You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Compose Your Own Music - S3E40

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

It's another SpeakPipe in the Podcave as Peter and Adam offer their best composition tips. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcastLet 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 Pete. Hey, man. I just wrote this. Check it out. Okay. Rock Mononoff. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the Eulhir podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Caught again, totally rip it off, Rachmananov. And your web of lies. Well, no, but did you know my response of Rachmananov? I wasn't even sure if that's what it was. But you know what that's a reference to? What?

Willie Wonka. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She just plays the thing and then she says, Rachmananato. When they're going through the teeny little hallway. I feel kind of even. Just mentioning rock, like I didn't play the right voicings or anything.

It was kind of like a New Orleans dirge version of Rock Monodonoff. It wasn't really Rock Mono. I heard a couple of days ago, what is today? Yeah, two days ago I heard the Brahms, speaking of Rock Mononoff, a classical composer. The Brahms' Second Symphony, a beautiful version of the St. Louis Symphony playing. It's an amazing piece. It's amazing piece. They really killed it.

It was nice. St. Louis Symphony is world class. You all don't know. Exactly. and not in the way that we say that you'll hear a podcast is world class. We mean truly... Well, no, I guess we're worldwide as well.

Yeah, I mean, as far as daily jazz podcast go. They're more like world-classy. We're just world-classy. Oh, no, maybe we're word-class. We're world asses? Beep! Andrew can't be... You should beep out that

just because of how annoying it was. Put some Charlie Parker or something on that. That's right. Okay. All right, so what do we have today? We have another question. We've been having some great... We have having a bunch of questions, which we always get.

Yeah, well, I mean, we did ignore it for about two weeks. No, but these are all within the last couple days, too, though, pretty much, aren't they? Oh, yeah, they actually are. And they're all good. Yeah, yeah. We have one here from John. And... Why do you say it like that?

John. Well, just John just sent us a message. No, it says... His name's John. Oh, because the last couple days we've had European names, so you've been more excited by that. Now, hold on. Now, Kevin was French, but his name's Kevin. Yeah, that's true.

And Hoy. I can't say that. Okay, so John, let's check it out. Greetings, Maestro, Martin, and Manus. This is John from California. I have a question about sources of inspiration for composing music. As far as your experience of composing your own music, is it as simple as you're just jamming and trying to come up with some cool-sounding music,

or is it deeper than that where you're trying to convey some kind of meaning or message or story, you know, lost love or some kind of spiritual idea? something. Does music ever come to you in dreams? You know, I think of the latest Brad Meldow album where melody for the title track came to him in a dream. Is something like that ever happened to you guys? I just curious what your thoughts are on that. Thank you very much. That's a great question, John. And kind of a complicated answer. And by the way, the new Brad Meldon record, Seymour reads the Constitution is fantastic. Yes. A tune that he got out of a dream. He had a dream that Philip Seymour

Hoffman was reading him the United States Constitution and there was a melody going on in the background and he got up and he wrote it out and that became the impetus for the record. Yes. And it's awesome. Yep. And has that ever happened to you? I actually have. I've dreamed some, I don't know if I've dreamed melodies but I've

dreamed some sounds or some maybe changes. I've definitely, it's happened a couple of times where I woke up and like, what is that? I've got to figure that out. And you know what? I always think of it like it's just a different, we absorb all this music all day every day and like it's somewhere some somewhere it reaches us and we remember it somehow and sometimes it comes out in the subconscious yeah all i can think of yeah yeah yeah i mean

i've there's a few times i actually keep a little pad a little notational uh scribe uh music paper basically um by by my bedside i thought it was like a like a like a leather bound like a notational and a quill with a pad jar of ink yeah um and i do because i occasionally i don't know if i i really dream them or it's like i wake up and i'm hearing them but but a lot of times if i'm playing a lot of music the day before especially the night before or listening to something sometimes i've woke up and with some incredible stuff only to realize it was something somebody else wrote that i was playing the previous day like a little part of it totally uh i mean the nightmare when you're writing a lot of music is actually you do go to bed like with that music you've been writing all day

