You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Do You Even Target Notes, Bro?

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

You want some music advice, bro? Today, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe about targeting specific notes when they solo. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium and get access to the SpeakPipe hotline. Just go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhiAre you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.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. What's up, bro? Where you call me bro? Well, because we got bro in the title. I was a little leery of using that term. I just wanted to try it out and see if it still works. Cool, bro.

All right, bro. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to You'll Hear It, bro. A podcast about listening and playing music better, bro. Now we switch from bro to bra. Well, that's because we were in New Orleans all week. And bro is not used, but bruh is.

Did you discover that while we were there? Yo, yeah. I don't remember much about that trip, but yes. Yeah, brah. That's how we say it there. So, yeah, so what's happening today? Today's episode is sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadiojazz.com. Hey, check out our All Access Pass. If you're a pianist or a multi-instrumentalist, it has every course we've ever made from people like Peter Martin, Jeffrey Keiser, and then people who aren't pianists like Christian McBride, Diane Reeves, Gregory Hutchinson. Like me, I play a little guitar as well as piano.

So I've learned a ton from Homerilobambo and Peter Sprague on their awesome guitar courses. And I know that we have a lot of people who are maybe primarily a pianist or primarily a drummer and they play a little piano. Yes. The all access pass could be what you need. Yeah. And I think a lot of folks don't realize because we didn't use to include these kind of courses. But now we have truly beginner, secondary instrument types of courses, even from the masters like Romerolew. With the Bostanova Jumpstar guitar.

I'll tell you what. That is an awesome course. I was showing my dad over Christmas and he was like, what? Yeah, I mean, you could really, I mean, if you have a guitar and know how to tune it up, you can be playing Boston Nova. And if you get a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro, you can be walking on Impanima Beach as you play an authentic. Now, what's the city called? It's a short case.

What's the city called again? Rio de Janeiro. Oh, that's not how you said it the first time. I was trying to get fancy, but I didn't say it correctly either time. I know. That's so funny, yeah. So go to Open StudioJazz.com and check out the all access pass for every chorus from all the instruments. And go to kayak.com to book your ticket to Rio de Janeiro.

Let's do it, man. Oh, you'll hear it live in Rio? Oh, come on now. From the beach? Actually, LeBlanc Beach is my favorite there. There's Copacabana. There's Rio de Janeiro. They all kind of connect, but LeBlon is kind of the...

Anyway, I digress. Seven favorite beaches for you'll hear it live broadcast. We could do it. So what are we talking about? Do you even target notes, bruh? Yeah, I thought it was just kind of a funny title. This is a speak pipe from Lewis. Hi guys, my name's Lewis. I'm from London, England. And my question is about goal or target notes and how you're going to be using them in your solos and how to ensure that you're creating a really melodic and true solo, assuming that you've understood the form completely. And how you're thinking about it when you're actually constructing a solo, am I going to land on the third now? Am I going to land on the fifth?

and to ensure that it sounds intentional and complete, as opposed to just playing random notes within the scale or arpeggio. That'd be great. I'd really be interested in hearing your guys' opinions about it. Thanks a lot. Well, thank you, Lewis. That's a great question. I don't think we've ever had anybody asked that question before.

No, and I mean, I think that, you know, it's interesting because we talk about this, certainly go through some of this and the lessons, but I don't think this is a huge – It's one of those areas where it's not a huge part of what we practice and preach, or at least talk about, but it is a big part of our playing and a lot of players play. I mean, really, it's just a big part of music. And it's such a,

there's a couple different ways to look at it. If you're kind of more inclusive of what you consider a target note, every phrase we ever play has some kind of target note. Of course. But I think that, you know, having a little bit more granular strategies on how we would think about these, I would just say, because that was part of Lewis's questioning about how we think,

think about it. I think this definitely falls into the general area of something good to think about sometimes when we practice. Certainly good to think about when we're transcribing. Listening. Listening. But maybe not something as much to be thinking about as we're improvising. I was just going to say that same thing. I think really this comes down to listening and getting these sounds in your head. I don't think I'm ever thinking about like and now I'm going to end this phrase on the third. It's more that I'm hearing, you know, a melody in my head and it just naturally wants to gravitate towards the third, if that's the case. Or I naturally want to start on the ninth for my line. Because I know that gives some kind of ambiguity, ambiguity. Thank you. But it's not something

