You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to make meaningful melodies

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Today is CYBER MONDAY! All courses and course memberships are 50% off. Today only! Visit Open Studio. • Meaningful  mean·ing·ful /ˈmēniNGfəl/: having a serious, important, or useful quality or purpose.• Melody  mel·o·dy /ˈmelədē/: a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying. Adam and Peter have some thoughts on getting the best of your melodies, breaking down Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" and Clifford Brown's "Joy Spring"Watch Peter's deep analysis of Stevie Wonder HEREHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested 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. Yeah. Can we please try not to make a feature out of today's show? Like a weekly feature? Yeah, let's not do that. I'll try, but what's, what? Refresh me on the title again. The title of today's show is how to make meaningful melodies.

Hmm. Sounds like meaningful Mondays to me. Damn it. Madam Annas. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today.

Wow, that was, wait, that was it. That was it. Nothing else. I'm trying some different things out. That was a succinct, you know, we're going to, talk about melodies and making them meaningful. I'm trying to get ready for this. This is like...

You're not going to tinker with it at all? No, this is... We're keeping it close, tight, keeping it close to the vest. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'm not putting a button or a hat on it.

A hat on a hat. None of that. I think our users are going to freak out a little bit. Hey, before we get going, just so you all know, of course, it's Cyber Monday. We reminded you about Black Friday. As if you need anybody to remind you,

you probably getting a million emails or whatever. But just in case you're wanting to know, can I get a good deal on Open Studio stuff? Yes, you can. to open-studiojazz.com, of course. But you best go today because... Yeah, this is the last chance. So today is Cyborg Monday.

I am a Cyborg. That's not? Nope. It's Cyber Monday. It's when all the deals... That's what I said? Cyborg Monday. Yeah, you know, it all just kind of blends together now,

but this is... You gotta have a cutoff point at some point. First of all, Black Friday, for a lot of places, started in like Wednesday. I mean, in September or something. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. But this is when it's going to end.

I am a cyborg. Get it? You get it? Check the link here in the description. go to open studio jazz.com. If you wanted... For all our Cyborg Monday specials. Just to shut them up.

For nothing else, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, so today, I thought we could talk about making meaningful melodies. Now, this could mean a bunch of different things. This could be about composing meaningful melodies. It could also be about improvising meaningful melodies, but you know, I like talking to other musicians

about how they think about melody, because it's one of those things that... It's almost like it's almost like rhythm. It's like the flip side of rhythm in that like, if harmony is like, is our brains at work, right, our analytical minds, right? Yeah. And rhythm is dancing, which it really is. It's felt in the body.

You know, often it's said that melody comes from the heart, right? It's like the emotional part. Yeah. It has the most emotional impact in music. And I often find it interesting to hear people talk about devising melodies. So I thought we could just talk about maybe some melodies we've written, maybe some melodies that we improvise and how we think about creating melodies. Like what constitutes a great.

great melody. Right. Well, I think that, yeah, though this is great. And I think that the idea that we spent a lot of time on harmony because there's a level of complexity and often just the opportunity for misunderstanding, but also for learning and for growth and for, wow, how do you get to that kind of a sound and that kind of thing. And then rhythm because it's so primal and so important all of us. And the dance element and the groove element is so maybe not easy, well, obviously not easy to execute and complicated to learn potentially, but easy to feel and to understand. But then, you know, melody gets a little bit of the short shrift, especially in terms of composition, as you said, an improvisation in that there's sort of a miscalculation that if I learn a lot about harmony and I can groove, then the melody will just sort of take care of itself within those parameters. And that is true only

up to a point. And so when we say how to, you know, create meaningful melodies, I think that just puts a little bit more emphasis on where we want to go for this. And so I think simplicity is where we start. And so I would offer one of my most meaningful and simple melodies of all time. That's a little bit of a joke. I was going to say, that's not at all simple. That's not even really a melody. I'm not even sure that it's meaningful. So it's a bad example. But we just heard it on the podcast. So I thought it would be funny. So I'll go first as far as like what I consider like some meaningful stuff that can be done, especially when you're improvising or composing melodies. And for me, a melody has to be, and this is something you'll hear a lot of composers talk about,

but there's a lot of question and answers. There's a lot of tension and resolution. So I wonder, Peter, if you couldn't play something that has been on the forefront of our mind recently, which is Stevie Wonder's My Sharia Moore. That's a pretty good melody. It's a really good melody. Now, play the first statement of the melody, like right when the verse starts. So that's our statement, right? Very simple. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

And then what happens next? Repetition. Restatement. Right. Repetition makes it valid. Right. And in this case it's exact replication. Exactly.

