know, the daily guided practice sessions, that connection that you've made, our artists, I feel more connected with the artists and getting, you know, our piano members connected with Diane Reeves and then Christian McBride coming, you know, like all the cross-pollination. So that's about seven things I love about.

These are a few of my favorite things. Well, go to Open StudioJazz.com and check out our new guided practice pass, a piano guided practice pass. That's where you sign up for our daily guided practice session. You practice with me every day. You can do it on our app. You can do it on our website. You can even do it on Zoom live with me every day at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

That's the piano guide of practice pass. Go check that at open studio jazz.com. Today we are live on Instagram. Again, we're taking your questions. We're here every Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern taking questions from y'all. And we have a question here to- Taking questions and taking names, yo. Answering questions and taking names.

Here's a great name. Dek-de-Rue. What's up, Dek-D-Rue? Dek says, I love the podcast of courses. Thank you, man. Wanted to ask about learning. language, would you recommend transcribing small pieces of language for each type of chord than putting them together? So I know what I have to say about that. Peter, you have any thoughts?

I want to hear what you have to say about that. I have to say, I would rather, Deck, I would, if I were you, I would rather see you take one piece of language that maybe you've transcribed off of one kind of cord and see how much mileage you can get out of it. Because oftentimes a piece of language isn't just in a vacuum, right? Usually it has something to do with what happened before and what's about to happen afterwards. But also, some of the most languid things in that things that are like standard for the language of whatever kind of jazz you're playing, they can be used over several different kinds of chords. Like something that works over, say, a G minor 6 chord, like if it's a lick that works or a piece of language over G minor 6, could also probably

work over C9, could also probably work over B-flat 6-sharp 11. You know what I mean? Like anything that has those that derived from that scale, that piece of language could probably work. If it works over a major seven chord, well, what if it works with a Lydian? What if it works with the relative minor? What if it works? You know, anything that's related to that, you can probably find some kind of piece that language can fit over. So I wouldn't abandon trying to get the most mileage out of one particular piece of language, as opposed to being like, here's my D minor language, here's my G7 language, here's my C major seven language. That's not really how it works. No. And I mean, the listener doesn't even know what does not going to understand that. So it's all

about placing language, vocabulary, phrases, riffs, whatever, whatever these bits of information or voicing being able to place them in a myriad of situations that are useful for the overall telling of your story. That's, yeah, and so you don't want to get too caught in the weeds on that. But repurposing of vocabulary and language, just like English, French, Portuguese, you know, what, it's Swahili. Like, it's the same thing. It's been such a rich part of the tapestry of language and it certainly is for jazz.

So, okay. So, Janie Pye, 314. Might be repping the 314. You know what I'm saying? This year is 100th anniversary of Dave Rubeck's birth. Can you talk about non-standard time signatures, e.g. take five or emotion emotion you'll hear a theme how to stay in the pocket okay i always love my compositions being thrown in there with take five with take five yeah two uh classic jazz hits

probably about the same royalty returns on both i'm guessing i'm hoping same rate same rate of return um okay this is topical and i have a few ideas because i just recorded a lesson for jazz piano method on emotion emotion i don't even know if i told you about that adam i have no idea that's great about time yeah because well i well i never thought about it but somebody asked You know, I actually looked at the request and somebody asked. So, you know, one of the things I was talking about was just in general and was, that's in seven. I was going to say, okay, so playing in seven, playing in five, playing in any time of non-typical, like not three or four or two, basically is what we're talking about.

The most important thing about this for staying in the pocket and just being able to play effectively is how do you get to the point where you don't have to count it? Like when do you actually start to feel it? So the in the pocket, how to stay in the pocket, you actually have to play find the pocket of, and that just means kind of connect with whatever the groove is before you can effectively play in that time. Because otherwise you're going to have to be counting it because your two main ways of feeling time and kind of memorizing or internalizing time is either by counting it or by feeling the groove. So if you walk into a club, like a Euro club, which are not going to be open for a while because they have horrible social distancing. But it's just like, you know, before you even get there, you hear that. So you got that bass drum kind of like beat going, dance beat or whatever. So you like that kind of groove is normally like so accentuated and just over the top to pull you in where you feel the groove.

