You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How We Play Out

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Adam and Peter tell all in this episode focused on how to play OUTside the changes and the different approached you can use. George Garzone's Triadic ApproachUnlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.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

G, B flat. Whatever. F. Okay. It's F, you know. Where are you? Are you out there? Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music, explored. Explored. Brought to you today by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio, go to Open Studio, jazz.com for your jazz lesson needs. I didn't even say anything that time, Peter.

That's how deep into the... Oh, we're getting. Yes. You're also deep into that microphone once again. Oh, shoot. I keep forgetting. Sorry, Caleb. Sorry, Caleb.

Didn't mean to make you. didn't mean make yourself conscious. It was nice. It was an intimate approach to the entry point of our episode. I like that shirt, man. You've been stepping it up from the attire standpoint. It's not that you were, I mean, you were starting at a high level. I didn't think it was possible to step it up, yet you did.

Well, thank you very much. I'm looking this shirt too. Yeah, you're really taking it out with that shirt. What, no. Taking it out what? Trying to pull it in with the theme of the episode. It's a blue shirt. How is that taking it out?

No, it's nice, but it's got, so it's got. got vertical stripes, right, which is good for a, for a tall, slender man as yourself. No, I'm saying. But he said tall. I know what you meant. I know what you meant. But you kind of. A larger gentleman.

No, I didn't mean. No, I'm saying. This is, by the way, Husky brand is serious. You used to make, remember husky brand? Of course. Yeah. I remember when there was a husky sizing. Yeah.

There was husky sizing. I was boxing. I thought they'd just been boys size. Turns out, not all boys were husky like that. Big boys. No, but you've got the vertical stripes, but they're not congruent, right? They're of varying widths. They are.

And then they're abandoned over on the side to another fabric. It's kind of a patchwork of fashion. Yeah, Peter, you know, I like to mix it up. I like to take it out. I like to try new things. Take it out. I like it. This is my summer look.

Disjointed stripes, apparently. Someone had a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek or negative or maybe complimentary. I can't even tell. Comment on my attire from a recent episode. I don't know why we focus in on the personalization of the comment. Yeah, we are human beings and we do want to look good. We do want to look good on the, you know, for the listeners here, we do this podcast on YouTube as well.

So, yeah, it's pretty easy. So wait, what do they say about your outfit? I don't remember actually. Oh, come on. No, I'm serious. You know. You have a picture of it in your window. I think it was about this shirt, which I decided to wear again today.

So this is limited edition. Because it's too small, right? They said something to that effect. I'm just kidding. And I think it was something about, wow, wearing a shirt with your own face on it or something, which that's... It is like playing a concert wearing a shirt of your band t-shirt of your own... Remember this? Daily, jazz advice. Yeah, it's not true anymore, but it's not true.

It's twice a week. If that. But we're still here, having fun. It's not daily, but we're talking today about something that we haven't talked about in a while. But I think that we do exemplify in our... playful musical banter that we often do at the beginning of the show or at the end of the show or in between in the show and that I have the feeling this will be interesting to sort of see as we get into this discussion but I have the feeling both of us may take this for granted in a little bit

in some ways not in a bad way like when we talk about oh taking for granted a certain part of your practice routine or a loved one or something that's not good but I think that there is maybe a positive way to take for granted and not focus in too much. Of course, we're talking today about playing out. That's right.

But I do think that this is the kind of skill that is good to take for granted to not talk about a lot, to let come out organically and you're playing. For sure. And it's something that people notice about, you know,

both of us and how we play. So it'll be, and we never talk about it. We never like talk about, oh, how do you take this out? I think we do have some musical discussions in that while we're playing, if one of us takes it out,

there is a little bit of a, there's a reaction, there's an invitation maybe to go somewhere, which I think is a big part of this. Because a lot of people think playing out is such a solitaire thing, oh, you're going to take it out and everybody else stays in. And I think that that's a limiting way to look at,

at this technique that's really closely related to a lot of other things that we're doing as well. It's not just the harmonic going in and out. That's exactly right. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I look at taking it out, Meaning playing notes or lines that or phrases that are completely outside of what is in the key. Yeah.

So if we're- As Key and Peele might say, are you outside of your mind? Are you outside of your mind right now? Yes. Are you outside of the key right now? So if you're playing an F-7 chord, you know, typically you would use like an F-dominant scale, the mix-a-lidian scale. Yeah. Perhaps a Lydian. You could use a Lidian-dominate. But there's still something established.

