You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Vibe With Only One Chord

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Peter and Adam talk about improvising when you only have one chord to deal with. What are your options?Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey Adam. Yeah. Check it. Oh. Just the one chord then? Yeah. Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice. Coming at you. Come on you. Peter, we got to update some things because we changed that tagline so much. We've changed it so much. I saw it on the podcast app a couple days ago. You know what it says?

What? Jazz. Explain. I know. That was a thing for a minute. For a second we were explaining jazz. I like rotating it. It keeps it fresh.

Music coming at you, but we got to make a note to update that because I was confused. I was like, wait, aren't we music? Did he change it again? That was good. We were playing over one chord,

which is a little bit of foreshadowing to the episode today. Well, that's what this episode is about is how do we play over just one chord? And there's some strategies that you can employ to make that happen. Well, judging on the intro, it is playing on more than one chord

and adding some other chords. That is a big part of it. But that was generally, I mean, it was one chord area. That was just a B flat 7 suss. Yes. Right? And we can do a ton of stuff to it. Oh, that's just a B flat 7 sus.

Oh, that's it. Oh, no, no, no. So this actually comes from a short time. We're going to start an anti, we're going to have a crusade. We've talked about this before. We're going to be anti, we hate to be, you know what? If I'm not against something, what am I for? You know what I'm saying?

I'll tell you what, I'm going to make a book. I'm going to write a book called, it's just music theory. And everything is just, every chapter is, is, it's just this. It's just this. That's right. But I made this short all about sort of what to do on when you have like a long, one chord for a long time. And this can be actually not just, you know, vamping on one chord, but even in the context of like what do you do if you have, you know, two bars? Two, three, four.

I mean two related chords? Yeah, like if two five one even, but it's like two bars each. Like what if you do when the changes are really stretched out? Or even if it's just a bar each one, two. Most musicians, and will speak specifically to pianists, they're not just playing those chords specifically. Right. Right.

Most of the time, not all the time, but a lot of the times we're implying or we're layering on top of that 251, which isn't now, now we're talking about functional harmony, that's not just like some kind of modal D7SUS or B flat 7 suss, you know, indefinitely, but really what to do with these sort of like long form changes. It can work for things like the B flat seven-s-us, as we just showed. And I think it's a really fun topic because to me, this is like when good players go to great.

And I can see it in some of our students at Open Studio. When they sort of figure it out that they can really add layers of harmony on top of the harmony that's given to them, their playing goes from good to great. Because it gives you all of this other material to pull from. So you're not just trying to make something happen on F minor 7 for four beats. Make something happen. And it just turns out to be this one flavor. Right. When you start layering these substitutions, which we'll talk about, all of a sudden,

you've got all of these different flavors that you can throw in, little tension and release points within the tension and release. And that's when, like I said, you go from good to great. Yep. Yeah. Reminds me of Baskin Robbins. Remember that place? 31.

31. Why 31? If it was just vanilla for two bars. Did you ever go to a birthday party when you were a young lad at, you could host a birthday party for a certain price? at a Baskin Robbins, which included the kids getting to go on the other side. Talk about the inmates running the asylum. Don't think I ever did. I did.

That was a sugar fest. Letting kids lose at a Baskin Robbins. You could go and scoop whatever, the toppings and stuff. It was like 20 minutes. It was like 20 minutes you had. It's like a game show. It's like a game show. Like you win on Wheel of Fortune and you get 20 minutes in the Baskin Robbins.

Right. But we're going to give you that kind of access to some ideas over just one seemingly one thing that you do because I think the idea is the way I like to look at this is this is kind of you talk about good to great it's this kind of like next level going with your improvisation from just improvising over one scale one chord one area to being able to improvise potentially a whole other set of chord changes or a whole other harmonic zone or maybe it's just a rhythmic or melodic zone but like you're putting something on top of something else that's happening you know it's like you're reading the score yeah and

there's just one instrument and then all, and it just has a rest. And then something else happens on top of that. But this still keeps happening. Yeah. But we're doing that all at the same time. Now, we have a great opportunity as pianists to actually sometimes do that separately between the hands, link them up, a band the left hand, three zones, whatever. But the idea is from a conceptual standpoint, I think is you are improvising, you are

