You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Getting Past Licks

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

Today, it's a SpeakPipe about how to effectively play licks while improvising. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Sign up for You'll Hear It Premium to access our SpeakPipe hotline! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.For the casino licks video (including YHI's own Peter Martin), go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwTTxLgaWNAFor the classic Tootsie Pop commercial and all the nostalgia it entails, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IA5Cv_5-g8And for the rest of this week, you can still sign up for the Charter Member Special. You'll Hear It Premium and all the benefits that come along with it for only $5. Go to http://youllhearit.com/podcast/ to sign up.Tune in tomorrow at 2:00 PM CDT for a very special YHI Live! Watch Peter and Adam record some episodes live from the PodCave while they take user questions in between episodes. Plus, we just might have some giveaways to offer during the livestream. Check out our YouTube channel, and don't forget to subscribe while you're there!Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet 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, Peter. Hey, man. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? I don't know, but, you know, whenever you say stuff like this, I always think of you as such a young guy. And then you bring up these references that are like way back deep into the 70s, man. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to The You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. For those of you who don't know that reference, there was a really, like, primitive-looking cartoon. It was a commercial. It was almost like a drawing, right? Yeah. And it was always on like in the Saturday morning cartoon rotation.

And it was an owl and some kid Oh, that's right. It went to him and was like, Mr. Raoul. Yeah. How many looks does it take? Why are we talking about licks today? Well, because we have a speak pipe from one of our new premium members,

specifically about, well, let's just take a listen to it, but obviously it's about licks. Sure. Hey, Peter and Adam. This is Sam from the Bay Area. I love your guys' podcast. Listen to it every day on my commute to the gym in the mornings. My question for you guys,

pertains to Licks and how to use them effectively. I know that to build your jazz vocabulary for improvising, you have to listen and steal from the grates, but how do you get past the point of just copying and pasting a lick into your own solo? I want to be able to effectively transition from one idea to the next, but when I try to use bits and pieces from solos that I transcribe, it sounds very fragmented and not like one melodic idea. Anyway, any advice would be helpful, and keep up the hard work with the podcast. Thanks. Thank you, Sam. You got a notification there, it seems like.

Yeah, notification. He's like, speak pipe finished. Thank you for acknowledging the hard work that we do here. It's so hard. We make it look easy, but it's hard. I don't even think we make it look that easy. Yeah, we don't. The effort is seeing all this crap everywhere.

Man, we got a lot of, we got almonds. We got mystery beverage. I mean, the pod cave is kind of falling apart. I don't know if you noticed this, but some of the baffling, I know. Sound baffling is going on a little bit because, wow, we totally lost the question in here now. We'll be back to it. I got it.

We keep bringing up to Andrew. He's like, you know, I got an intern coming. Right. He's like, Andrews already ridden to, like, shirk his responsibilities and, and put the responsibility of upkeep on the pod cave to some mysterious intern that I've never met. I know. And, well, dare I say, because of the runaway success of this endeavor, it's, uh, I won't say.

And the fact that people have been running away constantly through a year and a half. No, because of the runaway success of this, I think, I won't say it's gone to Andrew's head because it hasn't, but it's definitely. pushed him into areas like, I'm not touching that until the intern comes. He's, you know, as the producer of the award-winning. But anyway, yeah, thank you, Sam for the question from the Bay Area. Big shout out to the Bay Area.

Going there on Sunday to the Bay Area. The Bay Area is big, man. You playing out there? Playing in San Jose. San Jose. Yeah, San Jose Jazz Festival. But the, I think Sam gave away his age a little bit. Did you catch that?

When he said copy and paste from the greats. That's something we didn't say when we were young because there was, Well, there might have been a little copy. No, there was probably no copy and pasting when you started. I don't think so. But that's a great way to think about it, very modern and very much, like, really what a lick is. I like actually like the way, I never like the way lick sounds. What does that come from?

I don't know. Why do we come up? What is the etymology of that? That's a great question. It is a great question. It is a great question. Andrew, if you're not too busy. Stacking pants.

