You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Play Great Sh*t

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

What's the ultimate goal of any musician? To play great sh*t of course! Peter and Adam show off some of their favorite shtuff to play in today's episode.Links From This Episode:For entire courses on playing great stuff, check out the courses we have available from Geoffrey Keezer - 3 excellent courses to choose from! And to save money and get all 3 of them, check out our Piano Access Pass.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Edu Ribeiro presents Drum Conversations + Q&A with special guest Peter Erskine on YouTubeThursday's Open Studio Live Events:10:30 PM - Live From Spragueland with Peter Sprague on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Yes. Want to trade a little bit? Sure. One, two, one, two, three. Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast.

Advice and inspiration for music and life coming at you. Coming at you so hard today, Peter. We're coming at you so hard. And we're sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio, jas.com. Oh, your jazz lesson needs. And today. Jazz lessons from jazz legends.

We haven't been saying that enough, man. That is the tagline. Christian McBride, legend. Legend. Diane Reeves. Legend. Jeffrey Kieser? Legend.

Adam Manus? Well, we're getting there. Come on, that's how we do it. No, but you know what today? We thought this is fun. We thought we would just play a little bit, just a little bit is what we thought we would play. And that we would talk about kind of what we're thinking and how you can play your great shit. Not just your good shit.

Right. But how to really get the most out of what you're playing. By kind of breaking down, I think, some ideas that we're playing. We should throw a bone to the next. nerds here about the core changes we're playing over today and what they are. Okay. If you are a super nerd, you'll just mute this for the next 10 seconds and go figure them out with your own ears.

That's right. A little ear training exercise. A little ear training exercise. But that intro and what we'll kind of go over today is C7 for two bars, F7 for two bars, B flat seven for two bars, and then like an E flat major. And then there's a little turnaround, a little two five back to the C7 if you dig. And we might do some, we might do some substitutions. We might suss out on it.

We might suss. We're going to suss the situation out. We'll suss the hell out of this situation. We might have already been doing it. But yeah, it's just kind of a little circle of fourths, little or circle of fifths if you're going downhill. Yeah. It's just a sketch. It's a little sketch.

It's just something that we can bounce ideas off of from each other. Yeah. And hopefully you can play your great shit. That's right. And hopefully, you know, what we're looking at here is doing a little bit more specific. analysis for lines, techniques, little strategies that we have that we probably don't ever think about in real time.

You know, we talk about improvising, playing interesting solos. It's all about setting up and executing on your story that you're telling. So these are just parts of it. So we don't want you to get too, you know, too hung up on the licks or whatever. But we're going to take just different phrases and really talk about what they are. But we still want everyone to think about them, you know, within the organic flow of an entire story.

Can I break down something that we both did that I kind of copied you on from that intro? I'm gonna, can I play a little chorus here and I'll play a little bit of what I'm thinking? The first thing that I hung on to, and I'm gonna switch up the vibe a little bit. Okay. Three.

That was all great. That was all great. No good now. No, so did you catch what I caught? Yeah. Yeah. Were you talking about the kind of playing with the fourth, almost the suspended, the melodic suspended fourth.

Totally, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I heard you do it up top, and so then I kind of copied that by doing... We'll get there. We'll get there in a minute. But tell the folks what that is. Yeah, so that's just, you know, on that C-7.

So you've got fourths coming up melodically off of the fifth. And that's such a... It's such a great melodic resolution, you know, directionally and everything. And then you've really got what is a very intense, you know, minor second there. Mm-hmm. when we place them together,

but it's a leading tone up and down as well. And it's kind of almost like the mirror image of the blues, which is the minor third to major third, the fourth to the third. So it gives you that kind of enclosure, whether you play the minor third or not. It's like a bright, it's like a bright blue note.