Like could you imagine if they played it so subtly where you had to count it out to fight to be able to feel the groove? No, it's like, it's just hitting you over the head with what the groove is. So, you know, normally in something like a five or seven, it doesn't necessarily have to be any less obvious. Take five. Do you back. Do you think. Thank you.

Thank you. Sto do bag. Do you, baby. Do do, do, do. D. So I'm obviously hearing a lot with the drums. That's kind of naturally how I do it. So I'm obviously hearing a lot with the drums.

That's kind of naturally how I do it, but it could be the bass line, the melody. So that's. that's a lot easier for me and for most people than one two three four five one two three four five one two you know especially when you do it like that well you know a lot of times people want to want to want to feel five or seven

as it relates to the nearest standard yeah four yeah so it's like one two three four one extra one two three four plus one you know I mean that's a disaster what Peter's describing here Jan is he's he's found that clave for the five right. And a clave is just a repeated rhythm, right? Pattern, rhythmic pattern.

Right. And so once you find that clave, there's one key thing that you need to do to be comfortable over this rhythm. And it's not sexy. It's just repetition. Like you just have to put in time with that clave first. So that, like Peter said, you're not just counting out four and then adding a beat. Because that, doing math as you try to improvise, that's not fun ever.

So don't do that. Get comfortable, like find the clave. Each one of these, and by the way, they're not hard to find. You can Google any time signature and find a relevant subdivision of a clave that is probably pretty standard. And then just work on that clave. Work on hearing. Start simply by improvising very simple things with that clave, like literally with the rhythm.

And then start just deviating from it slightly, getting independent from it slightly all the hearing that clave in your head and do it the next day and do it the next day and you just got spent and then that's it third day you're down right and then you have to come back to it regularly that's the thing is like you know all these millennials who play in all different time signatures it's not like they just were born without an eighth beat they they literally spend all their time practicing that kind of stuff and they sound great so says so says the world's oldest millennial take advice from millennials when it comes to I know Peter's

internet is going but he's losing it at his house right now. I love it. No, I just said so says the words. I think I broke Peter Martin's internet with that statement. Take advice from some millennials and just learn the clave for each one of those odd time signatures

and work it. Work it over and over and over again day after day, come back to it. Make it part of your regular practice routine. if it's important to you and it's going to be part of your playing make it part of your regular practice routine like that's it peter you back cool i'm back all i said was all i said was all i said was he's got a hole in his basement it's got a hole in his wifi in his basement all all i said was so says the world's oldest millennial he's still frozen bud come on man come all can you hear me i'm here he's coming back he's coming back there he is there he is there he got me no no no

Lost them. Well, we're... You sound very drunk. You sound digitally drunk. Can you hear me, Adam? I see you. I see you. You see me before you hear me.

You got me? I think I was joking. I can hear you. We were joking that I might have broke your internet. Actually, didn't even see you. Everybody gets so... Everybody gets so... But I was joking that I broke your internet by saying that

take advice. from all the millennials and do what they do. I just said, so says the world's oldest millennial. That's all I said. And then my internet stopped working for some reason. This is great. I love it. Very true.

Although I'm not great at odd time signatures. So definitely more in the Gen X category. Cool. Well, you know what? Well, thank you everybody for the questions. We will be back next Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern. We can't hear Peter. Peter's potato quality, in and out potato quality.

But thank you, everybody. Thank you, Instagram for the questions. Thank you, or you'll hear it listeners. Go to open studio jazz.com for, and check out our piano guided practice pass. It's a new thing we've just launched. It's a membership where you can participate in our daily guide of practice session. And yeah, we'll see you next time. Until then, you'll hear it.