creating, you are, you know, putting some turns to the journey, to the story while the underlying harmony stays the same. And that's kind of next level in terms of improvisation. Because we always think about improvisation as primarily like melodic storytelling over a set of changes. And maybe that's just one chord for a period of time. Maybe it's for the whole thing or maybe it's like two chords like so what or whatever. But it's like, okay, improvise on top of that. Well, what about if you could improvise a whole other structure, at least at times on top of that and melodically and rhythmically, of course, improvised within that zone. instead. Yeah, that's exactly right. What would that sound like? Luckily, it doesn't have to, like,

when we're talking about layering other harmony over chords, I think, you know, if you're not familiar with this, you might be thinking, oh, that's going to be like playing outside. Right. Taking it out. Actually, it's not at all. In fact, it's going to sound very functional. And in fact, I forget who said it. Someone said everything is just the one, right? Everything is just delayed back to that. Oh, that's just the one. That's the name of my book. It's just the one, which is true. So, if we're in the key of E flat here, which I'll use, right? The first place we want to go, we want to use really that magical circle of fifths to our advantage, right? So the most standard version of harmony that you can get is one five one, right?

Ever heard of it. And that five is just our sort of first primary way, one of our primary ways, to go from the one. Five's just a primary way. It's just a primary way. And so when you have something like a two five one, this is actually a two five one is what we're talking. about here. This is taking it, you know, again, a step further. You're not actually going another circle, key circle away, but you're taking that, basically, your five chord, if you think about it like this, and this will be very reminiscent if you know anything about like Barry Harris's family

of chords. But if you take this B-flat-7 and you move that third up to the fourth, right, and you move the root up a step, right? you got a little F minor 7. Yeah. Right. And so it's this whole, you know, a 251 is that it's, it's some things moving and some things staying the same throughout. So the two is actually you are already suspending that five, which is you are already

suspending the one. Right. You just keep taking steps back. And you can even hear it. You can hear it. When you put the root of the one in a lot. Totally. That's the two.

That's the five same voicing. Soss. So a two chord is really just like a five suspended, and you're suspending the root, you know, up a fifth or down a fourth, and you're suspending the third up that half step. And the five chord is really just the one suspended, right? You're suspending the third up to the four. And I love this idea of... And the one up to the fifth.

Like, it's everything is just, you're taking it, you know, around, suspending everything and resolving it. And I love this idea of, you know, raising up the thirds because, like, the thirds is sort of like that basic building block. We have many different ways to break down the diatonic, you know, E-flap major, 2-5, that we're putting this 251 with now. But when you look at the thirds, and not even major, they're just diatonic thirds, that's the foundation of triads. That's right. You stack another one. And that's where all the interesting stuff is built off of, you know. Exactly. Up to the four. It's just stepwise movement. All of this stuff is really

stepwise movement or fourths and fifths. The very basic function. Okay, so let's take this idea of the two-five. Now, if we have, let's say, just a lot of B-flat-7, right, a whole bar of B-flat-7, instead of just playing B-flat-7, if we're a pianist, right? A pianist. You're not going to really make it a true two chord

because you don't want to mess with the bass player too much, although you could and see if they can figure it up. It depends on who the bass player is. But you can sort of put this F-minor 7 over the B-flat, right? Think about it like that. So this is really a B flat seven suss, right? But really what I think about this is some kind of F Dorian over that B flat. And then the B flat.

And this is all over like if you had a bar of B flat, one, two, three, and two bars of B flat. And then we resolve it. Maybe it's just one bar. One, two, three, and. That kind of thing, right? So instead of just you add that suss, which I'm really thinking about as like an F minor, like a two chord over the B flat. Now, if you had two bars of that B flat seven,

you could take it a step further. Just like if you had an F minor seven, you know, now you can do, you can go back another step in that circle of fifth. Oh, shit, party time now. That E diminished, right, or that C7, you're adding that dominant. So you can do that over a B flat as well.

If you have a lot of B flat, you start suss, you do that E diminished. which is like the five chord of the F minor, right? It's like a C7 flat nine, back to the suss, and then finally the dominant chord. Yeah. And then that is, I think, a surefire way to add all this tension to just one chord.