There's something that is. a harmonic palette. Right. It's got an F in it. It's got some important notes for F7 in it, right? So like generally taking out is choosing notes that are

against that in some kind of way, you know, that don't, that you're not really locked in to whatever chord that you're on. I think about this, Peter, more,

this is more in line to me with this. With playing like an altered scale. With playing something like, all we're doing when we're taking it out, I think, is ratcheting up tension. Like we're rationing up the tension so that we can release that tension. It's all about tension and release.

Life is. Yeah. Music is. And that's the storytelling part too. That's the storytelling part. So this is just another device. I mean, that starts with literally like that, right? That's tension and release. Right. And then this is tension and release. And then that's tension

and release. And then this is tension and release. And then that's tension and release. And then that's tension and release, right? It's all just tension and release. That's all we're doing here. In general, that's the big picture. Now, there are techniques that I would love to discuss with you, which we really haven't talked a lot about. If only we had a podcast with a title, how to take it out, in a venue with which to talk about it. We could proceed. We could totally do it. Yeah. So we should get into it then. We should maybe get into it. Well, I think you actually just started at a great place even to frame the discussion in that those wonderful chords you

just played going back and forth from the F major is thinking about the sort of harmonic palette, the sort of harmonic, you know, area we'll call it sometimes the sort of the thesis for what is going to be right and wrong in terms of taking it out. When we take it out, we're playing the wrong notes as, like, if it's as simple as that dominant scales the right notes. So anything else, half step up is going to include notes that are not the right notes. ones. But to have these different areas and think about them as harmonic areas before we

even start to apply improvisation to them. So like you went from, I think, you know, the first one was maybe like a five with altered kind of a sound. Is that what you did? That's right. Yeah. So, but that's just as valid and interesting or potentially

interesting for your improvisation as, you know, you know, like an A flat 13th. Something crunchy. Yeah. Yeah. Should we be courting? I don't know. Yeah, that's totally, that's all true, man. Just like, it's all about ratching up the tension and releasing it.

So let's get into it, Peter. Like I mentioned the C7, sharp 9, sharp 5, or flat 13, or however you want to talk about it to the F, is like the first way you might think about taking it out, even though it's not really taking it out, right? You would now consider this very much in, but 80 years ago, not very much in. Like, it was still rather tense for a lot of people.

but this is what I'm saying it's all cultural this stuff of like dissonance you know you're doing more of a traditional five to one 500 years ago

that was dissonant right you know what I mean so like that might put you in some of a plagial prison if you're not careful it could have got you jailed

yeah certainly and this was just out of the question prison I guess yeah playgal get out of plagial that's gonna be our next course so that this kind of like

using the five with altered extensions is a way of taking it out you're taking it You know, this C-7 altered scale going to F, right, if we're going to F, C, D, D, F, E, F, E, G, flat, A, flat, B-flat. There's no F in this. So that's pretty far outside of the key of F. Yeah.

Right? So it's just an interesting way to think about it. Even something like a dominant chord can be the first step into taking it out. Yeah, and I think that even with this one, one sort of test or, or, obviously. opportunity to experiment and see if this works, or even if you like it and try to find some different possible areas that you could use this in your improvisation is just to try it, but stay over the same chord. So in this case, we've got the C altered, but just put it right on top of the F. Yeah, totally. This is a, like, how Coy does that all the time.

Exactly. You'll put the five over it like, so instead of, if you're just on an F, like you're really using that five chord as a bit of tension, even over just one chord. Right. You know, it doesn't need to be in the chord changes. Yeah, and I was even thinking, so like you demonstrated, you start on the chord. So in this case, F7, kind of sussy sound. Yeah.

So I'm improvising over that. And then I'm going to go to the altered, the C altered, and then back to the F. Yeah. And if I did it with some chords, I wouldn't even have to, you know, change up my chords. I'm still saying, staying forth sort of. of dominant. Yeah. But then your option would be to like find, you know, just slide that one half note down.