With the same harmony and everything that's supporting that melody. Now check it out. Now we're going to do a bit of deviation. Up to the four chord. Now what would you be expecting here? Your ear now, okay, we're up so forth, but maybe they'll go. Yeah, yeah. That's what you're expecting, but what happens?

So it's a little bit of development of, you know, you got the repetition and now you start the same, but in a different place. And you're moving up, so you got that lip. And then you stay there instead of going. So now you're kind of hovering around melodically. And this is repetition here. Right. And then we get to the kind of ultimate answer or penultimate place of this first. part of the melody.

And then we got some meaningful kind of counter melody. That's a little sparkles on top of everything, yeah. And then, of course, it repeats the whole thing again, another great verse. I mean, to me, this is the perfect example of there is not actually a ton of information in that melody.

Like, Stevie's not writing a ton of different ideas. It's really starting with a kernel of an idea. Yeah. And then developing that out. So I have this, this melody. What can I do with that? I can repeat it. you know

now I can do the same thing but maybe in a different key now I can do something different now we're in a C section right but it's part of a lineage of the story it's not like breaking off into going to he does kind of break off it later on but at this point it's a development

of that kernel to somewhere else and he's also I think that the relationship with the harmony is so important so the melody is leading and everything but it's acknowledging where it is harmonically that that's part of the story for the listener. So like you say, it's very simple stuff.

He's not re-ed, but part of that I think is because because harmonically, we're going to such another place to that B major or whatever that he can really be simple with the melody. And then, of course, probably outside of the scope where we're going to go into a lot today is the lyric, which adds a whole other element, of course, too. But we're really just dealing with just that straight melody.

Just that straight melody. I mean, if you take away one thing, from this episode. It's that you can do more with less. Take your one idea, whether you're composing or you're improvising, and see what you can make out of it. You're going to be surprised at how much creativity is just flowing through you because you have, you don't have to think of new idea, new idea, new idea, new idea, new idea. Think of one idea and what can I do with this? How can I shape this? How can I add some context around this that maybe is surprising and then maybe comforting and maybe brings us home? Like all that stuff, man, that's where the good stuff is. Yeah. And I think that

you know, knowing, especially if we're talking about improvising, you know, and I would just encourage everybody, remember, when you're composing, that's a great time to practice improvising, especially when, you know, and working on the skills that will also help you, as long as you keep that improvisers mindset in place as you're composing. But when we're improvise, because improvisation is just spontaneous composition, you know, but if you think about the framework of which you are going to be improvising and attempting to create a meaningful melody,

Think about the harmony. It's like, don't get lost in the, I mean, don't think about it from the standpoint of like, okay, D flat major. And then it's just like, it's too much like stuck. It's just stupid arpeggios being played over the harmony. It's like, how do you craft a melody? But then you don't want your melody to be like, it's kind of gross, right? Yeah, it's great. But that melody on its own, not on that harmony, maybe would have worked.

You know, I was trying to play something kind of meaningful, but it's not connected with where it is harmonically. What about a more ethereal melody? What about something a little more esoteric? Like, I know you do a great version of. Wayne Schroeder's anthony's. It's a beautiful melody, but it isn't as sort of clear cut as Steve. I wonder if you could play a little bit of that melody

and show our listeners how... So that's the first part of the melody, right? And then you've got the... I mean, of course, you could break into smaller chunks, but I would say the one thing, you know, we talk about, like, just have one idea or, like, one part of this is sort of the build-up

to that big leap, you know, and you'll see this a lot of time in melody. Like, if you're going to make a leap, with a melody, like, you've got to have a reason for doing that. You can't just be like... Yeah. You can, but that's its own artistic statement. Yeah, I mean, yeah, unless that becomes like the thing, yeah.

But for this kind of thing, this is all... But you're kind of hovering around here and then... And you're going up an octave. So, like, normally you'd want to have more... And this is definitely a lot of tension on that chord because of the harmony. So normally you'd want something like, you know, like a major seventh. But to go just straight octave on that leap, it's kind of acknowledging that you've already got

because that's up to a flat night the tension built into where you are harmonically in the form and so that's why I think it works well and then resolution the rhythm of this is so important like it's this rhythmic theme that gets developed over and over

even into the bridge yeah with that yeah there's definitely like a rhythmic pattern that repeats and then it even kind of folds onto itself at some places totally but it's always there with this melody and a lot of really good melodies

it's statement it's restatement and then it's development Yeah. One more example, I can think about it. And this is completely different than these other two examples. It's something like Clifford Brown's joy spring, right? Where you state this melody. A little ornamentation on you, right?

Very rhythmic. Yeah. And syncopated. And let's restate it. Half step up. The big lifts. The end of the power balance. He's improvising now.