in your head. For me, that is the worst. Because all I want to do when I go to bed is not listen to that music in my head anymore. Because you're playing it over and over and over again as you write it. But I have found that some things that I couldn't quite solve in something that I was writing or ranging, just sleeping sometimes when I wake up and I go back to the piano or go back to the paper and I'm like, oh, yeah,

this is so, you know, like when you get stuck, I always think it's good to sleep or walk or something. And I think with composing, you know, it's funny because, yeah, when you're composing in theory, you can just write anything. Yeah. But I think the more experience you have in doing it, the more you do it, the more skillful you get at it, you start to actually have less options in a way. Like when you first start, it's a clean slate. You have no idea what your thing is.

You have no idea. But I mean, even like now, like if you're going to write, it can be anything, which is great. But once you start down a path, I feel like you're kind of required to continue down that path. Now, there's many different ways. I think about it like you're going from point A to point B on a hike. and there's the regular, you make a decision to go down this trail, and that's your first melody, it's your first chord, it's your, whatever it is. And then you need to get to the destination, which is the end,

but how you get there, you can veer off the path. There's many different ways to do it. You can even end up going to another destination, but you have to continue on. You can't just randomly jump around. You can, but then you're going to have this kind of, you know, hodgepodge or mushy kind of piece that doesn't make any sense. Well, this leads into what I was going to lead in with this,

which is, you know, to answer John. in a simple way. There's good news and bad news. The good news is that sort of random pull-it-from-the-universe inspiration will always exist in your composition, in a sense. But as you get better and you do more and more,

it becomes like 95% craft. You know what I mean? Cabinet-making, where you take that. And for me, as we talk about, you know, setting off on this path, you have a spark of inspiration or you're just, you know, maybe you're jamming at the piano, as John said,

and you find an idea. To me, the fleshing it out with the craft that I've learned how to do that becomes part of it. Tricks of the trade. And then, I think just like in my improvising life, the constant fight of trying to grow and not do what I've done before is part of it too.

It's a little trickier in composition because usually for my composition and arranging, which I consider a form of composition, Sure. I'm usually working for someone else. Most of the time I'm commissioned to do something that I have to get done at a certain amount of time. And so I have to fight what I expect out of myself, try to push myself, but stay within the confines of whatever position I'm working on. Yeah.

I mean, if you have a commission or if you're writing for film or TV or for anything where there's like a deadline, that pretty much wipes out that. Let me wait till the universe lines up and hands me this beautiful melody in the middle of the night. You've got to get it done. Yeah. And that takes, you know, like a craftsmanship that needs to be. But I think that they can work together in terms of then when you have the opportunity to do. And you've got some great arrangements and some great original compositions as well. And I wonder if, you know, the times when you have to force through for the gig, for the job,

then helps you once you get the inspiration. When you're not on the deadline, it's for you. It's like, okay, I want to write something for my next record. But I don't have to do it right now. But then at a certain point, you've got the idea. then it's like you got to execute it. There's that other 95% because for me I find like

and I remember like it was so hard. I was always writing a lot and I would just say that that as opposed to number one listen to compose to get better compose. I mean it's as simple as that. To get stronger lift weights. I mean if you can do the right ones

at the right temperature that's even better but I mean basically you just got to do it because the experience level like you are going to there is something I think that anybody with any kind of musical sensitivity, which basically is every human that's ever born, until the world kind of wipes it out of us, you know? If you're lucky enough not to have your musicality and your sensitivity and your artistic flare pulled from you and you get any kind of skill as a composer or in

music where you can actually do something in music, not just listen to it. Everybody has something to say, unique. Yep. Yep. Not everybody's Beethoven, but it doesn't, thank God that, not everybody's Beethoven, you know. But it takes experience. And what we mean by when we say things like craftsmanship and experience in doing it like this is that I know if I give Peter two musical ideas, right? If I give you two themes, you could probably come up with about 20 minutes

on those two different themes, composing it out. Because you know how to work a theme very different ways, whether that's put it in a groove or a baseline or change the key or change the tempo or, you know, the same thing with me. You have to, you have to, just like as an improviser, we strive for economy in our ideas, you know, taking themes and developing them

