You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How Important are Scales?

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions. On today's episode, Peter and Adam discuss personal/career growth, as well as the importance of learning scales.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.Tuesday's Open Studio Live Events (All Times EST):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam on YouTube8:00 PM - Listening Sesh with Peter and Adam - featuring special guest Geoffrey Keezer on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All right. Well, so why don't we go through our little things and see, see what's happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get back on our vibe. Let's do a little practice check-in. Do you want to start or you want me to start? I'll go ahead and start. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Practice check-in.

So a little bit of arranging work this week with your boy, Mr. Jeremy Davenport, originally out of U.C. City and Missouri, but now in New Orleans, Louisiana. made a little trio track for him. Nice. And looking forward to hearing how that turns out. Just a little arrangement of the Christmas song. And then again, working on the magic voicing system and working on some ear training that I'll be teaching later.

And I can't wait for everybody to hear the new ear training course. Check it out. Look what I bought for it. It's called five-minute ear training. So did you know that you can get pretty much any time of an hourglass sand timer in any color nowadays? It's like the age we live in. So I've got my little five-minute hourglass timer that I'm going to very viably just set up in the course so that we can hear train.

Tell them what that means. I want to know what viably means. That's very interesting. It means that we're not taking it too seriously. We're going to get very vibey with our ear training. Okay. When this sand is out of the hourglass, that's the end of ear training for the day. That's right.

Good, good, good, good. So that's pretty much it. What about you? What are you working on? You know what? I went back to and jumped into some scales, a little bit of scales. And I was going real basic this week. I don't know why.

You know, we talked about before a little bit of like, what do you call it? Going with your instinct or not even going by, well, yeah, kind of going with instinct. More like just going by feel, you know, like kind of your first thing that you feel like you feel like you should go to. I guess that's your instinct. Yeah. And I was just. So whenever I'd say. sit down, I would just sort of say, okay, I'm going to practice some technical stuff first,

and whatever I gravitated towards, like, just sort of stream of consciousness. It was all basic Bob scales. And so I tried to really think about, like, just basic things, musicianship, pianistic type stuff, like, you know, just sound and tone and evenness. And so I think it's good. It's almost like kind of a technical reset. I feel like sometimes to go through to play something that's just so basic to you and so primal for. from a technical level, but to really see how nuanced you can get with those core elements of music.

So that was fun. And kind of, like good, good on the mental. I think I'm just like everybody, I think we go in and out of different times, but it's like when there's a lot mentally on you in other parts of your life, it's nice to kind of have a refuge in music.

And so if you feel like there's been a lot of mental energy you've had to put on other things, life in general, that maybe when we practice, nothing wrong with going to something that takes less mental energy and more just sort of pure music. I think it's a great lesson.

And scales are something that you can come back to for your entire life and still learn new little nuances about them as you come back again and again. It's great. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff.

Good stuff. All right. Let's do a little fitness and diet check-in. What do you know about that? Oh, boy, you know, I'm way into it. So I'm at about, man, I've done about, I want to say probably about 35 days in a row of yoga in a row that I've made that I've been able to make. I didn't think I was going to make it today, actually.

But we ended up going remote, and I had 20 minutes here that I could just go and catch it real quick, and it was great. So I'm pretty proud about that, actually. That's a good streak for me. Yeah. Well, that's all you need, right, 20 minutes? Yeah, yeah. And this is really the first time I've ever done yoga. I'm really digging it, man.

As a, as a just a nice, like, gentle exercise. It's fantastic. I feel like, I feel great. I really do. Well, you can go ahead and plug your, your favorite online yoga source if you want. Kelly Martin yoga. No.

Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Kelly Martin yoga, of course, too. But your biggest plug for, for YouTubers. For YouTubers. Yeah, I mean, yoga with Adrian is, I mean, she's the most famous, right? It's just easy to get into, easy to dive into.

Yep. Cool. Okay. Now I just, I did something not good there. Not that, not good there. Okay, I fixed it. Okay, cool. I did a nine-mile or yesterday at Forest Park.

It turns out running from my house to Forest Park. If I go a little bit of an extended way through Washington University, you're familiar with Washington University. What do we call it in St. Louis? Wash you. Can you give a little more St. Louis accent on it, though? Wash you. Yeah.

Warsh you. So if I run through Worsh you, warshoe over to Forest Park and then run around it the long way around well really just on the outside in the back of my house that's nine miles and that was my assignment for the day from my running coach and so bam

knocked that down at a nice easy pace and it was nice I mean it was kind of cool to be outside in shorts it wasn't like that warm yesterday but it was easy to be in shorts if you've exerting yourself a little bit physically in December nothing wrong with that I mean I'm anti-global warming don't get me wrong I'm very upset about that.

Very, very against global warming. But it was nice to be out there in some shorts. Let's see what else we got. So we're going to be getting to Q&As. If you guys are new here, I know we do sometimes have some new folks. First of all, welcome. This is a safe jazz piano place, not just piano. It's really a safe music place, right?