It's like a light blue note. It is, exactly. And you've always got, you know, all the different kind of permutations of it. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. What was the last one you just? Well, that's like a really like almost like an F major seven

or F major nine oversea. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And when we talk about really playing great, sometimes it's about, you know, finding a harmonic shape that really resonates with you. And this, you know, we always think about this as,

oh, this is just for piano players, but the great horn players are always thinking harmonically. You know, even if they can't play all those notes, and you'll hear him like play. I remember Terrence Blanchard, like, playing with him. And he'll always like going,

like he'll play like, he'll play chords, you know, because he's thinking melodically, but he's hearing that complete, harmony. So this is just sometimes if you can find that shape that you like, and then you can come up with melodic ideas over

this, and this is really as simple as F major 9 over C, but I'm putting that ninth down here and I'm omitting the third. And that lends really nicely to that fourth versus third kind of duality. That's so beautiful, man. Yeah. Yeah. Something that I kind of... That's the real shit.

Some shit that I latched on to is I was going over my first time was we have our C7 and I was you know kind of aping you on that and then when I got that

F7 I think I kind of went into like a almost like a C blue scale or like a C minor pentatonic and you can kind of

ride this a C minor pentatonic right wait you're not switching blue scales no no no that's a secret

didn't you know that you can kind of ride this C blue scale over this whole damn thing yeah and I just want to point out a really slick thing that Adam just did that. So this, you know, the flat and fifth down to the fourth,

grace note on any instruments, vocals, it doesn't matter. But when you go up, and then you stylize it after that. You know, anytime, you know, I always think about melodies as, you know, it's kind of like if you tell a story and you say something in a bland way versus giving a little flare at the end. And a nice flare, I mean, this has got the blues. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly, like, my liege. No, so it's like the blues is already given it a flare, of course. But you could be like, that's a little bit vanilla, you know. Oh, yeah. What about going up there? What about. Oh, yeah. Go into your own.

And then, you know, to that point. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are you doing there? So this is where we're, now this I do a whole lot of it. I think it, you know, like all this stuff, if you play it as part of your story, and play it confidently, it can be some great shit. But you're taking this phrase that we've already established that we like. That originally was based upon that fourth third situation.

And now we're going to the next chord, F7, and we're just changing a note. You usually have a couple different possibilities, but you could start out certainly going with the closest thing. So I'm going... So of course that gives it a bluesy, but that's to fit it into that F7. You're just changing that one note as the chord changes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the slick thing about this and how to really make this sound good is to be more like, instead of like to make it exactly. First of all, don't make that face. Yeah, yeah, don't make that face. Hasht like, don't make their face. No, but also to think about like how are you going to, how are you going to change it up? Yeah. You know, and that's when you're telling the story and you start going. How are you going to change it up?

I'm going to mess up the chord says. That's what I'm going to do. No, so I'm going like, I'm looking at a couple different variables, rhythmic. Yeah. But from a syncopation standpoint. So if I start out. So I might start my approach to it rhythmically because, you know, melodically we're set, right? I mean, not that we have to keep doing that, but we've got the shape, right?

That's our shape. So we've got rhythm and harmony to play around. Okay, so that's another thing we both kind of did. Yeah. What you just, first of all, that was the great stuff of taking that. But where you just ended that, you did a slick little. Yeah, what, I don't even remember. I'm pretty sure it was just a tritone sub, right?

Or maybe it was from the chromatic below, but it was some substitution to the one. Yeah, yeah. I'm actually thinking more like G altered kind of. But maybe I played something different. G altered? Yeah. That's super interesting. To the E flat.

Yeah. Oh, wait. Wait, wait. Oh, no, you're right. Yeah, it's an E to E to E. Like an E7 sharp 11 kind of thing. Yeah. So this is great.

So that's like the first thing we could talk about about. Like how do we switch it up when we're kind of going through? and we want to do our first substitutions on that. Yeah, don't do that. No, that was super. But thinking out loud here, you just going to that E-flat, you hit that E-7-11 or whatever it was. It might have been altered maybe. Yeah, sharp-nine probably.

Sharp-9, yeah, yeah. To that E-flat major 7. So that E-7 altered or sharp-9 is related to that B-flat 7, right? Which is the core that is the dominant core going to that. and that's why you use it right you're just changing that root note but you can use literally the same scale like that's b flat right how about e yeah no that's cool i want to just jump right into something because you're playing some good shit there so play that same line i'm going to count it off okay remember oh it doesn't even have to be the exact same line but rhythmically coming at the same place

one two three four no no because you came in on the end at first you're like to bit di bit i okay One, two, one, two, three, four. Okay. You hear how Adam's, like the way that you phrase that, that's the right way to play that. Oh, well, thanks, man. Well, it's just, you know,

it's so much like rhythm and playing in the groove. Hashtag, that's the right way. That's the right way. So it enables you to play almost anything melodically so you can start to use your imagination as much or as little as you want when you've got that kind of rhythmic presence. And it's all about like the entry point.