That's right. Which actually would give it less tension in a way because, you know, you're, you're kind of calibrating the outness tension, right? Because if I stay F and float that on top, it's pretty much like, whoa, what's going on, whereas if I, it gives it a little bit more directionality, I think. Before we get any deeper, Peter, into the harmony of all of this, into some ideas of ratcheting up the tension. Let's talk about a really important factor in this,

which is rhythm. Yes. Which is something that you might not think about with taking it out, but we're both kind of acquiescing to a certain rhythmic parameter, right? And we're both doing things that help with the heavy lifting

of taking something outside of the normal key. So just notice there, you're doing a lot of sort of these what we might call cell patterns, right? Where you're kind of working around your thumb. I've noticed this when I've transcribed you're playing. like you will use a thumb position to really make some interesting rhythmic things happen

and when you do this sort of like back and forth up and down thing, thinking about maybe blocking where your thumb is, you have to be that specific with it, but you're not just going like, right? You're not doing that and you're not doing, you're not really doing that either. It's more of like creating these little patterns that happen.

And I know patterns is a bit of a dirty word and improvisation these days, but it's, I think, a necessity when you are, especially when you're starting out with this sort of idea of ratcheting up the harmonic tension. If you can create some kind of rhythmic or thematic patterns within your improvisation, some motifs, if you will, you can then take them anywhere,

and your listener's ear is going to be able to hear the structure with a pattern, and it makes it a little bit more easy for them to follow when you take it outside of the key center. Yes, yeah, yeah. It's such an important part of this is understanding the relationship between, we've said it many times before, melody, harmony, and rhythm.

They all come together. But yeah, and so when we think about what patterns are we, because we're always trying to establish patterns, even when we think we're not for the listener. I mean, like, that's how we put our sentences together, our paragraphs, our musical sentences together, to craft a story and then to introduce drama. So, like, as we pull the rug out from under the listener

with the harmonic patterns they're expecting, i.e. we're not staying in a f when we're supposed to be, and maybe the bass player is, and maybe it's a known part of that where it's still on the first four bars of the blues, and we're going somewhere else. What do we do to kind of, like, what is the glue that's going to be there? And a lot of times we think, oh, that's the, you know, like you say, patterns are dirty because you're thinking melodically. But rhythmic patterns is such an easy way to ground things for the listeners.

So it's like as we're pulling the rug under, we're still giving them something to be able to hold on to understand as we go to different lands and different interesting places. McCoy Tider comes to mind as being a master of this. And once you start seeing it, like how he plays off of these rhythmic patterns, it's so like and then calibrates that to how out harmonically he's letting his actual melodies go. So if you have, you know, what's actually holding it together, yes, you've got the which can go anywhere chromatically, but it's really the rhythm and not just the exact rhythm, but how it sets up the phrasing, right?

That's right. So you know you're going to get back, but if you keep changing up the rhythm, the rhythmic pattern and the melodic pattern, as you're also changing up the harmony, that's fine, and you can do that. But you're not really giving the listener a cohesive story that.

You're already pulling the harmony out, which is the transitional thing. So it's like give something else to hold the thing together. Or not, but at least be aware of it. Something you can do to work on this is actually to just take the melody and harmony out of the equation altogether.

Something I like to do. sometimes is have a student just take like four notes, just chromatic notes, CD flat, D, and E flat. Yes. And then like, let's play a blues. Okay. I'm just going to play these four notes, right? And so I'm just going to think like a drummer, essentially, and start creating my rhythmic patterns. One, two, one, two, three.

Super fun. That was actually a super fun solo to take, right? And I started to use the top part of those four notes as like an accent. Yeah. But you can hear some rhythmic themes being developed. It's actually way easier to develop them. You can do this too with two hands and just two notes. You can do Aaron Parks has this thing

where he closes the piano lid and you're just taking a drum solo basically and then you just take that then to your hands. Yes. And this is, I think, a real hack to this because if you do that, you can then practice, it doesn't matter what notes you're playing.

You're going to have a good thematic thing. Let's try the Aaron Parks thing. So let's do two choruses. I'm going to take a solo above the key. like as if I close the lid on our setup here. Yes. And I'm going to take a little drum solo. Nice.

And then I'm going to take that. I'm just going to really move that to the keyboard. And I'm not really going to be thinking about the notes. It's going to be random with it. I'm not thinking about the changes at all. Okay. One, two, one, two, three. That's great.

