You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Deep Listening

Episode Date: July 5, 2019

On today's episode, Peter and Adam answer a listener's email question about what jazz musicians mean when they advocate "deep listening."We're proud to present the new-and-improved platform for Open Studio: https://www.openstudiojazz.com! Head on over, check it out, and let us know what you like and what needs improvement. (We have over 1000 lessons to move to the new site, so check in over the following weeks as we update our courses)And if a new platform wasn't enough, we have a BRAND NEW course available: Jumpstart Jazz Piano! This is a course for very beginner-level pianists who want to learn the basic fundamentals of how to play jazz. And to celebrate, we're offering an early-bird discount of $10 off for THIS WEEK only! Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/jazz-piano-jumpstart and use the discount code JPJ10.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!Let 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. How deep can you be? Like a puddle? A deep puddle? No. Oh. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily jazz advice. Come in at you. Come in at you. Shout out to our sponsor today at the podcast. That's SoundSlice. Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe.

Yes. Check it out. Amazing tool. I love going to the community. I know you like mixing it up in there and seeing all the different transcriptions. It's a great way to learn. And so we highly, highly recommend it. Yeah, no, it's great.

And a lot of the community members put up little, they call them slices on there, and they're like little segments of sort of like, you know, might be the best part of a tune or the best part of the solo, just a little bit of a little bite of information and inspiration for you. And it's a great way to kind of get into the platform.

There's, it goes very deep, since we're talking about deep listening today, the platform goes very deep, but even as you're first learning it, you can really appreciate it and then, you know, go deep into the online, on-screen in-browser notational system and all the, you know, the teacher facilities that it has as a user and there's a lot there, but check out the community because that's a great entry point, I think. Very cool.

Yeah. Well, today we're taking a question from an email. You know, we do do do questions. We do do do questions from emails. We do potty humor, apparently. You can email our producer here. Yes. Andrew at OpenStudionetwork.com.

Yes. And you can send us a question. You can also go to open, you'll hear it. We'll hear it.com and leave us a question. Also, you know, if you have a tune that you want to hear on the back end of our show, we still do this.

So send your MP3 to Andrew. We're not doing it today because we didn't get any good ones. But if we get some more good ones, we'll do it. We had some great ones. We're discerning. Yeah, for sure. But they've all been really good, actually, the ones we play.

Of course. We're not going to play some crap, man. We got quality here. Quality control. This question is from David. And David asked, Hi, guys, I came across your podcast in the two-minute jazz videos last month,

and I love the vibe. Wonder if some of your other listeners are like me. I was a high school musician, dropped it in college, and picked it up 25 years later. I played jazz piano in high school, but never learned jazz correctly because I'm classically trained.

I know theory, and I can cite read anything, but I only recently learned to listen and have trouble, improvising lines in a melodic way. I work full time, so I practice two to three times a week. My goal in the future would be to play in a trio or a small jazz combo.

Yes, I know that means more practice time, but I'll have to be patient because of my other commitments. My question, what do you mean when you say, listen deeply? I have an idea of what that is, but how do you actually listen? What do you listen for? Do you try to hear changes, chords, solo lines?

Which do you listen for first? Sorry, that was all the first question. Thanks, David. David, yeah, thank you. David Kissinger, grandson to, our secretary former secretary of state Henry Kism. No, we don't know that for sure.

It's possible. Unbelievable fact number nine here. We don't know that he's not. We don't know that he's not. This is a great question. We talk about listening a lot. Yes. And so we can definitely go into some ways to listen.

Yeah. And I mean, deep listening, I think we've made that distinction before or maybe he heard it, David heard it from somebody else. But I think we do, you know, want to acknowledge and really emphasize the difference between deep listening

and just listening. And the way that I can find, you know, to sort of explain that easiest maybe is that deep listening is the way that a musician, a practitioner of the craft of playing jazz music would listen to something as opposed to a fan. Now, I think that gets a little confusing because we are fans also. Sure. Maybe even first and foremost. And so there's nothing wrong with listening as a fan. But you've got to do some deep listening as, you know, it's kind of like if you're a plumber, you can, you know, open up underneath the sink,

anybody can open up and admire some beautiful work that's done with the piping or whatever. But a plumber's going to look at it and be like, wow, he's going to know the engineering behind it and why this was done and look at it in a way that you or I wouldn't. I don't know if you're a plumber. No, you're going to take it apart.