I'm conscious of. It's not like, okay, I want to be ambiguous here. So I'm going to start on the night. It's really just a... Oh, I like you went into your ambiguous ones. I'm kind of shifty. No, but it's really more just like that's what I'm feeling. I'm actually not trying to think about it at all. Yeah. Trying to think about anything. Just trying to play how I'm feeling,

play what I hear. But I think it's an interesting thing to think about as an intellectual exercise off the bandstand of like, what do these target notes mean? What do they feel like? I think that could be a very productive thing. Like if you end a phrase,

let's say you end a phrase that ends on the tonic, right? And you end that phrase on the fifth, that's a little bit, It's not a resolute ending to a phrase. That demands some kind of answer, in my opinion. Yeah, because it's just, I mean, it's implicit in that as the dominant, the five. Even though it's in the melody, you would think it wouldn't be, but it is. I'm always wanting to go to the tonic for a resolution.

And even more so, and I really think it's because that 5-1 is just so instilled enough. Because even if you end up, like, the major 7, you know, you would think, oh, that's not a stable thing. It wants to resolve up, but not necessarily depending on how you do. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I think, too, like another way I'd like to just sort of frame this is target notes and how to use them in solos. No matter where you're targeting, learn about what it sounds like to end. And look, the target is the end of a phrase normally. But always remember that the rhythm and then certainly the underlying harmony and that relationship between those three things is going to have a huge difference. So there's like a way to go to the fifth to make it, you know, and how you voice it and stuff.

Like there's so many different variables. We never want to get so, you know, sort of binary in our way or just solitary in our way of thinking about a target. Oh, this sounds this way. Because if we do it with like a different rhythmic, you know, displacement or something, that can make it sound totally different. Of course. So all these things work together, as always. Yeah. And it's not even that it's like you, like you said, like you'd be actively targeting as you're improvising.

But you can practice, you know, sort of starting phrases. on a target note. Because that does change maybe the whole vibe of what the phrase you're about to play will be. Like if I'm playing a 2-5, and I start the phrase on the 13 of that 2, that's way different than if I started it on the tonic of the two. But when you're starting, it's not really a target note.

But it is a little bit. Is it? Because you're thinking, I'm just thinking about it, you're thinking about the tonality of wherever you are in your melodic line. And for me, it's hearing it. So I do think about, I would think about that as a target.

And that doesn't mean that's the first actually it doesn't mean it's the first note of the phrase. Like my target could be that 13 but it could be

and that's really da da da that's where my phrase is really beginning. Like that's a setup kind of as a setup. And I'm always thinking whenever I do think about

and you know for me when I was kind of first learning to play a lot of this stuff I don't think I don't think that the I don't know maybe if the phrase was used I just didn't

wasn't exposed to a target notes so it's always been a little bit of a funny thing thing. Like, you know, when you don't learn something at the time, you learn how to play something. Yeah. When you don't learn the terminology or the theory behind it, you always feel a little bit ignorant of it. Even if you have a, you know, and so I'm never quite sure. But at a certain point, I did think about it in terms of like target notes, even like on B-Bob stuff,

B-do do-do, but like in the middle of a phrase where you're surrounding it. But I guess that's more enclosures. That's enclosures. And you could do that too. But you're targeting. You have a target note. Like so if, if F is our target, you can surround it. you know, via half steps, all kinds of ways.

And bebop too, I think, is especially, you could think about, I used to do exercises like this of targeting the strong chord tones on the beat, right? And that's what I was talking about, the rhythm and the melody really starting to, like, be important when you're targeting on the beat or on the upbeat. That's definitely something you can practice. You can practice trying to run lines and trying to line up the strong core tones on the beat, or trying to line them up off the beat. Both are valid.

