You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Herbie Hancock's Minor Scale

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Peter and Adam deconstruct one of Herbie Hancock's signature moves.Have a question? Leave us a SpeakPipeWatch Live: YHI LIVE Mondays at 4pm ET on YouTubeWant more of Adam and Peter? Check out Open Studio Pro hereWoosh or No Woosh? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know which team you are onSupport 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 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, man, I thought we were taking a hiatus. We are on hiatus. This is a projectile hiatus. This is a really creative way of projectile hiatus. Yeah, we're projecting our hiatus into the future. We're still here, but we're about to be on hiatus. You're on vacation.

Let me paint a picture for you. We've got commitment issues. Little Adam. I can't even commit to not doing it. Little Adam Manus right now. He's gone back in time. I don't know why he's little. He's like a young Adam, but yet he has children.

So he's with his children. They're all children. Terrifying. All of you. And your father's there and your mother and their children, too. Where's this going? You guys are out on a river. Okay.

Perhaps a lake. Yeah. Perhaps an above ground swimming pool. Some body of water. I can see it. I wouldn't put it past us. Yeah. I can see it.

Okay. It's August. It is. It's warm. It is. Actually, no, you're in Brazil. It's winter and it's August. Okay.

Still warm. Enjoy your vacation, brother. I'm Adam Annas. I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice, vacation. Pick, pictureama and more coming at you. Now, Peter, we just mentioned that we weren't going to be here.

I know. In the coming weeks, and here we are. Well, we're having so much fun in here before we scattered to the four corners. Yeah. And, you know, we decided to, we wanted to drop a few things in because that's how we doing here. What are we going to drop on them? What are we going to drop on them? I don't know.

What are we going to try? Should we take these keyscapes for a little test graph? So, yeah, we've got the keyscape fully, fully installed thanks to Adam Maness here. Stevie Wonder video. Yeah, we're working on a Stevie Wonder. We're going to tease this out. So by the, I don't know, early September, I think, maybe even late August.

That sounds great, yeah. I like it. Are we still testing? I like it. We're still testing. It sounds really good, man. So that's overjoyed. We're doing, so we still have Andy here in the studio,

setting up cameras. Andy's also working on this Stevie Wonder video that we're going to release. Stevie Wonder. And actually, by the time this podcast episode. Stevie Wonder. No, it won't be out yet, but it'll almost be out. Yeah. Like we said last week, man, we're working on a lot of new

stuff here. It's exciting. It is exciting. Yeah and this, you know, look, everybody loves Stevie Wonder, but we love him more than anybody. Yeah. We might be the number one super fans. We might be super fans. Like all time. No, but what we're doing with this video is really looking at a specific, it's the harmonic genius through a specific lens of Stevie Wonder. Like you're a very accomplished musician in your own, right? You've got a family. You've got a whole company here. But if Stevie Wonder said, hey, Peter, can you go on the road and wrap up my chords on my keyboard? Would you do it? Well, you know, it's funny, I never thought of that. Yes.

I would. That would be something that would interest me. I wouldn't be great, just be around Stevie for a minute. I would love to be, like, third keyboardist. Certainly second would be great. That's the dream game. With Stevie Wonder. Absolutely.

Anybody else, I don't know. I mean, you know, it would be like, I mean, I would just pads. Yeah. But wrapping chords. That might even be better. I would do it. What about rapping? I wouldn't do that.

That would be embarrassing. Yeah, man. Yeah, but, you know, we like kind of drawing things in with Stevie with all the jazz influences he had. But, but, but, But mainly we're just doing some analysis on, what, like three or four tunes? Yeah. Five tunes. I can't remember, but it's going to be fun.

It's going to be really cool. We're doing the different levels of his harmonious, all the ways he, basically all the way he effortlessly modulates. Effortlessly modulates. Effortless modulation is what you called it. It comes across very effervescently, as we might say. Well, that's pushing it all that. Yeah, it's pushing it. But the idea is, and also we just completed recording, projectiling into the future.

Yeah. the Language of the Master's course, which will be coming out shortly at open studio jazz.com, our sponsor, even when we're on vacation. Let's do a little bit, since we did a little bit of a sneak preview of the language of the master's course

in last week's episode, let's do a little sneak preview the Stevie Wonder video that's coming out on YouTube with what we were just doing there on Overjoyed. Where's that key change, right? It's here.

We're on the key of E flat. Yes. One, six, two, five. Very standard. Very standard. Right. Now, if I were to get to C major from the key of E flat.

We could go, there's a whole list of, we could do this. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. A little 2-5 right there. There's a whole way, a bunch of ways we could do it.

The way Stevie does it here is so interesting. Relative minor. F over A. F2 over A. It's the four chord of C, right? It's a little transition chord. It's the two dominant chord, the two major chord in E-flat.

This is the pivot chord, up to G over. over B, which is the five then. And then we're there. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times folks talk about something. You know, we all have those phrases that we've heard and that we're, I don't know if you have these, but I've always had phrases that I've heard that I actually have no idea what they mean. I'm a little bit embarrassed.

I mean, at this point, I'm not even embarrassed. I'm just like, well, I probably know the sound, but I can't apply it to the phrase. And one of those was Backdoor 251. I never knew what that meant. You have the richest but most unknown vocabulary known to man. Like, you know so many phrases. I'm a grammarian without a vocabulary. I think you know about what half of them mean.

Exactly. You use them correctly somehow. Sometimes. Sometimes. Somehow. Well, you do. But the back door, 251, I never really, and actually in researching this video, I finally learned about it.

Talk about an aha-border. I thought it was an off-colored joke. Come on, man. Come on. Yeah. But, I mean, the idea with this is, so, as you said, E-flab major to see. major and so I almost this is what I would almost say is like

a backdoor four or five. You know what I'm saying because you've got the F to G but they are you know it's just kind of a slick root movement almost like a baroque ask I don't think you're using this. Almost a viola de gambasque. I don't think you're using that phrase right but I'll let it slide. Which one there's several I'm interloper I got a lot

of interlopers yeah but I mean I think that it's just first of all it's the thing of Stevie going like people think about transposition going to other chords that dramatic. The first thing is not even how you're going to get there. It's like where are you coming from and where are you going to go.

Yeah. So that's where it's really already interesting because you got E flat major, three flats to C major, no flat. Yeah. And then as you said, it could be, which would be cool, but he's fine. To go to the relative minor, which is about to become the major actually and then go back door with the four or five. But do it in, you know. Well, check it out.

So if we're at that relative minor. And then back to that minor. That's C minor, right? So a common place you can go from C minor is F major. Yeah. And then that would kind of make you think you're either going. Right, exactly. Or maybe.

Yeah, totally. That would be, and he does that in another part of the tune. And it's a side door, too, five. It's a side door. But going there to that F over A and then up, there's nothing that really feels out of place. And it goes right back. We'll get into all that in the video. That's going to be fun.

Well, check it out, everybody. We will be on hiatus next week. I think. I don't know. We might be that. It's possible Peter might call me. to do another episode. Until then, you'll hear it. Oh, I see what you're doing that.