And you don't mind. See if you can figure that out. You know what? It is a, it's a great question, Sam. Pardon me. but really there's no getting past that I think for a while this is how it's going to be you know what I mean and you got to just stick with it

because eventually your own sound is going to come out that's the hope that's the goal right yeah and I don't think I mean the listening and stealing from the grades I got no problem with that none at all even in spite of the recent Katie Perry lawsuit and all that we're going to talk about that Friday we're going to get into it on the live you'll hear it yeah and we're going to talk about win the line

and give you some details that a minute but look this is such a part of jazz this is what has propelled the music forward so I think you know we should we should remove and not even start with any kind of shame associated with listening and stealing from the grades like that's that's not stealing that's like that's I think of it as as placing yourself within the lineage of the music but I think that to me the reason I don't like the term lick like almost it almost isolates like almost parts of phrases too much and pulls them out of the organic flow of the solo

So it's like the more you can think about learning complete solos or at least complete choruses or at least complete phrases as opposed to just do. Dooby-de-d-de-d-d-d-d-you-do-de, you know, the better and the less you'll be, you'll just be regurgitating licks. Yeah. Because remember the, like, what you learn, like the more we can, I think that you can get into the mentality and the mindset of learning a solo and then not worrying about regurgitating anything that you've learned. Easier said than done. but letting it come out organically, I think it'll come out sounding less like jive, little licks that you're throwing in there.

Right. And if it's not coming out organically yet, I think that might be, you know, a sign that you haven't gone deep enough on it. That may be that you're just, like you said, regurgitating it, literally just playing it because that's what you know. Maybe you haven't taken the time

to kind of understand why it works over whatever core change it works, or taking it through all the keys and all the situations or displaced it by a half a beat, or all the things that you would do to a piece of what I would like to call melodic content instead of a lick. Right. Or melodic concepts.

To really break it down conceptually. Like, what is the concept behind this phrase? Why does this work? What's going on? Because when you understand those concepts behind a phrase, like even a phrase like the lick, you know, I understand that... That sounds so good, right? There's a couple of things going on that I can think of conceptually, right? Are you going to analyze the lick?

I am. Just briefly here. Check out. So the first note that we start on here, oh, sorry. Like we go back to as we get up to the end of the... That's the lick I know. But to me, this is like...

Either way, what it's really doing is kind of surrounding that G. Right? Yeah. Like, that's the target. Right. And then... And then we surround the F below it.

Are you validating the lick or are you invalidating the lick? I'm trying to figure this out. Buddy, it can't be invalid if. if it's so popular. I don't. Well, the thing about this is, too, is like, this is not even really

a complete phrase, I don't think. No. And if you look at that original, I mean, you've got some grates that were playing this, but it's always, they just cut from,

from part to part. So if you start thinking about it like that, you're kind of missing the point of the flow, right? No, for sure. But what I'm, the point I'm trying to make is, it's almost not about the lick at that point. It's about,

it's about the concept behind why you're doing it and then trying to understand why it works. Why do you like it? What is it about it that you can, because I can do that. But it's got to be something about what you played before. That's got to be, you know, what validates you playing it at that time. Absolutely.

But when we break it down to a granular level, I can take the same concepts. Like something similar, and I know there's a similar shape, or even it's the same notes, but a different rhythm or a different pattern. Like, it's really about, I think, trying to understand the intent behind it. And that does include, to your point, what's become what came before and what came after it as well. So, Sam, if, if, if, you feel like you're plugging things in. It's probably because you just are.

Yeah. And you might need to take a deeper dive on the licks that you like. And there's nothing wrong with finding melodic concepts that you're into, but just know that it takes a bit of work to get them in there smoothly. Yeah. And always let, you know, from the smallest little riff all the way up to the longest phrase, let that come up. You've got to be patient enough to let that come out of your playing organically.

And maybe it never comes out exactly. So that's all the better because that means that concept. If you learn something deeply, you're going to get something out of it. You have to have that faith in that. You have to have that confidence to sit in that and be like, wow, I'm connected with this great John Coltrane soul. I'm connected with this Brad Meldal solo, whatever it is that you learn. And like be confident that that's enough that you don't have to regurgitate a little micro part of one of the licks or whatever. Yeah.

