You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Practice Scales (It's Not What You Think)

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Practicing scales is notoriously boring - or is it? Peter and Adam give you a better way to practice your scales in this episode.Want to add some Brazilian flair to your own playing? The Samba Pack is now available from Open Studio! Featuring 7 curated lessons from our roster of Brazilian artists (including Helio Alves, Edu Ribeiro, and Romero Lubambo), the Samba Pack is also our lowest-price course ever from Open Studio.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 and leave a comment for this episode.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Peter, what do you know about this? Hey, man, we're talking about practicing scales, not having fun. Oh, it's not what you think. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily Music Advice, Coming at you. Coming at you back on YouTube.

Back on, don't make me nervous. There, there, there. Yeah, there they are. They're like, you know, they're coming in on us. I knew, you know how I knew we were back on YouTube today. I don't you know. You put the hat back on. I got my YouTube hat.

See, I'm just, I'm rolling the same podcast styles. But we do invite, Our over one million podcast lists. Well, over one million downloads. It's a big statement right there. Over to YouTube. You know, I think a lot of you know that, but we're coming over for selected episodes.

Yeah. And what we're really trying to do is highlight the overhead, not the overhead, the light up keyboard. The hammer 88. B style. Flying V. Hammer 88s. Okay. We're going to go keytar at some point.

We're going keytrar. Not with the hammer 88s. No, they're heavy A.F. Yeah. So today we're talking about how to practice scales. This sounds terrible. This sounds boring A. But it's not.

And, you know, scale practice should be a part of every improvisers practice routine because it can be so crucial to being able to understand the theory behind what you're playing, but also just give you some, like, technical chops to get around all keys, to get around any changes. It's super important. Yes. It's, you know, for every instrument, you know, we even went over some additional, maybe we'll do a bonus thing somewhere on a later episode or whatever, just for piano. Well, we actually, we think we've nailed this to ways to.

a practice that'll work for every instrument. That's right. You know, we've been called experts on trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, but we shy away from that because we don't consider ourselves experts on those instruments. Do we? Definitely not. Okay. But scales are good for every instrument.

You know, I know that you've been talking about maybe... Timpony? Well, yeah, actually. Really? Yeah. You've been talking about maybe starting to learn more guitar. Yes. And so I've been, like, learning more about singing.

Yes. And there are certain things about, like, singing where it's like, you never see a single tutorial from a vocal coach where they don't talk about lip twirls or lip trills, which are like br-br-gr-kind of thing. Scales are the lip-trills for every instrumentalist. Like, they're just the meat and potatoes of what we have to do. That's right. So learn to love them.

That doesn't mean that you have to play boring old linear scales all the time. No. And in fact, once you're getting to the point, well, I would say that once you have a certain scale that you can play in all keys that is boring, like you know it's so well. I mean, you know, look, have you mastered? who's to say. But you'll start to know once it becomes boring and you're not having to actively think, that's great because that means, you know, if you're like a pianist, the fingerings or a trumpet player, the fingers are ingrained, the transitions. But you're also listening for some musicality. So don't just be like, well, I know all my scales. That's right. I used to have this thing when I had physical IRL students, you know, in real life. And no, they would come in and I would, the first thing I would always say is, all right, how are you on your scale? Oh, I got on my scales. Say YMMMV. Yeah, exactly. Well, the way they were playing these scales were YMMMV for sure. Hashtag. IMV, Andrew.

Exactly, with explanation, which is not needed. Everybody knows it. Yeah, of course. But, you know, the point is they, everybody was so confident on, oh, yeah, I know all my scales. And I was like, oh, wow, this will be great. So I can just kind of quiz you on a couple. We're not going to do the basics. Since you know them all, we're not even going to mess with that.

Let's go to, you know, the altered scale. Give me that in A-flat. And then they'll kind of be like, you know, wait, is it? I mean, I know that. I learned that, but I'm just, you know, like, you know, I mean, I know them. You don't know. Yeah, exactly. If you know it, you know, I grab you out a band in the middle that I play it. Drop down and give me the altered scale before you've been thinking it just comes out.

It loves to demand people drop down and give them something. Well, there are ways that we can lock this in that aren't just running the A-flat altered scale in a linear fashion. Yes. And the ways that we're going to talk about today actually help you understand the notes of the scale in a much deeper way and in a way that is not so, you know, linearly boring as just running it up and down. And the first way we're going to address this is by using thirds, triads, and seventh chords. These are like breaking up the scales in basic symmetrical shapes that come in really, really handy. I mean, these are so fundamental that you should be putting these in your practice routine immediately today for how you practice scales.