Safe life place. But I am Peter and this is Adam. And we do this live. You'll hear it. This is a podcast as well. but we're doing live mostly focused on Q&A just kind of getting the week out

week started out right any questions you have about practicing playing piano playing jazz improvising listening to music listen is a big thing here at the you'll hear the podcast wouldn't you say so Adam? Yeah for sure for sure for sure

yeah so should we jump to some questions yeah let's do it okay you got one or you want me to jump in there let's see what we have up here so Jose says a question that won't require keys. Can you guys comment on personal growth skills as a musician versus career growth

slash recognition? So I would say, first of all, I would say there's not much of a difference between those two things, right? Wouldn't you agree, Peter? It's like it's really, like personal growth and career growth are kind of hand in hand here.

Well, I think, yeah, if you maybe approach it what we would consider possibly a little judgmentally, the right way, you know, or a productive way, an inclusive way, that the more those get in line, I think the better, the better that your professional line, personal goals, you know, line, the easier the process of growth is. Yeah, that's true. But there are definitely some things you can work on for either sides of those things. So, you know, I think the most important thing with personal growth is getting more and more

comfortable not being comfortable. That skill is something that it's like, that's a never-ending quest. I don't know about it for you, but for me, it's like, you know, just when you think like, okay, I'm cool with this thing, whether that's like a B major scale or playing in public or playing in front of a hero or playing in front of a huge crowd or, I mean, it just keeps, it's always going to be a new challenge, right, to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. you know, the first time that you have to be on video playing or something like that, or the first time that the bass player gets lost, right?

Like, all these situations are situations which are not comfortable. They're hard to prepare for. And I would say that, like, the more acceptance you can develop as you grow, that's really something that's going to carry you through in all aspects of not just your playing, but your career as well. And then for career growth, you know, the biggest thing that I've learned was, was really to actually have some kind of agenda that is not fixed or set in stone, but you can really kind of map out.

You know what I mean? It seems, that seems very ambitious, but it's really not to just be like, here's where I want to be in five years, right? Or two years or a year. Here's where I want to be in my career, like with my actual job. Like, I want to be playing with these kinds of people, or I want to be doing this kind of thing. or I want to be making more money at writing than at playing,

whatever that is, you know, to go about it with some intention, I think was a lesson that it took me a couple of years to learn. But once I did, things started going pretty good. You know, it's like funny enough, Peter, when you put some intention behind things, I don't know if you know this. Right. But things towards, it's kind of leaned towards that way. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, I think one of the hardest things about, you know being able to kind of put this sort of action plan that you describe at him into place is accepting even inviting and certainly welcoming the inevitable um stumbles the inevitable obstacles the the mistakes the errors the um getting fired getting knocked off i mean it can come in many different forms you know in our practice like we hate to fail at things because we want to see constant growth. It's just like human nature and you want to be productive and you want to feel like it's a straight line your development. It's like if you're doing the dishes,

it's like you want to get them as quickly as possible into the dishwasher, cleaned and then out and stacked up again with the least amount of resistance. But unlike doing the dishes, learning an art form, there's not only the inevitable peaks and valleys, ups and downs, not only are those mandatory. They're actually the very substance of what. makes, ends up making you a meaningful artist, you know, and having the ability to say something in this music. And so you have to take, you know, a big swallow of humility and, and swallow your pride. Um, you know, you have to be very humble. You have to accept defeat constantly. Um, that's just part of it, you know, uh, and so, you know, it's, it's easy to kind of intellectualize and say, well,

of course to grow, you know, failure breeds later growth and success and everything. But actually going through it is a very emotional thing, you know. It's very much tied to your self-worth, especially like sometimes you think, oh, when I get better, it'll be easier because I won't be failing as much. But what I would, what I found is that the failures in some ways, if you don't really understand and lean into the good parts of failure, that the failures get bigger. and as you're because the stakes get higher both on the kind of micro level of what you're playing like you know you can play more you can develop more so if you're able to start to tell a really good story and then you have a failure at the climax of the story it's going to be much more tragic potentially and more noticeable and more embarrassing and all these things that go along with that then when you're just kind of meandering along like once you really learn how to tell a story and improvisation and you're just sort of playing licks or or just trying to feel your way through you're just things you're not really taking anybody anywhere anyway so if you kind of start messing up it's like

ah you can just sort of jump back on it anyway again so it's kind of like if you're if you're evil coneeval early career and he's just like jumping over little bumps and stuff no big deal but what about when he's jumping over the grand canyon did he actually do that i remember he kept plant it it was like for months he attempted he attempted i don't think he made it he didn't make it the stakes were higher you know the failure was higher so you have to really use the easy safe failures at the beginning, like you're playing a major scale and you're messing up the fingering and you know, these basic things to start to learn how to fail and learn how to grow because they it's just there's there's not one with the other. Totally true. And I think that's something that

a lot of a lot of folks might be a little scared of like I'm going to fail. Well, yeah. Yeah, that's how you're going to get better. That's the only way. Right. As a matter of fact, like we don't get better off our successes. We get better off of our failures. And there's, there's no way to do that except to fail. And there's a added benefit then. is that you develop, you know, the thicker skin for failure and it just gets easier and easier and easier to fail, which sounds funny, but the more you fail, then the less you fail ultimately. It's an interesting dichotomy, but it's so true. And this all sounds very motivational postery, but it's actual, like, real world experience here, that if you just keep putting yourself out there, keep failing and learning from your mistakes, as long as you have an open mind, you're going to be fun. Enrique.