And I mean, I think that, you know, like there's this. And we'll put a link below. here to the you know about the casino lick Matt Villinger's brilliant YouTube video. We're gonna get them so this is like I somehow made an appearance on this

with some other good piano that's Herbie yeah but this is like it's more of like a technique or whatever but it's always in line like I never thought about this I mean it's brilliant to think about it as a casino thing but I mean it's just something that you can get out of the piano so like if you connect yourself with the music you're going to have access to that and then hopefully do it at the right time and hopefully I did on here do it at the right time within the flow what's happening before and after but it's almost not about the notes you're it's not about the lick it's about the concept right and that's what each actually this video demonstrates that beautifully because they're all different right but it's kind of the same vibe it's the same concept usually man the chick's version of that is so maniacal he looks like he's going to murder someone does he do it is that yeah he's on there eventually see if you can see it and and we'll share the the YouTube video link this was made by our

buddy pianist from St. Louis now in Kansas City, Matt Villanger. Okay, here's kind of. Oh yeah, this is the... He just looks insane. Yeah, he's playing insane. That's a good close-up of his hands. McCoy Tyner.

You've got some greats on here. Yeah. But it's all like you hear like I think for almost everybody on here, it's like at a certain moment of the solo too. Right. So it's not about just like, bam, you pull it out of your back pocket. You're doing it in line at the right time.

but Sam to your to your problem to your question some some actual things you can do is just make sure you're going deep on all the stuff you're transcribing make sure that you're really trying to hear it first oh sorry go ahead you were just about to play the lick for two minutes no it went right into the next thing stop it man stop it well I wanted to hear if it was sorry anyway

no make sure that you go on a deep dive of all the stuff you're transcribing Make sure that you first hear it and then can play it, which sounds like where you're at in the process, where you're able to plug it in. But then try to understand it. And how does it work in its own context? How does it work with what happened before and after it? That matters.

How could it work if you changed it and tried to make it your own? All these things, this whole process of understanding these melodic concepts, will then seep into your playing as you improvise. And don't try to force it. Right. You know, let it happen. Right. Oh, God.

What do you know about this here? Mr. Turtle, how many licks did it take to get to the Tootsie-old center of a turkey paw? Hey, you never made it without biting. Ask Mr. Owl. Mr. Owl, how many lips did it take? You described it well. Should we link to that as well? Yeah, Andrew, linked to that too, for some reason.

Is Saturday morning WWF wrestling going to follow that? Because I really appreciate that. We're going to do an episode of that. Okay, so, yeah, thank you for the question. Speakpipe. How can people leave a speak pipe? Then go to you'll hear it.com and they can become a premium member. Premium member. We got a lot of premium members. We're so excited and our first, I don't know if you knew this. I think you do know this

because we talked about it, but you might have forgotten. Our first at the piano video exclusive for premium members is up and folks have seen it. I think it's kind of cool. Do you remember it's the piano? We call it the piano we run. No, I block everything else. Oh yeah. It's cool. We even have a little transcription, a little PDF download for members. So if you're interested in really, I mean, yeah, pick it up a little bit of more content, but also just supporting the podcast here, kind of keeping things rolling.

We've got this at the piano episode. I think we got the overhead view even of the piano. We got the download. And more of those to come and get the archive. You got the private Facebook group. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And then on Friday, and we're going to have definitely some special things on Friday for the

premium members for sure. But for everybody, this coming Friday, which would be August the 9th. Actually, that's going to be like, what, tomorrow or something, right? Is today Thursday? Two days. I think today's Wednesday. Today's Wednesday. Today's Thursday?

Today's Thursday. Come on, man. Hump Day. You got to remember that, man. It's not hump day, man. It's between Wednesday and Friday. That's called Hump Day. Anyway, tomorrow, tune in at 2 o'clock.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, Andrew, Mr. Producer, but 2 o'clock Central Standard Time. CDT. CDT. We don't know which one it is. But 2 o'clock. 3 o'clock New York time. I will give it up for that.

New York time even. New York. He doesn't even use EST. New York, East Coast time. And we're going to be streaming a bunch of live episodes, what, like three or four or something. And we're going to be doing some, we're going to let people see our genius, brilliant,

comical banter, which we do so naturally in between episodes. How many times are I got to tell you, undersell, overdeliver, not the other way around? Our boring banter in between where we just stare at each other, eat almonds, and drink lecois.

But please join us on YouTube, on the Open Studio, link below for the Open Studio YouTube channel. And we're going to be streaming live, doing some, having some fun. A little Friday. It's going to be like a little early happy hour. Might be some old forester?

We might pull a little old forester. Big shout out to the old forester company. Keep on distilling. And until then, you'll hear it.