through our solo. It's the same thing with composition. My goal is to get the most out of the little so I can... Most money for the least amount of work, right? Exactly. Oh, no, I'm sorry. For me, music isn't compelling that I'm just trying to compose every single

beat of every single bar completely out of the universe. We're very rarely paid by the note. It just... Well, and it just, it doesn't make for compelling music. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I want to hear how you know, once I've established the theme, now you have color and context that you can add to it, whether that's, you know, harmony or rhythm. And you can,

you can take that through so many places that why not explore those things. Well, and it's, it's very similar, I think, to be, to try to progress as an improviser. I look at them as very, they're different endeavors because of the function of them. Hand in hand. But the mindset and the musical skills and the actual functionality of how you go about it, hand in hand, improvising and composing. It's just spontaneous improvisation, but if you get there, and composition where you're writing it out, others are performing it or you're performing it, you know, but the thing about it is like if you get this kind of mentality that one idea for each piece or movement or section, however you want to, you know, break it down, all you need is one good idea. That's it. And that's,

I think, the economy that you just mentioned, that's how I interpreted it. And, and, you know, Stevie Wonder has a number of, I've heard him speak about this in interviews and live a number of times, about his compositional strategy being that there's no dearth of ideas, certainly for him, but even for anybody. And he's always talking about how jazz musicians have so many great ideas and their solos and stuff. But there's always a little bit of undercurrent of like, you don't have to use everyone every time.

You don't have to use everyone every time. You can get more from less. More from less. And I think that's a maturity that comes in as an improviser and as a composer. And everybody, look, you can John and everybody else can think about compositions that you love. And you can also think

about solos that you love because it's like we're talking about it's a similar thing. What are they, how are they constructed? Not necessarily like, okay, I love Brahms' Second Symphony

so I want to copy that style and I want to have a wig like Brahms had. It's not about that. But think about like the actual musical structural things, the melodic structure. And like take those

and like emulate those with your style. Yeah. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. That's not stealing. That's borrowing. Yeah.

That's taken. Hey, every one of those guys stole every orchestration chick in the book from each other. Exactly. And then expounded on it, just like every jazz musician stole every piece of language from the generation before and expound it on. It's part of the game. You have to do it. You have to go through it. Don't reinvent the wheel.

Just try to find the wheel and put it in a way that you can have, like, that one idea that you have. That's all you need. And then place that into something that's already tried and true. And then the challenging part about all of this, in my opinion, John, is it's more challenging than improvising to keep it human. because we're pre-planning everything, your pencil to paper, or you're on a computer where everything can get very...

Very much like this. You know what I mean? And to break out of that and have humanity in the music, musical moments that, whether you're writing for a jazz trio or you're writing for, you know, an orchestra, it can be very, very hard to sound like

there's a human being behind this. You've got to put those moments in there of unexpected events that happen, of whatever it is that make you a human musician, you know, whatever that, or tension or release or whatever it is, you feel like humanity. Yeah, humanity.

I mean, I love, I hate that he stole this name from me. Jonathan Batiste's band is called Stay Human. And I came up with that first, and I hate that he stole that for me, and I allowed him to do that. That's not true, it's not true, actually. I wish that I had come up with it, but that's a great, I love that concept.

You know, that's such a cool thing. Well, don't you, when you write, like, I'll be writing, especially, like, again, if I'm writing for a commission or whatever and I'm like, everything is in a box right here and now we go to this section and I'm just like, you know what, screw it, I'm going to do something completely unexpected. I'm going to do a little moment here

where it's like, oh yeah, there's like a human being with a soul and wit behind this paper. Yes. Because usually if there's classical musicians playing it, they have to be reminded of that too or they'll just go into like auto mode. You know what I mean? Yep, yep, yep.