Yeah, for sure. Take it apart. And so I think that's the first thing is just sort of understanding what and why we would want to listen deeply. And then we can get into kind of how you do it and what it is. Yeah, I mean, a good way to go about this, David, is maybe to think about it,

like you are taking apart a machine and you're someone who works on this machine. And so the first thing you do is look at it from an overview, right? What's the overall sound? Because if you're deep listening and you wanna get deep, chances are, or at least how it should be, is you should be listening to something

that strikes you, that you love. And so the first thing that I listen to or that I pay attention to is like, wow, how do they get that overall sound? What is that overall sound? What's going on to create the sound here that I love. Yeah, I think that starts with everybody

in the band having a similar uniform of overalls. Get it? Okay, sorry. Yeah. Okay. And, good one. No, but then from there, like once you kind of identify, okay, well, this sounds moody or, you know, slow or airy or beautiful or happy, whatever it is, then you might think about like, okay,

what instruments are making? this sound. Yeah. How do they achieve that overall mood or vibe? Right. And just what's the instrumentation? Right. You know, that could be like the first way of breaking it down. You know, okay, I hear piano, I hear bass, I hear drums, I hear a trumpet, I hear a saxophone. Right.

I don't hear a trombone, thank goodness. Yep, yeah. You know what I mean? So you start then breaking down the moving parts within what you're hearing. Now, you probably already know what the instrumentation is if you bought the CD and you see who's on or whatever. So, but just, just

be aware of that. Be aware of what instruments are making that sound. No, I think that's very important because the next kind of levels of many of the things where I think we're going to say kind of depend on you knowing who's playing

and then like how the instruments and the different positions interact with each other. And then also just how individually sort of your instrument. So like, you know, we're a piano. So normally you're going to spend more time at a certain level kind of analyzing

and listening and trying to do takeaways from the pianist standpoint. But I think in order to be able to do that, you have to not only know all the other instruments that are playing, but know a little bit about why and how they're doing what they're doing so that when we interact or want to analyze how a great pianist on a recording is interacting with those other instruments, you know what's possible, you know,

and you know why certain things work. You understand why certain conversations happen. I think most, you know, recordings that in the jazz world that we end up wanting to and also listening to deeply have generally so much great interaction, you know. And then I would even say that, I know people are thinking, well, what about solo piano? Even in solo piano, there's interaction with oneself. Of course. You know, Art Tatum, it's like a lot of different voices going on and things.

And so that, as a listener on that fan level, that top level that we started with or bottom level, if we look at building up, the interaction is such an important thing. I mean, it's beautiful, it's moody, it's deconstructed, it's complex, it's painful, it's all the emotions that we know music can do. It's so much more exciting when there's a group of one to 100, for sure. Putting that together and interacting it. And so, like, I think a lot of the deep listening when we really get to deconstructing it is about seeing how a collective achieves the complexity of music and how that can be done. Absolutely. I mean, I was, as you were talking about this collective and what they're doing, doing, you know, the first way to do this, you've identified the instruments, you hear the sound,

you hear the collective, is to isolate one of those instruments. It doesn't even have to be your instrument. Right. But isolate the bass and listen to just what the bass player is doing. And then you can hear that in relation to the drums, in relation to the piano, in relation to the saxophone, or isolate the piano and just hear how that pianist is interacting with everyone else. And that's sort of the first step, I think, really diving deep on something. Yeah. Absolutely. Then I think, you know, once you get to a certain point of listening, and look, all the, you know, deep listening, I think involves repeatedly listening deep. For sure.

So, but you cannot rely just on listening to something a lot. What will happen is when you listen to something over and over again, be it music or somebody saying something, anything that's repeated. Like you'll start to sort of on an unconscious level, be able to identify patterns and memorize it or whatever. Things start popping out. Things start popping out. Yeah. But you, but the deep part, like you could listen to something. a thousand times to a recording and never listen to it deeply.