That's a real solo. Like, that's a real, and I wasn't thinking about any kind of notes or whatever. I'm literally, I mean, I was kind of hitting some F things just because my brain wouldn't not let me. Yeah. My biggest fault is I can't, not play. No, it wouldn't not let me kind of hit the changes, but that's really freeing. And it's a

great exercise. And that has nothing to do with what we're doing harmonically, but it's super crucial to free you up so that you can confidently take things outside of a tonal center. That's great. And, you know, what I'm noticing too in that example is your attention to the phrasing. Yeah, the rhythm is important. And you're really focusing in all that and like the clarity of that and the patterns that come out of that that stay as you're moving throughout the chorus but also what that does to set up the phrasing and so that's this whole thing of like you know it's not just the rhythm like you would look at it on the page where you have a string of eighth notes and maybe some rest in there where well walk someone i'll show you what i'm talking about

same thing two one two if i just think about the rhythm it's just so straight eighth notes will be but if i'm getting the phrasing to it so much much fun too. Like I can hear it in your playing like it opened up your playing a little bit. Yes. In a way that it's really it's something that it's by the way there's no finish line to this too. As we're even talking about this, I'm like, I should put this in my practice routine this week. This is really, really fun. These kind of restrictions are great because it really pushes you yes, to focus on the rhythm

and the phrasing and when you don't have those like you go into it thinking, oh, the interesting out places that I go harmonically is what's going to make this work. And that just becomes one. element, what becomes, I think, even more interesting is what's going to hold it together. You've got the freedom to go wherever. Because a lot of times, you know, we look at the entry points of playing out is taking something and then just going up half step chromatically. That's right.

Like that's sort of the easiest way. So it's built in that you're going to use the same rhythm, that you're going to use the same phrasing most likely. You might offset it a little bit in terms of where you start the phrase. But that's really the same concept where you have it built in. to have the phrasing and the rhythm as the constant, and then the harmony can go anywhere. Yeah, this was an exercise I think that Aaron had mentioned,

and I believe Fred Hirsch mentioned this too, developed by Sophia Roso, their classical teacher, where your hands on the top of the piano is like your right hand, and your feet is like your left hands. And this is like doing a classical piece like this, where you can read the rhythm and do that, but you can also do this with your improvisation. Okay, so that's just a little bit on phrasing and on rhythm,

and I think there's a lot to be. be said with that. And we'll probably, Peter, as we, it's, it's hard because, like, for some of these things, it's like, we almost don't, don't know what we're doing until we're playing it a little bit more, you know, and you kind of, like, identify. But one thing I know we can talk about is some strategies melodically and harmonically to take it out. So we've talked about just putting the five over a chord. Yeah. And, like, superimposing, like, a dominant chord over it. Another way to do it is to, you know, you might slip or slide chromatically up or down. So if you're on that F7 suss again.

You can go up to like a G-flat 7, so I said, we have in my left hand here, with the chording back up maybe. In my left hand here I have F, B, flat, and E-flat. Yep. Right? Classic fourth fourths. Classic fourth. So the best way to do this, we think about, I'm really,

I'm playing a lot around here, this like C-petonic, right? That's C minor pentatonic. Not everything. Right? There's definitely going to be some A's in there and stuff. But you can start with that for sure. and you just slide that up a half step or down a half step

that kind of thing can be really easy to do because you don't have to think very much you're just slip in and slide in either way yeah and I think that's the way to start it where you're shifting everything so yeah you know where you're actually going in and out of those areas

and even if you take like you said C minor pentatonic over the F and then maybe if you're comfortable there also kind of that F major six pentatonic. So you got two different choices, which is really just a D minor. Yeah. Now, it's risky here, Peter,

but I would like to suggest we switch the tune a little bit to maybe some autumn leaves because we can demonstrate how you can do this slip slide above or below in like a changes situation. A 251 situation. So in autumn leaves, right, you have a 251 to B flat. So if I'm doing this, you can do things like your C minor 7. And maybe that stays the same.

But for our F7 chord, instead of that, we can do what's called the tritone sub. Yeah. We can do a B7. But maybe we do a B7 suss. Yeah. And we use like an A major pentatonic, F sharp minor pentatonic,

heading to our B flat seven. Nice. And then we do our 2-5 to G minor, right, A-miter 7, flat-5, D-7 to G minor. Maybe the A-minor 7-flat-5, we keep that in. Maybe for the D-7, though,

we do a tritone sub and suss it out. A-flat-7-sus. Yeah. to our G minor. Let's try that and see how that goes. Okay. Two, one, two. Ah, you got to be here.