So what I mean by thirds is if you're practicing in C, that's playing in thirds, right? That's the C major scale, exactly. Because you hear it and then you see it. That seems super fundamental, but have you done that in, again, like A-flat? You know, you start to learn, if you're a pianist, you can play these two as double stops. But then when you get into things like the half-hole scale, they become super crucial for understanding the relationships of these thirds and how they work together. And I'm going to throw a little audible in here, if you'll allow me here. Yeah.

And that is I'll try to give kind of what we've talked about is creative scale practice, which is really next level once you know these techniques and are comfortable with them. Yeah. And perhaps, I mean, you know, like we said, the point of this is it should never get boring. I mean, it's, look, yeah, you're not playing a Beethoven sonata or Thelonious Monk ballad. Yeah. But it should be challenging. It should be engaging. And you should be doing, putting these together in new ways.

So once the thirds, the broken thirds, and then as you go on and show the triads and seventh, once you've got that and you're like, well, I can do that too. So think about creative ways. How do you change it up? Yeah. You change the direction. Yeah. Totally. And then you can add complexity.

So let's say we want to do triads, or you call them broken fists, but again, this is the half-hold diminish scale. Those can add such... Exactly. I think I messed that up. I know. When I call it broken fist, that is wrong, I guess, because technically broken fists would be like... Which is good, too, right? That's a good one to practice.

Also good. And then once you get into sort of seventh chords, so I'll go back to... Let's do like a C minor Dorian thing. Yeah. Then these shapes become... Now we're talking about shapes that are going to be so crucial to your improvising, every single one of these, so that when you see a 2.5 and B flat, you know that this like G minor 7 shape is part of,

it's part of that C Dorian sound or that A half-diminish shape. Yes. Those seventh chords are all part of that Dorian sound. And this is really, we're getting into the link between, that's so crucial to understand on just a technical level, but also getting into concepts of improvisation between arpeggios and scales. Right.

Because some of you might be like, ah, you're practicing arpeggios. But what's the scale? Right. That's right. And at each different place, but you're getting that kind of connection that's very organic to the way

that we actually improvise with single lines. And then when we were talking about thirds, you mentioned you can switch up the directions. And once you get to these four notes... Oh, now you've got choices. You know, you have so many... like down up I mean there's just like yeah and if somebody annoying is like I've mastered all those

every one I was like okay well then change it up every time get creative right we're trying to trick our brains into really mastering all possibilities of these things and it's it can be eye-opening what you don't know so that was just one key too exactly and it's just one scale so the kind of top level is in non-symmetrical shapes in custom shapes. Like we were talking about this kind of when we were introing this and you were like

is this a custom shape? Well it kind of is here. Like if I'm in the C Dorian, I'm in this shape. Can I move this up the scale? You might be pushing a slot machine up that scale then, buddy. Yeah, it's casino like, can I do it going down? These are all technical things that we need to work on. But then also just coming up with different shapes. I love this shape here. Like one step and then up a fourth and then up

a third. You know what I mean? Like, but just finding shapes that work. It could even just just be like, super tough shape. Yeah. But really, you will get to know the scales and the notes available in the scales in a way that is super, super deep. Yeah, I don't do enough of that.

I like that. I'll just put a little creative scale practice next level thing for that. And that would be then once you do that, say, over the Dorian or anything, then do it chromatically because any of these shapes. And then, you know, once you, it's always good creatively to get yourself out of one way of thinking when you're thinking moldly or diatonically and then you go straight chromatic. Now the next level to all of this, whether it's

Level three. Thirds, triads, seventh chords, or custom shapes is running this over what we call scale running. Right. Right. And typically we think of scale running like if we're doing again a 2-5 and B-flat, maybe we do a Dorian and then a half-hole and then a, like a Lydian, right?

So we'll start with the Dorian, half-hold, and then a Lidion. And switch directions wherever you feel like That's just the boring, linear version of this. So just to clarify, because some people may not understand that terminology, it's basically playing a scale in a continual linear matter up and or down over specific chord change. Right, exactly.

And switching the- And the corresponding scale. Right. Switching the scale when the chord change. So if we're doing like autumn leaves and B-flat, right. And generally sticking with a static rhythm. I mean, in this case, just you're going straight. Yeah.