So let's just throw a few kind of real like functional little things people can practice on as far as accomplished because we've really I think hit the big things the big areas the the more spiritual conceptual side well but well we said already you have to compose but that can be a thing that Ray Brown I remember Tim telling me it was just like he went through this period of writing a tune every day yeah it would just be like a blues or really just it was something he wrote a tune a day for I don't know if it was a month or six months or whatever because he wanted to learn how to write

And so that discipline of daily, you know, things. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, we do have an early you'll hear it episode that we had animated about composition. That's right. Remember that? We had our former art intern Clara that's right.

Do this whole animation. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. It was beautiful what we said. You could check it out. But I remember one of the things we talked about on that is you can compose every day. It doesn't have to be even a whole tune.

That's right. Compose four bars of something. Yeah. Just give yourself the discipline of something you think you can keep up and do that every day. And that's a way to kind of force out some ideas. Yeah, you're not every day. You might one out of every 20 days hit upon something where you're like, wow, that's my humanity coming out. But that's great. But you know what?

If I say I'm going to compose four bars every day, you know what I'm not going to do? Actually compose just four bars. I'm probably going to write a little more than that. Oh, you overachiever you. No, no, because you just get into it. You know, but if you tell yourself, all I have to do is compose four bars. Right. But some days you might, you know, whatever. Exactly. Yeah. There's always the possibility for more. And that's, that's as it should be when you're feeling more inspired. That's when you're going to get your stuff. But what you don't want to do is the other side. of like, oh, I want to wait until inspiration strikes and then I'll write. You'll never write anything.

You'll never write anything. And, you know, a composer composes. That's as simple as that. It improviser improvises. And but then, yeah, so that's kind of just sort of a daily thing you can do. Other things are analyzing. And I mean, I assume the question, we were kind of talking about, you know, because it's on our mind because we both have orchestral commissions this week due on the same project.

Do we ever? Instead, we're in here doing a podcast instead of writing. But, I mean, you know, when you're writing for jazz, or whatever style you're writing for. Like, if you're familiar with it as a player, like, use that to your advantage. So, like, if you're a pianist, and, you know, start out writing for piano, you know,

and then start adding another thing, write for piano trio or whatever. But don't just do, like, I'm going to ride a blues and just give the bass player changes. Maybe write a few lines here and there for them. I mean, not necessarily, bass lines, just a few things for you to play together or whatever. Like, stretch yourself a little bit

with each composition you're doing, since you're writing every day. Don't just keep doing what you know. Stretch yourself with one kind of technical aspect of it. Yeah, I always tell young jazz musicians who ask me about composition that the key to it as a jazz musician that we often get tagged as lazy sometimes because we don't show enough intent. Yes. We tend to write the changes out for the bass player and be like, ah, I'm a composer. Yeah.

Now, write me, now play it and make me sound good on the gig. Yo, if that's your ultimate vision for it, that's fine. Then you are a composer and that's your vision for it. But if you are hearing more and you're not doing it because you're being lazy, then that's not true to your vision. You know what I mean? Like, show your intent. Show people what you want this music to be. And never feel like, okay, if you're getting a chance to play with some great players,

maybe that you're intimidated by, I used to be, like, afraid to write stuff for them. Because I was like, oh, they're going to be able to create something so much better. But then I started, I mean, I remember I wrote some bass, like, kind of lines that I wanted to play with the piano for Christian McBride. And at first I was like, oh, should I do this? I'm like, he could probably come up with something. But then I was like, you know, he's such a pro.

what he did was he played what I wrote but he somehow made it sound even better than I wrote it anyway and he was totally cool with that. That's what a great musician He liked it, yeah, I mean he was kind of like cool I want to play and then it's like finding and jazz I think composing it's always that balance for each player of like you don't want to write you don't want to write you know swing feel

for the drummer and then put tang tang tang tang, you know the rhythm of it yeah but give him a few hits here and there where he can link up with he or she and like do it in a way that's giving them freedom but also give them a little bit of constriction where it's needed. They actually like that. They do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, nailed another one. What can we say, man? We're on a roll here.

I hope this one gets... Give me some butter. I hope this one gets animated. That's right. That's right. Thank you for the question, John. It's a great question, man. Obviously, we could talk about this for a while. No, we can. We've got to go do our composition, our arranging gigs. All right, well, you'll hear it.