And you might think that you know it, but you don't really know it. You know it as a fan. That's what we're talking about, that delineation between a fan and as an actual practitioner. That's right. So I think that you can actually attempt to do some of that deep listening right from the beginning. But either way, you're looking at a lot of repetition in it. And the way that you know you've listened to it enough,

not necessarily deeply enough, but just enough paired with the deepness is when you can sing every part. That's right. And you can jump around. And I think of like, Every drum hit that's about to happen. You know every drum hit, right. And not only do you know all the different individual parts,

you know sort of a progression of what's going on in that recording in terms of like what's important. I mean, not to say that there aren't two things or three things or five things important at the same time, but there's always like that one thing that's kind of highlighted. So it's like you can kind of sing along and bounce between the different instruments to a drum fill, to a hip bass line or whatever.

Or he goes to the bell of the symbol here, he puts in the mute or whatever. Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. And so then that's when you start to, deconstructed in a way that you really can focus in on that interaction and why people are playing things, not just that they're playing something great, but like, why was it played? That's right. And then you can go into even more granular levels. You start with kind of deconstructing the form.

You know, is this the intro or is this part of the form? Is this the top of a chorus or an interlude? You know, these kinds of things. Here's the ending. They triple tag it or whatever it is you're listening for. And that's, I really think is important. That's like that now you're getting to the nitty. gritties of some analysis of like what's going on and I love doing that kind of after you've listened to it deeply enough that you really know it but now you're like okay now I want to break it down right you know it's like I know my way around the building now let's pull the walls off and see how this bad boy's put together where the pipes at yeah yeah yeah and I think you know yeah these things in terms of form but like how what the what the actual construction of

the form is number number of bars but then what is the harmonic form What are the changes? What are the changes would be next? Is that altered? And then the overall structure in terms of, is there a segue? Is there a vamp? Is there an intro? Is there?

Or, you know, kind of what those things? And those are all kind of finite, less esoteric kind of things that you just learn. Yeah. This is nuts and bolts of how that music is built. Yeah. You're like looking at the schematics, basically. Yeah. And then you can go in, of course, deeper and should in terms of like each solo.

So that, like, that would be the overall form and then how that's put together. And then you're kind of going more on the smaller level. The solo architecture is next. for me. Yeah. What I was thinking of, of listening to how each soloists or even just one particular soloist is phrasing over this form. Yeah.

Where are they putting the brakes? How often are they playing? Are they getting busier as it goes on? Is it getting more intense? Or are they kind of staying at an even keel or even having a bit of an arc where it dips at the end, you know, like all of those things are something that when I'm deep listening, I'm really thinking about trying to hear. Yeah.

I'm trying to just absorb what they're doing, you know. Yeah. And I think that when you do that, when you do doing the solo architecture, this is a time a part of deep listening where you may for a day or even several days several sessions of listening just listen to that one solo for sure yeah because we never want to totally you know divested from the whole performance but i think as you're studying it is good well because it's not just about the soloist either once you kind of get the feeling of the the solo's phrases and maybe you can sing the solo now you have a chance to hear what the bass player's

doing as the solo develops here what the pianist is doing as the solo develop here's what here's what the drummer is adding as the solo always, you know, plays higher on the trumpet, the drummer adds this thing or this one phrase, answers. Yeah. That's when you're starting to really get deep into the tune. Hence the name, deep listening. That's right.

Well, and I think, too, you know, what you'll start to see, David, is that in everybody, that the better you know some part, like say we're talking about the soul and else. So you really know the soul. You can sing it. You know some harmonic things.

You know some patterns that are going on. The soul, the architecture of the soul, you know, on a, entire level you kind of know what happens then don't stop there so as you're listening these other things should start to pop off in a way yeah you know like what the drummers are doing and stuff because now you don't have to just like you know the solo sure you don't even have to listen to it like it's there and you hear it but you can actually hear that while you're concentrating on something else and i know you asked about like what do you listen for first i think on the solo level you listen to

the soul first and once you really know that by that kind of deep listening and analysis of the architecture the solo that you're going to find and look this all depends upon how difficult and complex and you know the that solo or that tune is but you try to start with some maybe simpler things not bad not lower skill level just simpler so that you can hear this stuff but but once you know that solo all the things that are happening in the other instruments should start to pop out in a way that you never heard before so true whereas like your your fan listening you're listening and everything, you're just catching the vibe. And, you know, maybe you latch on to a little bit here or there.

