You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Don't Fall In Love With A Lick - #115

Episode Date: May 24, 2018

In today's episode, Peter and Adam discuss why you shouldn't get too attached to certain licks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast Today we're going to give you a dire warning Don't fall in love with a lick All right you're going to have to explain yourself here a little bit Because that sounds weird It does So first off a lick is a phrase that we think is hip

Is that? Yeah I mean it's definitely Licks are part of the jazz language Right there's the these there are What is the lick? Why don't you say that? Oh the lick What is it? I think that's A-LIC, but I think the, um,

bo-bo-bo-du-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-l-l-l-l-l-l. I love that lick. I love that. Wait, don't fall in love with it. Don't fall in. You need to listen to today's podcast. They're usually cliches, right? They're played a lot for a reason because, like, just like, I mean, just sing that horrible.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. That feels awesome. So I get why people overuse it. Yeah. But you're right. Don't fall in love with a certain lick. I mean, I think it's okay to fall in love with licks for a while.

But you've got to move on at some point. That's right. And I mean, you know, if you are going to fall in love with a lick, maybe you could fall in love with mini licks so that you've got a variety to throw out there so it doesn't sound like you only know that one lick and then you can kind of sneak it in. So I think what you're getting at is not to overuse a certain cliche, a certain pattern, a certain anything, right? Is to get some variety in your playing.

That's what we got to change the title of this episode too. No, no, no, no. Don't follow it. Don't overuse a lick. Yeah, no, let's just keep it how it is. but I'll regress back. Sorry. That's all good.

It's all good. Yeah. So let's talk about some ways, now that we've proven that you should not fall in love with A-Lick, let's talk about ways really to, well, even before we do that, let's just say this. If you do fall in love with mini-licks, so you're not just falling in love with one, with mini, then it becomes like, how do you play it in a way that it doesn't sound like A-Lick? How do you get it into the organic flow of your playing? And I think the kind of overall concept for that that can work is to,

learn the lick, just like you'd learn any other phrase, either from a solo or something that you hear or just something that you come up with, and then try to kind of move it out of your comfort zone as quickly as possible. So the easiest way I think to do that is to play it in different keys so that, you know, technically on your instrument, you're kind of force you into some other areas. And then also to, you know, be very careful about not consciously playing the lick. Don't worry about saying I'm not going to play it, but you never want to get on the gig and say, oh, I can't wait until I play this new lick. Because even if it's not the lick. Yeah, well, you're just not going to play it in an organic flow. It's not, it's going to sound contrive. It is. And that's the whole thing with these licks is, it's like if you, if you just let it come out naturally, even if you played 30 times or something, that's fine because you're hearing it. But if you say, I'm about to play it, you're going to fit it in kind of a weird place, it's going to be awkward. I mean, it's just like if you go to a dinner party and, you know, you've been reading the New York Times all day. And you're like, man, I'm going to go and sound so intelligent

to everybody and you practice certain phrases like, did you see what to Vladimir Puson? It's not going to happen. You're going to sound like such a jerk. Right. Yeah. And really playing a lick in that way, you sound like a jerk. You do. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And I mean, really it's the same thing too, though. But if you let it come out organically, you're like, oh, did you see what this was? You won't sound like a jerk. Another thing I'm thinking about this with this concept of not falling in love with a lick is that I think as improvisers, you know, part of the job of the job of, you know, being an improviser, I think is to always kind of push yourself into, you know, new territories

out of your comfort zone, because that's where some really great stuff tends to happen. Yeah. We're always trying to grow. We're always trying to get better. And if you're just like hanging on, you know, very tightly to the same licks and you're, that's all you do for years and years and years, you're not going to sound like you're very inspired, you know, because you're not going to be very interesting. You're not.

And I mean, in order to sound inspired playing like that, you have to exert a lot of energy. It's true. And even to the casual listener, you're going to kind of exude a lack of confidence and adventurous spirit, which is really what people come, whether they realize it or not, that's what people are gravitated towards this music for, is that sense of spirit, a spirit of adventure and a sense of, like, interesting stories. And it's just like if you're telling a story, like, if you kind of go to the same themes, I mean, you can tell a cowboy story, or, you can tell a cowboy story, or, or a boy meets girl or whatever, these stories. But if you make them just sound corny, you know, like you're playing the lick for the same time.

Yeah. But if you, you know, give it a vibe and a sense of adventure and some creativity to it, you can fall back on the general pattern of the story, but you make it your own. And it doesn't seem like you've thought it up.

It seems like you're saying it for the first time. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned, like, what people come to see. And I think something that a lot of people come to see is also your interaction with your other musicians.

Yeah. And I've definitely overplayed licks to the point where the people I'm playing with are like, that again, you know what I mean? Like when you see with the big thumbs down as you're playing? Yeah, that's a clue. But you also, you know, you're playing for the audience, but you're also playing for the other people you're playing with.

If you just are constantly regurgitating the same thing at the same spot, the same way, they're going to get bored. Yeah, and they're not going to be able to play an inspired way behind you because that's part of the thing when you're soloing. You set the tone for sure. I mean, it's a collaborative effort, but you set the tone. And if you're just playing regurgitated licks, then that's what they're probably going to do.

It'd be like if we had this podcast in every single number one was the same thing. Like, listen all the time, people are going to get bored. Wait, what do you mean? That's what we do. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. So, okay, so I think we've answered the, was it a question? I don't remember. Oh, no, it was a command. I think we've, we've proven our thesis, you know, our warning,

which was don't fall in love with the lick, right? That's right. Well, and hopefully, you'll hear it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the You'll Hear It podcast. You can go to you'll hearat.com to get more information, submit a question, or just say hello. Wait, you can do that. Absolutely. All right. And if you like what you heard, please leave a review and a rating below.

Thanks.