So if you have that, especially for dominant chords, but even for minor chords, just taking it a step back. If you have F minor, you could even do this, you know, going back now two steps, right? So I'm going to do like a B diminished, E diminished F minor

right which is like F diminished E diminished It's like the five of the five The five of the five You just keep taking steps back And I mean you can Sort of do this

Infinitely because it sounds Because you have that Chromatic voice leading Of these dominant chords Yeah that's great And like when you start to look at those It's like The same thing with the thirds

They don't have to always be diatonic Something's gonna kind of Like a lot of times We'll think about these tension notes As specific like leading tone away or you know you know half steps in and there but when you add it with the thirds that really gives it some power and then maybe some stacking up some thirds you know and it's like you know but a lot of times people will be like wait that's just a different

way of saying this and that's true but that's a good thing because then we're hearing them in different ways we're hearing them as thirds or we're hearing them as individual notes shifting down chromatically or we're hearing them as the five of the five of the five of the two you know they're all beautiful cool ways to look at similar, really the same concept, but sort of manifesting it in different ways, training your ears to hear this stuff in different ways, which is super important. Super important. Yeah.

That's great stuff. Yeah. So that's definitely something is that sort of magical circle of fist, just pulling back, right? Just taking steps back and timing it out so that you're resolving in time. Another, I think, great way is something else we did a lot of on that intro. when you have one chord, this is so dumb, so simple, but literally just sliding it up or down to half step is magical somehow.

Somehow it works every time. Well, it depends on how you do it though. Yeah, it works every time if you're doing it. If you know what you're doing with it. If you know what you do it. Like so it's a simple concept. And it's actually like if you, I think if you use the framework of like, how does it sound?

Yeah, yeah. Then it's easy to do it. But you do have to experiment with it because they're all ways to kind of make this. sound cookie cutter, right? Totally. And so I think that's probably like less is more or not doing it. Like use some unconventional ways to vary it as you're doing this.

And so a lot of times we'll think, okay, so maybe like, oh, I went up. So this time I'll go and do it down and that's fine. But what about so you could go and do it again. I'm just doing it rhythmically at a different place in the bar. That's right. A lot of times we'll think like with these kinds of things, we get stuck on harmony and melody, but like rhythmic and rhythmic placement of it can be just as much of a variable.

We've got all these different levers that we can push and playing around with it. And the rhythmic stuff is fun where it's being placed because it's generally easier to get into a place where you will start to kind of vary it based upon what you want to hear quicker than the harmonic and melodic stuff.

So like you could come up with a simple melodic thing but then to actually develop that takes a little bit more time and sort of musical attenuation. can help. Patterns can help, right? But I mean, like, you could take a... Some kind of theme.

Yeah, but I mean, for me to really start to change it up, like rhythmic is the easiest entry point to actually do it, I think. And it's important, and it's just another kind of element and lever that we have to mess around. Works on pretty much any chord, better on dominance and minor probably than like a major tonic, but it can work on a major tonic as well, for sure.

Anything works on anything, honestly, if you know if you are using your ears and it sounds good. Right, right. That's really all that matters. Yeah, and I think, too, I was just thinking back kind of a combination of these things certainly be rhythmic or I'm thinking more harmonic,

but is like finding, because you talk about major, yeah, it's very different than dominance when you're sitting on them. But finding the tension points, you know, is really important. And on dominance, that's a little bit easier maybe to do that because even if it's a suss like this, like we know if we shift that up and then that down,

that's going to give it some tension and take away. I mean, dominant chords have tension, but when you go suss, they have a little bit, or blues, they're kind of a resting point.

They're not feeling like they're going somewhere else. To me, they feel more like a major core, like they want to be somewhere. So, like over a major, we could be like, where's the tension?

Like the Lydian can kind of be a tension. Totally, yeah. But the fourth can also be a tension. It's always going to have some tension because it wants to go down to there and that wants to go. But what are just playing around with those? The Lydian can be a point of tension to resolve.

So if you have a major, and you're just going to play a regular major seven. Going to that Lidion can definitely be a way to get out of your head on that. You can go back. Same thing on a major, going to, like if you have a major tonic against C major, going to the tonic diminished.

Right. And then the tonic diminished, so C diminished and then resolving back to C major. And we're still staying over the same chord. Still, this will all be just C. right? And then the triadic stuff yeah

so like if you play around it's like E triad D triad which is kind of livenish and then C triad

but for each of them I'm adding in the fourth so it's like because I know that's going to be like whoa what happened to the F sharp and then maybe you play around with it back again

so it's like little places you can slide in in and out of and give like when you start to hear what these sound like but not just as like I'm over C major and I'm tired of playing some, so I'm just going to be playing random nodes, you know.