Try it. Pretty nice. And that's interesting, kind of maybe going in a little more, which is a good way to practice it, I think, a little more than you eventually would want to do most of the time, but kind of forcing you to make those adjustments. Because I could already tell, you know,

a subtle change in approach actually has a big effect on how out it feels. Yeah. And that is this idea of, for on the 251 so if we go C minor and think about that as kind of a pentatonic any of the pentatonic but this is like C minor pentatonic

and then the F7 you said tritone substitution B7s yeah B7sus but if you go pentatonic there something like that as opposed to like a Lydian domino or something that's more

like that's a different sound because of where you're coming from so you got totally and it's not a right or wrong but it's different it's different like that's a little bit more of that that five to one that we started the whole thing over the F you know we had C7 with the altered sound

so it's good to not only get the actual harmonies in this case C minor tritone substitution to give it that outness but different ways of approaching it with pentatonic depending on what you're coming from yeah right because if I started scale too and when C minor Dorian and then went up to pentatonic over the B.

That's a different kind of the sound too. They're all out, but they're different kinds of out. They're all out, but they're different kinds of out. There was another one that I... Oh, go ahead, because I've got another one, but it'll be a little bit more advanced. Well, there's another way that we can think about this 251 situation too that I like to think about it.

And it's kind of slipping from the bottom up, but it's a little bit different. So if we were to do our 251 to B flat, we keep the 25 intact, F7... Sorry, C minor 7 to F7. And then we're going to land on B flat, but instead of landing on B-flat, right? And by the way, the bass player doesn't have to know any of this stuff.

No. Like, when I'm walking for you, I'm not trying to do all that. I'm letting you do it. I'm hitting the changes. That's the tension that happens. In fact, I think the bass player, an advanced way of accompanying this that I've noticed with really good bass players, is they do know what's happening because they can hear it.

Of course. But they don't shift to it right away. Because sometimes that takes too much of the tension away and the whole point of taking it out. In fact, that's a little bit of an annoying sometime If I go C minor and then I'm doing some kind of like B substitution, if they're going right there and playing it. You want that tension.

Yeah, because this sounds great, then it resolves down to there. And likewise, you don't always have to change your left hand. Your left hand can stay on like an F7 and you can do that sort of like F sharp pentatonic. That's sort of that calibration of tension as well. So the one I was talking about, if I can just go back, is C minor 7. We'll keep that the same. F7 will keep that the same. And instead of landing right on B flat major 7,

you could do the slip and slide from below. So like an A major 7, which is similar to that F sharp minor 7. And then you... Backdoor. And then you come up, right? Do the same thing on the minor 25. A minor 7 flat 5, D7, and then instead of...

G minor. But instead of landing on G minor, then on that F sharp minor 7 first. Let me try that. Yeah. And then you maybe give it a go. One, two, one, two, three. So that's a fun one. It's a lot of fun.

And I actually forgot which one you did. Don't worry about it. You sounded great. But I was thinking about when you were playing and I was doing the baseline, one thing, I mean, for bass players, for your left hand, for you playing with bass players and kind of reacting what they're doing is I was using a technique of using the trigger of you playing out in these different ways, instead of trying to match that exactly harmonically. because that might cancel it out. So avoiding that, but doing something rhythmic to play out as well. This is another thing that you can do.

Once the time is set and you feel like you're locked into the groove into the form, what great bass players do when they start to hear us take it out, they don't necessarily try to match exactly what we're doing, but they have their own way of going out.

So if we're, you know, you know, it might be like going to the off beats instead of on, if they're playing a two feel or there might be, you know, some triplet half note. patterns or something. Patterns is key too. They usually put a pattern to it.

It's always a pattern or something because you still, but it's saying, it's like a trigger to say, let's all loosen up, let's go some places, let's explore, let's take it out. But it's not the literal sense of I have to match you exactly how you're taking out. No, this is just an invitation to play in a different way. And it's not like, and let's all come in at the exact, come back in at the exact same time. No, let it slide in, let it resolve, let it go over the bar lines or something. but there's always those elements of taking it out. And if you work on them, methodically one at a time,

you'll start to hear them and understand them. The beauty of it then is putting them together in an interesting way. The same way that if we play, that's great, where we're shifting up together and then we bring it back to the F. But what about if we don't do it, or if we do it, but if we delay that with the left end?

Just that little bit of delay gives it a different kind of size. That's right. Maybe we go to the way. They're first with the left-head. I like it. That gives it that crunch and that little bit of tension. It's just another technique of doing that.

One more thing that you can do on tunes with changes. If we get the chordie back up. Don't go changing. To try to please me is we can use the root to our advantage. So you can change,

this is a little bit of like an instant re-harm. This is called the advantageous root concept. Is it? Did you just make that up? Henceforth, yes. Ding, ding, ding.