He's not even at the solo. Okay. Now, just like Stevie takes it up, we're going to take it up one more half step. Right. All right, so you think, oh, right? Yeah, yeah. What happens? Third times of charm seems to be.

But it's using the same melodic riffs, the same kind of melodic turns. And now it's just going through a bunch. It's going down, actually, harmonically. Now back up. Now bring it back home. Ah. And this is the last little statement,

bringing it back home. But again, it's that idea of statement. Restatement. Now, taking it up, that half step is enough to make it. But it's still the same statement. Like, it's an identity. melody, just up a half step. And then up another half step. This is kind of another layer because you're like, oh, he's just going to keep moving this up and half step,

right? But that third time, right, that bridge where all the music gets turned inside out happens there taking it back down in this way. But again, restating that theme. Like once you start taking it out and deviating from the theme, that doesn't mean like now everything is, you know, necessarily, right? You can still have repetition amongst that. In fact, that then brings... That was what you call it an unmeaningful melody, what you just played. Totally unmeaningful. But, But this, like repeating that gives that validity all of a sudden. Yeah.

That's great. And I think, too, like, we're kind of hitting on something that's really important in that if you lay out even part, the beginning of a story that includes meaningful melodies with some kind of strong state. I mean, everything we played today has been very strong, I think meaningful melodies, that you can then use the form and the, development of that very simply without having to come up with a whole bunch of other ideas. So because that's actually everything within that first melody, that first line, that includes everything that's going to happen in the whole melody. Yeah. In some form.

I mean, so it's like introduced it. And so now you've kind of, you've taken care of all your creativity part. The rest is just like, how do you want to develop that? Do you want to kind of mess with the harmony? Do you want to mess with the rhythm? Do you want to do both? So it's almost like that gives you all the information you need to tell you. your story. It's like you've got these 18 words to use in your story. How do you, how do you

want to mix them up? You've got these 18 ingredients. What are you going to make with that? As opposed to every single, you know, complete sentence of music, like, oh, now I'm going to come up with something else. Because then you get that kind of disjointed solo. And I think that that's why this is really important for improv improvising. When you're writing something, you have a chance to kind of go through an edit and say, wait, is that, you know what? Let me get rid of this. Let me, let me, I've got this. Let me just develop what I already have instead of trying, you know, it's kind of like how many hats are on there. We always are doing that.

You can totally do this with your improvising too. Right. Because you have to practice it as you. You have to practice it. Because you have to end up getting into that self-editing mode as you're playing. You don't have the luxury of being able to look it on the page or really sit back and say, okay, how is the construction of this? Does it need more?

Probably doesn't need less. Right. Where do I need to take away? Let yourself state something and then restate it and then develop it. So if we're going to do this joy spring, you know, take something, repeat it, just that makes that more meaningful as opposed to to like, you know,

right. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't make as much sense unless you are stating something, sort of making it valid by repeating it, giving it some legitimacy, and then developing that into something else. That's great.

And I think that kind of thing, like think about ways that you can make something that you play, even if it is meaningful already. And that's a nice, You know, like it's a nice, but like how can you, after you play with the next thing you play, solidify it? You know, maybe it's a question, maybe it's an answer, maybe it's neither, maybe it's developing somewhere. But it's like, it's still all part of a storyline.

So you should never play something and be like, oh, I don't like that. Let me move on to something else. No, like take a stand and like, that's what you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like. Absolutely. That's what happened. Yeah, that's what happened.

Own up to it. Own up to it. And fix it. When you, when you legitimize it by repeating it, why you're doing that is so that you can get away from it. Right? You can't get away from something. you've never legitimized. That's right.

So if you're just like, then if you were to do something like, that means nothing. Right. But if you were to do. Yeah. Now you've connected it. Now you've connected it to something else.

That's right. You've resolved it. And it doesn't even have to be fully traditionally resolved, but you've addressed it. Totally. You've addressed it. You've legitimized it. And then you can discard it.

Awesome. I love our new feature, man. Melody Monday. No, no. It's meaningful Mondays. It's meaningful Mondays. But you know what? Here at the,

at the, you'll hear, every day's Monday, Wednesday and Friday are all meaningful. I love it, man. I'm going to fix that for you right now. Harry, you don't have to fix anything. It's perfect. We're legitimate. Well, thank you, Peter.

Have a great Monday. Again, go to Open StudioJadz.com. Make it meaningful, folks. Make it meaningful. Yeah, make it meaningful. And then, you know, hit us up. If you have any questions, you can certainly send us a speak pipe by going to you'll hear it.com.

Please do that. Yeah, please. Because that's coming up on Wednesday. Speak pipe Wednesday. Get us a question. All right, everybody. You'll hear it. You'll hear it.

You'll hear it. Jeez. Come on.