Yeah, and you can take the same phrase and just displace it by a half of a beat, like an eighth note over, and really get a feel for that, how different that is. Or you can add one note into a phrase, too, because that offsets it there, like a passing tone. I remember a teacher once telling me

that I really needed phrases and that it would unlock a bunch of stuff, and I think they were totally right because think about how many intermediate players you hear and, like, they're maybe playing some stuff and there's an idea of developing, and then they end the phrase in like kind of a whack, way instead of on solid ground. So you know you might practice different ways of

ending a phrase not that any way is actually right or better than the other but there are definitely ones that feel strong. Yeah and I think that kind of thing is not even it's almost never just the fault of the target note yeah we're talking about like so you know it's not like oh that phrase sounded whack because you ended on the 13th it's like that combined with the beat you ended yeah combined with how you got to that. Right. It could have been totally cool anything on the 13th, but you didn't set it up right. I think actually any of the 12 notes of the well-tempered scale.

Yeah. You almost said clavier. Clavier. Das is good. But, you know, I think any of them potentially could work really on any chord. For sure. I mean, it's more difficult, certain ones, and you have to alter some of the harmony. But if you're paying attention to the rhythm and the harmony as well as, because we think about target notes, it's very easy to get locked in just. the melodic quality of how you're getting there. And then also, you know, the harmony where it is vertically once you get to that place,

like what is the chord, like where we started? But it's really such a combination of it. And that's really where it's fun. And I think a lot of times, like you were saying your teacher saying, you know, didn't like the way you were ending phrases or bringing that to your attention. I've done that too. And I've been very critical of my own playing. And I think a lot of times that's less about the target note as opposed to like how you're

getting to the target note. For sure. And so, like, sometimes if you play a. series of phrases and you're trying to like tell a story, but you end them all the same. And part of that is ending on the same target note over and over again. It's a boring story. Yep. You know, and so being conscious of that in terms of target note is, I think, very important.

So you have to have some different options of different target notes on how to end phrases. You know, and if it's a two, five one and you're on a major and like we started on that fifth, we, you learn what that sounds like? The sharp 11. What does that sound like? The 13. The nine. So that you have an idea of when you're ending the phrase, what,

that's going to do to the tonality, to the harmony of where you're ending. I was just thinking, like, a really easy way to kind of analyze this and maybe learn some lessons about how to end phrases, is to analyze some melodies of Great American Songbook standards. You know, these people were masters at setting up our expectations with melody. I'm thinking about, like, that first phrase ends on the tonic, right? Yep. There's a little bit of an more ambiguity ending on the third. Now we're ending on the fifth.

Yeah, fifth, six. The target doesn't matter. But the end of that first ending, the end of the first half of the tune does not end on the tonic. It ends on a more ambiguous place. And then, but the end of the whole tune, you know what I mean?

Or ends on the tonic as most of these do. Yep. For a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're coming back home. You're bringing it back home. But that's kind of the,

I feel like the 101 of basic target notes. construction, melodic construction. It's something to think about. But also, as we said, please don't think about it when you're playing. Right, right, right, right. Just listen to a bunch of music. If you want to analyze melodies and how they are structured,

it doesn't get any simpler than Gershwin tunes or Jerome Kern tunes or things like that. And you can really see the moves of how these composers crafted their melodies. And then when you get on the bandstand, forget all about it and just try to play what you're feeling. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, those are not mutually exclusive.

Like, you cannot think about it on the bandstand and still be intentional in your One way you can do that is just record yourself on the gig. So don't worry about it. Yeah. But if you want to be like, well, I didn't worry about it, but I feel like I'm still playing playing bland or whack target notes, listen back to the record. Yep. Check the transcript, you know.

And so that's a great way to develop yourself because then when you hear yourself, you'll start making some automatic adjustments to your target notes if you're getting too rigid, I think, in your usage of them. Totally true. Well, that was good. So the answer to the question, do you even target notes, bro, is? Yeah. Yeah.

Kind of. I guess. Inconclusive. Well, good. Well, we are brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadiojazz.com for all of your targeted notes and targeted lesson needs. We've got courses from a bunch of folks, beginner, Uber beginner to Uber advanced. And you know what?

If you have any questions, reach out to our wonderful customer service department. And this is my customer service music you're playing here. So until tomorrow, you'll hear it. Key Station.