That's a good one. Adventageous root concept. I'm not allowed to say um or like, so I gotta say something. That's great. I love it. So our C minor 7 to our F7 to our B flat, right? So we can change the quality or even inversion of these chords, and we can really make something interesting. We'll just pick one chord.

So the kind of easiest way to do this is to change the root of what you're doing into the third. So if we do our 2.5 in B flat, let's just do that much. I'm going to take the, if we can take the C minor 7, instead of C minor, maybe we make that A flat major over C. Or maybe we do it to the F. Maybe we make it D flat over F instead of F7.

Right? This gives us something that's outside of the normal chain. Check it out, G flat over B flat, right? Sorry, I'll get the B flat. And you resolve it then to where it's supposed to go. Yeah. But you're using that route. So the bass player is playing something that sounds,

they're like, wait, what's going on here? you know, it sounds really good. It's not quite in the changes. So let me try that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that over all of the tonics. So I'll do that over the B flats and the G minor's. I'm going to turn the B flats into G flat over B flat,

and I may or may not resolve that. And I'm going to turn the G minor's into... You know what I'm going to do with the G minor's? I'm not going to do E flat over G flat because that's a little too close to G minor. You're already sensing it's not going to give you the tension. It might not give me the tension that I want.

So what I'll probably do is, I mean, the go-to here would do like a big G-major 9, which can get corny if you overuse this, but it's a great way to take it out just one. So let's try that. I'm going to change. I'm going to be strategic with changing these. I'm not going to do every one

because you'll see it gets annoying if you overdo it, but this sort of instant reharm we're using the root that's already there. Yeah. Changing the chord. One, two, one, two, three, and... G major there. Just changing the quality of the chord

using an inversion can be a way to take it outside of your audience's expectations. And it's great because your bass player already knows the note to hit that's going to make it sound good. So you make them sound really good. Base players love this, but usually. That's why I kind of went and just sat on those whole notes too. Yeah, totally, totally. Let me try this. I've never really thought.

I think I've played it. You do it all the time. This is another example of things Peter Martin does every solo. It doesn't know he's doing. One, two, one, two, three. That's the kind of obvious one. I kind of struggled to come up with good ones on that, I felt like. Well, this is a go-to for me, so it might be just some experience.

Well, you were doing some more to, I kept looking for them on the twos and the five, and I think the magic maybe for this one can be on the tonics. The tonics is where it really... Because if you think about it, the cadence, right, the two and the five that gets you there, it's naturally setting up your audience's expectations. They hear this. They want to hear that, right? So if you do this, it automatically is like,

That kind of thing. Nice. It's gold. It's gold. Yeah. So that is maybe some things that we can do on the tunes that have changes. Let's get back maybe Peter to one chord. Okay.

One chord situations, modal situations where you're kind of like burning out, right? We love a C minor burnout. We love a C minor burnout. Well, one thing I was thinking about on that is we talked about going up chromatically. So if we're on that F or the C minor, right? And then we can think about certainly going down, but it's still chromatic movement, you know, moving up and down or whatever. But whole step movement, I think would be the next.

So you're just taking a motif here. Yep. And you're moving it up in whole steps as a way. And what this does is this takes you to an interesting place in a different way than going chromatically. So chromatically, you're going to instantly go to something that sounds very out, right? right? Because everything's going to be different.

So if I'm going C minor, I mean, not everything. There's some common notes, but the placement of them, especially if you're doing the same melodic pattern and rhythmic pattern, it's going to be very obvious.

But a whole step movement is, if you just go up one, that's not that out. That might not even be considered out, but that second one. Now we're someplace wild. Yeah. And then, of course, you can get back, like these you can potentially get back to where you started

quick enough that you could run through all of them, whereas chromatically... It's a little much. That's going to sound insanity bit. I mean, this is really hard to do on command, like, for me to be like, all right, give us an example. But give us an example. Let's do a C minor. One, two, one, two, three, and... So the first one was like straight whole tones, and then I mixed it up, which was the next thing I was going to say with some half steps and some...

some whole steps. It doesn't have to be one of the other. So like if I'm something like that, which is of course the, you know, what is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that? McCoy Tynar, fourth, fifth, something. Yeah. Off of Real McCoy. Offer real McCoy. Yeah, yeah. Ah, it's so good.

