You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Fall in love with Minor 2-5-1's

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Not yet a fan of Minor 2-5-1's? You will be after Pete and Adam tell you why they love them.Woosh or No Woosh? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know which team you are onCheck out Open Studio Pro hereSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com 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 Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yes. It's a new feature today. What? Wait, you're coming up with the feature? I'm coming up with this feature. This is when the old becomes new again. Oh.

Do you remember? Kind of a Benjamin Button in reverse situation. Story of my life, man. Do you remember Method Mondays? Oh, I do. I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you are listening to the You'll Hear podcast.

Music, advice, inspiration, and mythology. Wait, methodology. Methodology. And mythology. There's definitely some mythology. that for sure yeah yeah yeah we can go either way that's great man i have been poo-pooing new features lately let's not talk about poopoo we've can i digress quickly please because you just you just introduce some trauma it's my life by saying something you might be interested in no no it's not

we have a little dog we have two little dogs oh my god over at the martin household yeah also known as the martins with a z um the little dog you know what i'm gonna publicly shame her right now because I feel like we've tried everything else. She is poo-pooing, as you would say, but not poo-pooing some chord changes, which is probably what you're going to be talking about. She's actually literally poo-pooing in the wrong places, inside of the home.

The worst. Now, granted, it's been very cold here in St. Louis. But I don't like that excuse. So when you say poo-pooing, I understand that you meet it in a different way, but it hits hard right now. I'm not yet. We've all had old dogs.

It's not really an old dog. It's not a young dog. It's right in that sweet spot, you know, like five, Six years old. This is Little Penny. Oh, Penny. She's so cute.

She's so cute. But when the, when the turds are rolling out, excuse me. Sorry. At least they're probably manageable. They are, they're smaller than, then. Well, no, they're bigger than you'd expect. But they're smaller than. Hey, welcome to the podcast.

This is, you guys liking this so far? Happy New Year, folks. Hope everything's coming out okay in your solos. Well, let's talk about something else. Anything really. Is this going to stay in, you think? I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're not heavy editors, so. No, not really. Let's talk about our... Stop poo-pooing my poo-poo story. Let's talk about, that's the last time I'll ever say that. Let's talk about Method Monday, which is our new feature we're going to start right here today. Oh, we're actually doing this. I thought we were joking.

I love it. It's kind of already been happening on Mondays where we talk about sort of nuts and bolts musical things. Like last week, we talked about the maestro six chords, right? All about those. I learned a lot in that. I mean, it was so great. Did you notice I was kind of quiet in that episode? The only time I get quiet is when I'm a little confused.

It's like I said in the episode, though, these are things that I hear you play literally every time you touch the piano and you just, I think, don't have it organized in the same way that the great Barry Harris had, which is that's his gift, really. Absolutely. It's organizing things that everyone at a certain level knows and plays. And it's part of our language because we all kind of speak the same language. Right. Kind of a jazz piano vernacular or really just a jazz theory vernacular kind of language. Like Barry Harris grew up listening to Bud Powell and was a contemporary of like Winton Kelly. and you love Bud Palin-Wing Kelly and Barry Harris.

So, of course, you know how to play like them. But I think it speaks to an important thing, and I want everyone to feel hopefully, you know, really just hopeful and inspired by this kind of thing is that we can play things that we have trouble conceptualizing or even teaching or being able to describe. Yeah. You know, and then other things become very easy.

And I think for me as a teacher, I used to get frustrated with that because I was like, I know how to play this, but I can't explain it. And I know that that's not great teaching. But there's always just certain things that we're going to excel at. And obviously, you know, Barry Harris excelled at many different things, but especially these types of concepts. But I think it's okay for all of us.

Don't get, what I'm trying to say is don't get frustrated even if you don't understand in the way that others understand something as long as you can play it. Totally. And also, you don't have to be able to play and understand everything in the same way. There's nothing wrong with that either. No, no one could play and understand everything. So I don't feel like you got to have the whole world in your pocket. Right.

Do what you love. Stay in the pocket, though. Always be in the pocket, yeah. You know what I love? What? Is talking about minor 251s. I know you love it too. I know you love it.

I love it like you, but hopefully by the end of this episode, I will love it as much as you. So I thought we could give, we get asked about minor two five ones all the time and like, what do I play over them? Because a lot of people are stuck with just like, is it the mix of Lydian on the, what do I? Yeah. What's the right, whatever. And there are, I mean, obviously. So just a caveat before we begin. Music theory is the worst.

