You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Comping Patterns - #7

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

Peter mans the piano in his first ever solo YHI episode, in which he gives some tips for comping patterns on fast tunes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Hey, Adam. Where's Adam? Oh, I forgot. Hold on a second. I got a text message. Dear Peter, this is Adam. I'm texting you. I'm in Disney World and will not be there all week for you'll hear it. You're on your own, but don't worry, you'll hear it. I'm Peter Martin, and that's it for today. Adam is on vacation this week. So I'm coming to you from the piano, not from the pad cable, over there. I'll be back there later in the week. But this is the You'll Hear It podcast. This is my first time ever doing this on my own. Adam did it a little bit on his own, I believe a few weeks ago when I was out of town. So this is a fun kind of change. We're in 2019, so happy 2019. We're on, what are we on? Season three now, Andrew? We're season three. They said it would last,

and we forced it. We forced it. And now we're forcing it upon you. So we want to welcome you. We want to welcome all of our new listeners to the You'll Hear podcast, of which we have many. And today's episode is a question. So let's read that. This is about comping patterns. Hey, Open Studio. This is from Corey. Hey, Open Studio. Can you show us some comping patterns like you did on the rhythmic syncopation two-minute jazz lesson, but for faster swingers like what a little moonlight can do? Love the episodes at the piano, exclamation point, exclamation point. You're welcome. I'm back at the piano. Thanks. This is my second question, Peter and Adam. You two are both stars. I was going to say you're getting a little greedy with the second question,

but then you said you two both are stars, so you redeemed yourself. So this is actually from Mark and Corey in Glastonbury, UK, I believe, Scotland, England. All right, great. So the question is about comping patterns. First of all, comping patterns, and look, we're talking about mostly for pianists here, a little bit for guitarist, but this is important for every jazz musician to know and to understand. So if you're not a pianist, do not tune off and turn this off. I'm going to tell you why. Well, first of all, comping patterns. That stands for accompanying patterns. For those of you that aren't versed with the word comping. And that's one of those terms.

Every time I try to text it, I get auto corrected or told that it's not a real word. But we know, as jazz musicians, you'll hear it. It is a real word. But basically we're talking about the different rhythmic patterns that we use when we're accompanying normally like horn player, singer, drummer, bass player, whatever at the piano. And it's such a big part of what our job is. We want to really be well versed in this. And I think that, you know, there's so many great ideas and, you know, every pianist does this differently. And the wonderful thing about this is you can have fresh ideas every day by listening to the recordings that you enjoy. And the trick is like how do you apply that to real world situations. But that gives you an idea sort of of the repertoire, the same way you listen to great soloists for different melodic and solo ideas.

You still have to tell your story and we have to tell our own story, which is what we want to do, but we can kind of use some of these elements. So the other part of the question was kind of asking about over fast swingers what a little moonlight can do. So, you know, the rhythmic concept is the same, I think, at any tempo when you're in swing. If you're here, a one, two, three, four. Or if you're one, two, one, two, three, four. Or if you're here, one, two, three, four. And one thing that you can do as a pianist, and let me just say, for non-pianist, the reason this is so important for you to understand this too is because the more you understand

with the roles of the other musicians in the jazz setup around you, for instance, if you're a horn player, you want to understand the role of the piano, the drums and the bass, the rhythm section, guitar, because when you're soloing, they're going to usually be playing with you. If you're playing a duo as a trumpet player with the piano, the piano's going to be functioning as most of the rhythm section most of the time. So the more you understand about what he or she does at the instrument how these comping techniques work. You don't necessarily have to be able to play them all. That's sort of bonus, right? But you do want to be able to, you know, kind of understand what's happening so that you can interact with them, know what's possible,

and then play off of that. You know, use those kind of things to your advantage. So you might not be playing these exact rhythms, but you're going to be fitting in around them. And sometimes you are going to be playing with them. So that's why it's very valuable. Now, as far as the comping at the faster tempos. The best way to practice, combing at faster tempos, I believe, is by comping at slower tempos, because that's when you really instill that precision. If we do, so we're on, what a little moonlight. See, what are the changes to this again? Let me remember. Oh yeah, it's kind of like stagnant around the one, then it goes to the four. Okay, so we've got a long time over this B-flap major tonic, right?

So if I'm playing one, two, one, two, three, four, it can seem like it's really hip what I'm playing and that it's working, especially when you don't hear the bass of the drums like now. But when you slow things down, that's where you really hear if you're right in the cut, if you're right in that rhythmic precision. And then that's the same thing that you're going to take with you

when you go up to the faster temple. So if I'm like, one, two, three, four, I'm just going to give a little bass line So we have some reference point. So like if I do something like that, like a little triplet feel. One, two, three, four. And then come back, there should be a precision there.

Where I come back to the eighth note feel with the syncopation, right? So this is eighth note. A little triplet, triplet, and then the eighth note. Because the whole thing with comping rhythmic patterns at this temple, and then especially as we move faster, is setting up interesting syncopations. Like, that's what the pattern basically is based upon.

You know, there's a lot of things we can do, where we're kind of getting melodic and stuff within our improv. But right now, we're really just talking about the rhythmic standpoint. So for syncopation, it's not just a matter of playing on the upbeats. One, two, three, four. That's cool. but it's not really syncopated. It's just playing upbeats.

It has to resolve or have some drama at some point. And so it's that traveling back and forth from the up to the down. And we're not even talking about triplets now yet. We're just talking about eighth notes up and down. So syncopation is the resolution and the dramatization of that juxtaposition of upbeat and downbeat.

All right? And I just want to put it out there. Has Adam ever used juxtaposition, syncopation, and what was the other fancy word I used, Andrew, juxtaposition, syncopation, and dramatization. That was three in one sense, okay? I'm just saying, he's not here to defend himself, but I just wanted to put that out there. But that's what it's really about. Like, that's the foundation. And this is easier to understand to play, to practice at the slower tempos. You kind of will get it built in if you do it enough and listen, you'll hear it at these slower temples so that when you speed it up, one, two, one, two, three,

but you're just kind of holding on for dear life at that point, right? So at the slower temple, you can start to really feel it, think about it, actually kind of plan out when you're gonna hit the down and the up, right? One, two, three, four, up, up, up, down, up, down and up, triple it, okay? So that's pretty much what the foundation of it

is I'm going to have a little bit of my snacks that have been provided. Even though we're not in a pie cave, I've got my trail mix, healthy plant-based. 2019, more on that later. When Adam gets back, a little bit of snacks here. But that's the trick for our comping patterns. Think about resolving from the upbeat to the downbeat, throwing in some triplets, practice slowly, practice medium, listen to the recordings, and then you'll do well. We want to give a big shout out to everybody who's been watching. on YouTube. We're very excited. Our YouTube channel is blowing up. You know what I'm saying? So leave us some comments there. I'm going to have some fun this week by myself and hope

everybody's having a great 2019 so far. How do we end things usually? Oh yeah, you'll hear it.