I mean, that's actually one of the only really, um, I don't want to say questions that aggravates me. But yeah, questions that aggravates me is when students or folks just like, how do I learn how to, like, how can I practice so I don't make any mistakes and so I don't have any failures. And so that I don't like they only. Let us all know when you figure that. Exactly. Yeah, let us know. But even if you could.

Well, I mean, look, this is the thing. It's just like improvisation. If you're doing that, then or if you even attempting to do that, then you're not taking enough chances and your story is going to be lame. So, you know, there you go. Enrique asks, how important would y'all say scales are? Because, you know, you were talking about your scale practice, and now we're talking, you know, just hear about a little bit of scales. But, you know, Enrique, for me, scale practice can be some of the most rewarding

and inspiring musical practice you can do if you do it right. And the key is to sort of get out of this idea of just sort of like a linear scales and in a boring way and, you know, an old piece. piano teacher slapping your wrists with the ruler as you do it. You know, learning the modes of the major scale of the melodic minor ascending scales, learning the modes and how they can work in every key is like, that is like step one of being a decent improviser. And so going, and actually, that's a really fun stage to be in, because everything can be very exciting. And you're like, this is that sound that I keep hearing. And I just discovered it's the, you know, Lydian Dominance scale or whatever it is.

and it's the same as the altered scale, whatever. You know, it can be a very cool time. So I would say just, you know, stick with it. If you're having trouble sticking with scales. I don't know. Your question kind of implies like, you know, how important is it? Do I really have to do it? Like what it is is music theory and piano technique and a bunch of stuff all in one.

Yeah. And I think it's actually, I'm cool with that question and good with that question. in that if it's coming from the place, which it sounds like it is from Enrique, that, um, like you want to know that something that you're working on that you can't fully, there's no way you can fully understand until you spent many years mastering that aspect

of music and then trying to apply it and then applying it and then doing it in different ways. It's very hard to tell exactly how useful it's going to be. So like with scales, when you first start learning them, you can see certain applications where they're useful, but you're only like scratching the surface with it because you have to wait for the rest of your musicianship to kind of catch up.

You have to, you know, ear training. We talk about you earlier being able to listen, being able to develop your vocabulary. Like it's a building block. So it's kind of like how important are bricks to an architect? Well, when you're first going to architecture school, not very important because you're not going to have any jobs yet where you're going to be like asked to construct a building right but you're already starting to think

about it and like you know visualize it even if you don't have all the techniques you should be there should be a certain amount of wanderlust and kind of wonderment in terms of like wow I'm going to be um building something and so like understanding how those bricks are going to be used wow do I want to use those with some other kind of building materials and stuff so I think that you want to be you know thinking about the different applications of scales and like how they help you from a technical standpoint, but also from like a vocabulary standpoint, even before you can fully do it. So you might like listen to, you know, a bebop phrase that somebody played and be like, wow, okay, now I hear some of that scale that I'm working on. I don't really not to do it yet, but okay, I can hear that. So you start to know that the promise land is out there, but while I'm going to have to use this.

And then it starts to kind of snowball after a certain point because like once you are able to identify a pattern and a scale is just a pattern in music basically because it's a succession of interoperate. strung together. So once you start to pattern, pattern recognize, you start to see it everywhere. And you're like, wow, okay, this really is a building block. Because there's other stuff that you might learn in music that are just like around the edges. Like, and they could be technical, but also theoretical, like scales. Because that's the other thing you got to remember about scales. Super important because they're not just about technique. They're not just about vocabulary. Like they're, they're, that's some of their big areas, but they're intertwined into so much of the music. And then there's so much like, like you couldn't really

avoid playing parts of scales even if you tried to because as soon as you put two notes together it's part of some scale right absolutely yeah yeah so i think that it's a very exciting thing but you have to you have to trust that they're going to become more and more like the importance of it is going to be revealed slowly over time so you have to put in the sets and reps before you really see the results knowing that you know that much just like that putting that money into the bank i put $100 a month in if you start when you're 20 years old by the time you're like 65 What are you a millionaire or something? Man, I wish somebody had told me.

Although somebody did tell me when I was 20. Everybody tells you that. And you're always like, I'll do it later. Yeah, yeah. Because you don't see. What? Exactly. So, I mean, that's the same thing with this.

Like, so if you do put in the time on those scales later on, you'll be drawing on that. Because you never, it's like learning to ride a bike. Like, if you learn this stuff deeply, you're going to know it forever. You might need to refresh on it, but you know how to ride a bike. And they've proven this. People have been off the bikes for like 30. You know, it's not just a phrase, Adam. It's a lifestyle.

It's like they've been off of the bike for many years and they get back on and they remember how to do it. And you know what else? What? An elephant never forgets. I don't know how that ties in.