Yes. And it's the best. And it's the best. No, I heard this term the other day, and this really has turned to switch on for me. Music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive here. So everything we're talking about, this isn't like this scale is something you should go then apply to your playing or whatever. We're describing sounds that we've heard. Right.

A lot of players use a lot of different sounds on things like minor two, five ones or minor five ones or minor keys. And so what we're going to talk about here is descriptive, not prescriptive. So don't take this as Peter and Adam told me to go play this scale over minor two, five ones. That's not how to think about it, really. Find your own sounds here, but these are some things that we have heard on recordings where people are playing in minor keys. Yes. And there's a somewhat of a cadence in a minor key, a 5-1 cadence in a minor key. Yeah.

And just to maybe spark some ideas of some territories of exploration. I like it. So level one is where I love to start talking about this with students. Like, what is the most basic sound we can hear on this? And for sure, a 5-1 sound is the most basic sound, right? So here we have G7 to C minor. Even if you don't throw the 2 in yet, which you, by the way, never have to, ever. Like, a lot of great B-Bot masters just thought of in 5-1 cadence is not.

Yeah. Even if they played the 2 and the, you know, with the copying. That was part of the 5. Right, right. And really, that's part of the 1. Right. Like, it's all, it's not even about. And horn players, too, like, just playing.

even if the rhythm section is actually, you know, playing through the two to the five to the one. Yeah. A lot of really good. I mean, Miles is like really good at breaking down and kind of simplifying what the chords are to be able to create beautiful melodies over just a couple of chords,

even when there's other ones going by. But it still sounds good. Melodically, Miles is not spelling out the chord changes every, even in his bebop era. Chet Baker famously did no chord changes. He was just like, what's the first note of the tune? Yeah. And it would improvise off the tune.

Like that kind of feeling is not uncommon with these masters. So to get caught up in there's two beats of D minor, 7, flat 5, there's two beats of G7, flat 9, flat 13, there's 4B, that's not the way to think about it. The way you might think about it is we're in C minor and there's this tension. You get a little resonant in here

with our C. It's like that. I don't know if the listeners can get that. Interesting. So the first way I like to throw people into the deep end here is level one. On this G7, right, your 5 chord, how about try a C harmonic

minor, C harmonic minor, right? So a C harmonic minor is C, D, E, flat, F, G, A, and B. But started at B. Yeah. And then don't go above the octave. Isn't that called like the super low creed or something? No. Okay. When you start a harmonic minor, I think this is called, what is this called? The Phrygian dominant is what it's called. But just, if you're just starting to improvise over like minor five ones, yeah, start this harmonic minor, C-harmonic minor, C-D-E-flat, F, G, A-flat, and B. Start the scale on B and only go up to A flat. Don't do the break. Yeah.

So that's giving you the, let me just make sure I'm understanding this correctly. That's giving you the flat 13, of course. And the flat 9, basically. Those are your two alterations. But check it out. When you don't include that minor third, there's so much, it makes it so easy to just resolve to any note. Yeah. Strong note of C minor, right?

And would you say that the outside, so B, D, F, A flat, that fully diminished, that's kind of, guiding you a little bit with the other ones as passing notes maybe. Exactly. That's why you want to start to think about this sort of range of notes, right? And I'm not going to say scale, but sort of this color palette of notes from B to A flat. Because if you think about, I'm just going to stay in this little octave as I resolve to C minor.

All of this stuff opens up. And a lot of players just do this naturally. Like you hear a lot of language from people like Red Garland playing a lot of stuff just within this little space here, resolving to a C minor triad, one of the strong notes of a C minor triad. Question. Yeah. Why are you not thinking about that or hearing that as a B fully diminished or a B diminished scale

that's stopping? You could, well, it's not a diminished scale. Is it? No, it's not a half whole diminished scale. Almost? It's almost. But if it were, there would be an F sharp in it. Oh, that's right.

It's a little different. That's why you think of it as a C harmonic or that G, Phrygian dominant. I knew that. I was just testing you. You know it too. That's good. But that's kind of level one. It's just thinking about that G7 chord as that C harmonic minor starting on B going up to A flat. And then, you know, if you have a 2-5, you can do the same thing.