But no, we're connecting with something that's very melodic. Yeah. Is that legal? If you have, especially on a major chord two, you can use a similar concept, but letting sort of these chromatic things help you. So like, sort of the bassy thing, the oscar. I create a progression over it. Right. You could also do something like off the fifth.

Right. So with that bassy thing is obviously like a C major, D minor, 7, E flat, to middle. finished back to the C major and you can go back down. You hear Oscar Peterson do this. Just using that as a way to resolve on itself when you have a big stretch of one tonic chord. Another one I love on tonic. He'll go through like 30 chords on like the first four bars of a blues.

Yeah, he can do that. Or even just adding the dominant. I love that. He'll just throw in just, here's the dominant wherever I want to add it. Sounds great. Yeah. He'll go to the four chord and add the dominant to that and go back. I love that stuff.

Sucker for it. Another good one is from the fifth. like using that fifth chromatic walkup just when you have just C major right maybe you are going yeah you can keep going with it you know a lot of this is this is just to give you a just this is really just like diatonic places you can go over C major's yeah secondary dominance essentially yeah this is just an adamantus 60 second short on you two that's all right well that's what we're going to do next No, but this is so much fun.

I just encourage you if you haven't worked on this. It's a really fun thing to work on. Take one chord, take a minor chord for four bars and see if you can, again, take these steps back with the circle of fifth, see if you can do some chromatic movement, see if you can do this sort of melodic, diatonic triad movement that Peter's talking about.

Really just experiment with getting different sounds, so it's not just one minor chord, and all we're doing are the things we do on minor, but you're really using all these tools to create tension on that chord. And you can go through every chord like that. And it's a really rewarding experience, I think. Super. So why don't we both give, I'll kick it off,

which will give me it a great advantage, give an example of like recording or a tune or maybe even a tune that's recorded of this kind of playing. Not these specific examples, but of like playing over one chord really successful navigation. So the first thing that comes to mind

is in a sentimental mood. Okay. So it starts off with, this walk down here it's just all just D minor really but this is what we're adding tension to this D minor sound

tends to the four yeah totally and it does it again on the four chord I think in a sentimental mood is a perfect example of that but really any you know you can think about to

like well you give me one I just had one and I was facing on what I was thinking you know how they play on what is it? Oh yeah, perfect.

Yeah. Flamenco sketches. Yeah. And it's real subtle like because I mean, you know, sometimes when people play this, myself include it's like you can really, it's just C major, right? Those first like eight bars or 16 bars, whatever it is. And there's a lot of tension in there, especially like the way and not a lot of like, there is tension in there.

But it's very subtle the way Bill Evans. And it's very much based on those leading tones, fourth to third major seventh up to the root like certainly the way he's voicing them and everything but the way that miles plays over the way everybody plays over those chords like because they're not always varying from you know like c major in fact miles i don't think hardly varies from any of the chords he's using a course like texture and timbre and like all these different cool elements but when they do because it's always like what are you coming from where you're going situation when they do very often that diatonic thing, it's super like, wow, exciting because it's so paced and patient

the way that they're improvising over it. But I think that's just masterful one chord playing. And there's just five chords in that. Yeah. We could use Maiden Voyage as another example. So you hear both Herbie and Freddie imply this kind of movement, moving that tone around and then changing the scale that they're playing. And that's just like the suspended fourth is the main one. Yeah, they'll use that sort of movement. The suss up to the sharp 11 and down to the actual third. Sometimes even, I think we'll do a diminished thing.

Yeah, yeah. But that's just, again, creating tension using these sort of functional things. Yeah, that's great playing all that. Oh, man. One chord playing specifically. But anytime you hear anybody do, like on a two five, that is what this is. Which you hear all the time. Or this thing?

That's just what this is. That's just adding that five chord. And then is it? That's melodically what this is. Yep. Right? You're adding in... Yeah.

You're adding in elements. You're borrowing a couple of elements from the five chord. Yep. Yep. Squib way deep. Right. Essentially, it's just... But again, following that melody down.

That's all it is. That line is what we're talking about. Woo! Let's play it out. What should we play it out with? You do a little... Do a little...