But it's kind of like, you know, you're going to a restaurant and, you know, all these great flavors are coming, but you're having fun and talking while you're eating. Yeah, yeah. You know, whereas like a chef is like really concentrating on like, wait, let me break down that one little celery thing with the salt and how is that interacting. That's so good. And that's the way we do this, you know. So I think, you know, also he was asking about you try to hear the changes, court, soul lines.

I think for all those things, that's within the context of what we're talking. talking about. Yeah. Like you're breaking down the different sections first and then the solos and then what everybody else is doing as opposed to saying, okay, I'm going to go through and just listen for chords that everybody's playing. Yeah. Yeah. And at a certain point, too, if you really want to get deep, you're going to have to take this to your instrument on some level. Yes. You know, if you really want to get inside the tune, you need to learn the tune. Learn, learn what the changes are, learn the melody of whatever tune you're listening to. And then start transcribing. And you don't have to, I don't mean like transcribe every solo. You could just pick out those things that we were talking about.

that pop out. Right. You know, maybe there's a phrase that gives you, you know, the jazz face. Right.

You know what I'm talking about? Stank face. Stank face. Just transcribe that. Figure that out. Yeah. And now you have it. And if you know the changes,

you know where to apply that to other situations, it's great. Yep. And we've got an ultimate tip coming on at the very end of the episode that I think we,

that folks can layer in with what we just said. Are we going to remember, remember to do it this time? I just wrote it down this time. Okay. Yeah. Well,

before we get to the ultimate tip, thank you, David for the question. Send your emails to Andrew at OpenSterdo Network. Thank you, grandfather, for a service to our country. We don't know that's the truth or not. Go to you'll hear at dot com to leave us to speakpipe.

Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe to check out that amazing transcription tool. Shout out the soundslice our sponsor. Don't forget this week we just launched the jazz piano jumpstart. This is a jazz piano course designed to take a novice jazz pianist to actually being able to play

some actual jazz piano. A verified neophyte. That's right. We've got great things like guided practice routines and playalongs. A workbook that is, by the way, free for the first 100 customers. Which may be by today, that might be, well, you can still try. And it's also, the whole course is $77. That's one of our cheapest courses ever.

That's right. And it's a very regimented in terms of time. It's not regimented, I don't think, in terms of style. We're very flexible, guys. But it's seven weeks, taking you from the novice jazz piano. to a master akin to Oscar Peterson. Yeah. Right?

Well, no. I mean, it's a scalpel. I just saw our promo. That's why I was thinking about that. It's a scalpel, not a machete. Okay. Yeah. No, but we think folks are going to have fun.

We're already getting feedback. I mean, people are already a couple days into the program, which is exciting for us. Well, because it's also on our new platform, which is lightning fast. Lightning fast. It makes you learn fast, makes you think fast. That's right. Makes you play fast. Open StudioJazz.com.

Go there. Check out the jazz piano jumpstart. That's right. And the special, as long as it still there. It's just going to give it to you. You don't need a coupon or anything. It'll give you the free workbook as long as you get there one of the first 100 people. So do you remember the ultimate tip?

I do remember the ultimate tip. So this we're talking about deep listening. So this is pattern recognition. That's the best way I can sort of say it. And what this means is like as you're doing all the things that we talked about and probably some other ones you hear from other folks that you want to want to layer in, find the places from the beginning as you're doing your deep listening. that are similar or different.

And that's when we talk about patterns, that's really what that is. Pattern is something that's either repeated or not repeated, but it has some kind of connection. And I always think of the easiest way to think about that is maybe, you know, like the head at the beginning and the end.

That's the simplest pattern in a way. So that was easy to get. But there's other things on more of the level of during a solo that people play. So normally most people kind of push that to the back or don't even ever think about it. I want you thinking about that deeply as you know. So that means anything.

bass line, something at the beginning in the middle of solo, anything that's repeated or repeated a couple of times, a rhythm, something the drummer does something, recognize those patterns because it's one of the biggest kind of, you know, triggers in our brains to get us to really remember something deeply

and to understand something. So we do it on an intuitive level anyway, but if you can kind of recognize some of this and, you know, deep listening, we're talking about being more conscious about our listening, I think that'll help. So try to identify what those patterns are. Does it make sense or make a good? No, it makes perfect sense.

No, no, perfectly deep. I didn't know. I don't want to go underwater. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm about as deep as a puddle, so pretty shallow up in here. Yeah. Well, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.