Like you don't have to. Yes, you can acknowledge that there might be a situation where you're going to suss the B to a C and then go back down. That's all just tension and resolution on the 5 chord. Yeah. That is level one. Yes. Peter, what do you got? Okay.

So level two and realizing now that I didn't know you're going to be so dogmatic about the levels, but that's okay. Because this might be jumping. Very loose. There's no order related to this. This is just ideas. So this is something that I was thinking about because I just sort of use this. I probably overused this, but I love the sound so much. And I remember hearing Herbie Hancock play this.

And it was such a big part of my sort of fundamental ear training as a young lab because I was trying to figure out how this stuff sounded. And I didn't really understand like stuff that I learned. later about like double diminished and and to tell you the truth still stuff that I don't totally understand the theory behind it but I do understand how it the usage and application of it yeah but this is one that like I kind of got locked in and this is why I'm very um you know sympathetic to folks when they're like we get these constant questions about two five minor two five ones and because for a while I was like what do you mean it's no different than I mean it's no more difficult than a regular two five one but it is and I remember that when it was like what do I play and it wasn't that I didn't

understand the different options, but it was more like, what can I play that sounds good? I think that's what people struggle with. Yeah, exactly. And I remember hearing Herbie Hancock play this in a number of different situations. And the, you know, the thing that I distilled it down to, although it includes many different elements, but the most important element, kind of first principles of it, was the major ninth on the two, on the half a minute's two. So if you're the key of B, well. This is very Herbie-ish, by the end. Yeah, should we stay in the same key or do we want to go another? Whatever key you want. Okay. Let's, let's, let's stay. in the same key just as so a reference point

for how it changed from level one. Excellent idea. So we've got D half diminished. And this is one that we are really focusing in on the two. Because there's specific movements that you're going to go to. Exactly. Exactly. So we've got, you know, root position D,

D, F, A, flat. You start out with that diminished. Yeah. But then you've got that seven. So it is a half diminished. Yep. And then you're adding in the ninth. E natural.

E natural. Whereas traditionally you would think of this right as the scale to use for the half to minutes which is that the lochrean lochrean yeah this is called locrian sharp two oh really yeah okay see you learn something every day riff reading is fundamental not related okay so we've got that something it might be it yes i love reading i love riff so but for some reason i always kind of heard it more as like f minor major seven yeah i absolutely I use tons of like melodic minor. And I think Herbie played it a lot like that.

Absolutely. And then of course you can go up from there. You've got the E flat major seven with the raised fifth. Yeah. So just here on the two chord, this is something we talk about. We've been talking about at the daily guide of practice session. Look at, if you look at, so here we're in the key of C, so if you go to really old recordings of minor keys, they're not playing the two a lot. They might play the four.

Look at an F minor six chord. that's a D half to minish, except with F in the bass instead of D. And then sometimes they're just like, it's already on the G. It's already on the G. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, that's why to think of it as like an F minor major, that's not out of the question. Right. Yeah.

So then what are you doing on the G? And then even though you're using some of the same notes, you know, we've talked about this before, when you kind of conceptualize these things as the so-called root, even though you're not playing that as the root, really can give some interesting melodic ideas. And I think that's what I kind of connected with the way Herbie would approach. and it was just like yeah super interesting melodic minor stuff little cells within that to play around with and then you're going on like altered on the G

yeah this one really lends itself nicely so do you have to manage with the major seventh and then that can slide down to this flat 13 yeah it gives you a lot of nice tension so this would probably be the big difference between level one is that

it's got the sharp nine yep kind of dom you know predominant in there along with that flat 13 and that gives you that great try and that E flat major triad. Yeah. But you've also got the major minor third duality. And you can think about this even as a little bit of like A flat minor major seven.

Right? Yep. Like up that chord. So you're going and you'll hear Herbie do something like this. Like, like, you know, F minor major seven up to the nine, a flat on the two chord, F minor major seven up to the nine. On the five chord, a flat minor major seven up to the nine. And then you can go to the C.

Absolutely. Yeah. or yeah, yeah, whatever you want to do for the one. And then another place on that five, you know, that I kind of feel is, and this is kind of getting a little bit meta, but you've got the, we were talking about the four to five movement, you've got an F half diminished. And you can take that one up to the ninth as well. Absolutely. And, you know, a lot of times I'll find these in playing because there's shapes of voicings that work well. So you've got G7, you know, a flat 13 sharp nine.

so 7th, 3rd, I'm doubling, sorry, the 7th again, A-flat, B, E-flat. And so up in the right hand, and if you put the root on top, that becomes that same half to minutes with the major 9 on it. Yeah, that's definitely a very, listen to that. Yeah, that's used all the time, especially like modern players like Peter have really embraced that sort of melodic minor movement between the 2, 5, and the 1. I think that's great. I want to do one more level here. Yeah. Level three.