And you can improvise, you know, changing direction. directions it will. Now, if we start adding things like thirds to this, broken thirds, you know, or triads, you know, now we're having to really get our brain together and switch those notes. Then custom shapes. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, if we take this, that one custom shape really, you know, and then we go to the half hole, like, you know, some really interesting stuff starts to pop out. Yeah. That's super awesome. I like it. I like it. like it. Okay, our fourth way to practice scale. Level four.

This seems, this seems counterintuitive, but it's really taking whatever scale, even if we do it in a linear way or in thirds or triads or seven cores or custom shapes, but practicing them super, super slow. Yes. We are always trying to push ourselves to play faster or, you know, more powerfully or whatever. But if we can practice these things in a very deep and slow way, they're going to stick a lot faster. That's right. And you can kind of challenge yourself with some of the other technical

attributes, depending on your instrument that you're working on, by slowing things down always. And it's no different for scales. Like, that's when you really know, like, when you're, because we're never working on this stuff in a vacuum, because there's already, like, a certain amount of musicality that's taken away. So we can, because you're not playing a piece. You're not improvising it. But what you can do is work on several, especially at the more advanced level, work on several aspects of your technique. Not only you can, you should be a time with a metronome,

be it playing slowly where you really listen to evenness, maybe, as pianists, as a trumpet player, articulations. These can all happen at slower tempos. So do not just start pushing your metronome up and up and up and up. Take some time with a slow tempo. And the reason we push this a little bit level four

is because, you know, this is not the kind of practice we're talking about like when you have to do everything slow because you're still learning the scales. This is about once you get them and then you're kind of starting to go crazy, scale running and all that. And then you're like, let's slow it down and really check our foundational thing. Always a good thing to put into your routine.

All right. So we were talking about scale running. I have, this is a bonus. We're all done with the episode, but I have a bonus tip for you, YouTube. So number five bonus. Let's say we're playing impressions. Okay. No, let's say we're playing impressions.

Oh. You totally missed it. I say, let's say we're playing impressions. And then you say we're playing impressions. We're playing impressions. Thank you. Okay. No.

So if we're playing impressions, say we have a custom shape, like the shape that's kind of fourths, right? Yeah. So one thing that Jeffrey Keeser talked about in this Keys to jazz piano course is taking these like multiple tonic systems. Like let's say we want to do,

we're all over D minor here, but we want to take it outside. You can scale run over one chord, but you're taking it outside. And it's a great way to do it. So take these shapes in major third. So I do the first two. shapes over D minor,

and then I take it a major third up, F sharp. And then I take that up a major third, B flat. And then I'm back at D. Yeah. Right? These are just simple ways you could practice scales, but also like practice going outside. And the way I typically,

there's a number of ways that can be done, but I think the two examples that always come to mind for me are that one where you're going up major thirds or down. Yeah. And then also diminished. Exactly right. Because you get the symmetry of moving through and getting back in either three or four. You could do the same thing.

D, F minor, A flat, B minor. And the great thing about practicing these is you're getting the technical agility and placement, but you're also getting the specific ideas and getting it into your ears. Right. Check out. I mean, that sounds totally, and that sounds super static when we do them this way, and some of them don't sound as good. But, like, if you can start making music out of them. Right. How do you polish the churn? You know what I mean? Then all of a sudden we're doing something interesting. Yeah. And remember, you know, we've said this before, but probably not often enough, if you're not practicing things that some of the, some of the things that you're practicing should be sounding wrong and bad or not as good. Like, not everything is supposed to sound great. Otherwise, you're not. practicing. We're trying to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly. That's awesome. All right.

Awesome. All right. Well, yeah, this is fun. This was fun. Good to be back. Man. The hat's looking good. Got it dry cleaned and everything, you know. Look, YouTube. Leave us a comment below. We've been getting a lot of likes on our videos and look, we didn't totally figure this out. What did we decide about this little? Are we going to do that on the next YouTube? Oh, our metronome stickers? We might do a giveaway for our metronome stickers. We might do a little giveaway. So we... You can see it on my computer here at Metronome sticker. And you can see it. This is custom. This is limited edition. There's only two right now. But if we get some more, you know what?

Actually, you know what? We're going to do this. If we get five, I'm calling Audible, if we get 500 likes. That's not that many. Oh, it's not? Yeah, but let's do it. But within a week.

Within a week. Yeah, we want 500 likes. Within a week, we will get some more of these and do a giveaway for these custom. You can't really see, but it says you'll hear it, and it's the metronome, and it's going to go on there.

And you're going to love it, and you'll hear it.