If you mess up the entry place, because that's where you're setting up where the groove and the melody intersect. The melody that you're about to create. If you nail that first note, it's just like a first impression, you can kind of do whatever. You can stretch and pull it or whatever.

So it's like to put it in context, let's see it. 3, 4, F7. So it's the note after it lines up where you came in, but it's really that first nose. Because when we start on the beat, one, two, three, four. Yeah, you got to.

to be precise with that too, but the upbeat, that's more of a challenge for a lot of people. It is. I think for us, you know, and for players that are experienced, yeah, you get used to it, but that's something, especially for more intermediate players, if you can nail this, you can make almost anything sound good. So like on the beat, one, two, three, but on the upbeat. But if you come in sloppy, I'll try to do it. You know, it's harder to make the line work, right?

So really pay attention to like where you come in on the beat. It's funny to hear you with that sloppy technique, man, because you're so precise with that. But yeah, there's a great way to practice that too. You practice it. That's right. Wait, you're going to give him the hack, the shortcut? You just practice it.

If you're enjoying this, like and subscribe. That might help. You're still going to have to practice it, but we're here every week giving little tips like this out because we're trying to help everybody play better. You just got to practice that. And then, you know, this is very much something that I think for drummers, for piano players, for guitar players,

can come easier maybe than a horn player. I mean, of course, the great horn players do this. too, but we're thinking about comping. Oh, for playing off the beat. Yeah, the rhythmic precision, because if you think about comping, one, two, three, fourth. It's very much that same kind of two, two, two. Yeah, yeah.

Don't hurt them. Oh, let's show them that little trick. This is a good way to sound great. Play some great shit, I should say. We're swinging here. I know we've played a couple different grooves. The grooves actually don't matter that much. So you could be like, like walk a baseline

on the same change. One, two, one, two, two. So I was going back and forth from like... Yeah. Like you're changing your sense of the time. Like almost going to a funk groove, but it works over the swing. It's a little Kenny Kirkland trick there, right? Yeah, yeah.

You got it back. You went out and I... Yeah, yeah, you pulled it back. But that, yeah, I think that that funk kind of thing, if you kind of feel that backbeat, I mean, you know, you don't have to go in and out of it that is kind of just showing. But it's like once you start hearing it and you go there, It's a nice, you should never feel like,

oh, I have to wait, we have to all go to the groove. And for solo piano, you can be seamless with this stuff. You can go wherever you want. Again, if you like what you hear, hit a like and subscribe. Hey, you know what, though? What, though? You can also just watch our other YouTube videos about all this stuff.

People are going to ask that what we're playing with our left hand, the baselines. We're going to ask about the left-hand voicing. You're going to have to wait. We're going to have to do a whole different thing. Oh, we're not going to do that today. But don't forget to go to openstudiojazz.com to check out all of our courses.

Yes. Yeah. We go through. I mean, all this stuff there is about, I mean, Jeff Kieser's course, courses. Is he good at left-hand stuff? He's very good at left-hand and right-head. I mean, and he's, you know, he's playing good shit all the time. He is, his, his lesson is really great.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of times the stuff I hear on there is like confirmation. Like, I've heard that, but I'd never heard it explained in that way. So it's confirmation of something and another approach in another way. So it's a lot of it's got an amazing musical mind. Yeah. Go check out Jeffrey Kisersers, two courses over at openstudiojazz.com. And you know what?

It's always a great reminder. Like you can really practice developing these. I was going to say basic building blocks. I mean, these are some advanced techniques we've talked about today. But they're basic. Like some of them like that starting on the end of one. One, two, three, four. Yeah.

You know, you can practice this over a very basic chord changes. Like, this isn't even a tune. This is just something we were in here playing around with. This is some shit that we thought would be. Great shit we thought. Let's go out on the same thing, but let's change the groove way up. And, yeah, until tomorrow. You'll hear it.

Two, three.