It's another Herbie level. Okay. And this comes right from our discussion on Eye of the Hurricane. Remember when we did that for Language of the Masters? It's our course language of the masters where we break down five blueses. I have the Hurricane a minor blues. And this was in the key of F, but we'll do it in the key of C here. Herbie on the entire 251 in the key, the entire minor 251, he just played over the two chord, over the five chord, and over the one chord.

he just played a here on the in the key of C a G half hole diminished even on the C minor he just let it bleed over so he just went for something like

and then eventually he resolved it but had that E natural in there over a C minor to five the entire time you know what I mean which I think tells us that like you know that's Herbie like we don't have to be so rigid with it has to be this minor thing or whatever like you're basically

you're just making tension so that you can resolve it in some way yeah and i think that um and we noted in language of the masters it was so fun to see that with all the the great artists but especially with herbie i think we were kind of dialed in on you know his usage of you know when he harmonically sticks in that same area and it shouldn't work because as you say it's got the you know the major third in it and um but his rhythm and his melodic... So we've got rhythm, melody, and harmony. And I know I bring these up a lot

because they're important. And it's like, you talk about first principles of music. So, like, he's so locked in on really great melodic things that are not connected necessarily with the harmony. I mean, of course, they're always connected, but in terms of like, they're not the correct or the right harmony at that point. So it's like you're leaving the harmony in a way

or you're letting it bleed over. How do you get away with that? how do you make that interesting and not just make it like, hey, I'm breaking the rules. I'm an idiot. You know, how do you make it like, wow,

I'm playing some, you know, you know, when you hear something, this shouldn't make sense. Yeah, and then you're like, wow, that's so hip.

So like we're starting from the point of like, that sounds so great. And then you go back and analyze and you're like, wait, that shouldn't sound great. But that's why it's not just prescriptive. Right. But I think that sometimes like digging deeper and then saying like,

just within this, you know, okay, so the harmony is whack, so to speak. Yeah. But the rhythm is so great. with the melody. The actual melodic shape is so great. Like what you can't do is sort of like not play

great rhythm or melodies and abandon the harmony. That usually doesn't work. Well, yeah. So this should go without saying, I got to get some kind of button on here that just says rhythm is king or whatever because it is true. Like you can literally get away with anything. Well, I've got a button. Hold on. Rhythm is king. I'm going to press it again. Rhythm is king. Can I just record that for a second? Then I'll use it. No, but you know, to your point, it doesn't matter what the notes are. The notes don't matter. Oh, really? Someone said that, I think, famously.

But they don't. They don't matter if your rhythm sucks. So keep that in mind. As we talk about what notes to play. Now, these are great, these hopefully will give you great ideas. For me, when I do something like, you know, at C harmonic minor, when I hear that color palette, I think of red garland. Or I think of Witton Kelly.

Yeah, me too. And that I start phrasing like them, essentially, like choosing their color palette, somehow makes me choose their rhythmic palette as well. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, yeah. And hopefully that these ideas don't make it sound, don't feel like the last minute we're pulling the rug from under you. The idea is that if you're doing like this F minor with a major seventh over that half to a minute,

the D half to minute. Okay, well, that didn't work great. But it could. It had, I worked on it. But I stayed on it and let it linger. And then resolved it. Like this gives you that license once you set these things up.

Even the Herbie thing of having that G, a half hole diminished, right? That big E natural in there over. The two, the five, and the one. It's because we set it up with what he's played before. You know, however you want to phrase it, it can really work. Good. This is fun.

Method Monday. It's a thing now. Are we going to forget? Are we going to forget? Yeah, we're going to forget. Okay, sorry. Hey, Siri, remind me next week about method month. Oh, wait.

She's actually, okay, good. All right, we got it. Method Monday. Well, we'll see you again next week then. That's right. Until then, you'll be here. Stealing from you. You got it.

We used to do that. It's good. We'll bring it back. All right, we got one of the cans. We've got 10 minutes to do the next one. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. That's what she said.

We can get through it.