That's kind of what this is from. going up and whole stuff. But when you're actually throwing it together as going out, you can go half steps and holes up. And then you can skip or do whatever. But it sort of starts first understanding what those patterns are. Man, that's great. So picking up piggybacking on this,

Jeffrey Keeser talks about medians. What do you know about medians? I know nothing. So it's a similar concept of what you're doing here. That's kind of a mid concept, isn't it? It is exactly what it is. It's a mid. The concept of medians is you use. diatonic medians to,

not diatonic medians, but chromatic medians to take it out. So if we're on our C minor here, right, you can take it up or down in say minor third. That was the next one I was going to talk with. I know exactly what this. So you go from C minor to

E flat minor to G flat minor. Yes. A minor. And then you're back to C minor. And that one works really well. So again, It's even less than the whole tone scale because there's less options. Let me give that a shot.

One, two, one, two, three. I'm going to go the opposite way. I'm going to go down. So C, A minor, G flat, minor, E flat. Give me more one more time. I kind of messed you up there because I actually, that's what we were talking about. You went with me, it's not great.

You were like, let's say that. One, two, one, two, three. That one is so much fun. So just taking that pattern of like, and it's a rhythmic pattern. I'm not really thinking about. You're using the same harmony on each of them. What do you mean?

They're all minor sevens. They're all minor sevens, yeah. So like taking this down, C minor, A minor, A minor, F sharp minor, F sharp minor. E flat. Yep. I can use the same one for that, you know. So what is that called? Medians, chromatic medians.

Now there's two kinds of chromatic medians. Is that median because it's moving through the diminished cycle? So chromatic medians share one node in common. Right, right, right. shares one note E flat with E flat minor, which shares one note F sharp with F sharp minor, which shares one note A minor, which shares one note. That's the connector.

Right. Now there's also another kind of chromatic medium, C minor, which shares one note with a flat minor, which shares one note with E minor, which shares one note G with C minor. Yeah. Major thirds. This is another kizerism. So you can do the same thing.

Instead of moving the chords in minor thirds, you go like C minor, E flat minor, F sharp minor, A minor. You can move them up in major thirds, C minor, E minor, A flat minor. And this is even less. There's only three options. Let's try that. One, two, one, two, three. Give it a go, Peter.

Newsflash, Jeffrey Keiser knows what he's talking about. I know. And there, what I did was I went up the first time. Yeah. C, E minor, A5 minor, C minor, and I came down the second time. I mean, the best way to practice any of this stuff is really to splash around in it. Like experiment with it. If you're going for playing out, chances are you're probably on the more advanced end of things

anyway, because you actually have to do be, have to be able to make things sound good inside the changes before you can really take it out. Like you have to understand the general intuitive principles of tension and release before you can really make this work. You have to be confident in your touch and your sound production and your rhythm to make this work, as we've already discussed. So if you're at this stage, you're at the stage where you should probably just be splashing around, trying a bunch of stuff with these concepts. Try the chromatic,

you know, moving it around chromatically. Try the whole steps. Try the minor thirds. Try the major thirds. Remember keeping all the qualities the same. And I think you're going to find that you're going to get a lot of good traction out of all that. It's great. So yeah, I was just thinking with the going through the minor thirds, the diminished cycle, one that I use a lot is really based upon that movement, but coming from just a slightly different angle. So if we look at the F7, that fourth sound, we talk about chromatic, we talk about whole tone. But going up in minor thirds like this, so F7, like these work really well to sit on top of

staying the same in the left hand, be at the base or not. So if I'm going F7, which gives it that, is that Phrygian, kind of a Phrygian sound? Yeah, do you D flat? Yeah, but that's actually A flat 13, right? And then the B becomes, we're moving up in minor third, same chord, but it sounds like the altered. The one becomes the altered, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then this one, that's the really country, uh, country, crunchy one.

It's a crunchy country. Yeah, yeah, because it gives you that major seven, you know, of the tonic of where. at. So what it sounds like, so that last one, but because you're moving up and like the pattern of moving like that, it still sounds crunchy,

but it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that sounds... Woobirds. Woobirds are coming out. Yeah, that sounds more... I mean, if I play it like, you know,

like, like, like straight like that, then you hear the pattern. But the way I improvise over, and this is also from McCoy-Tiner, obviously. It sounds almost like random

but it makes sense. You know what I mean? So it's like, how do we find some inner logic there, even if it isn't obvious to the listener, to kind of bind together this melodic movement so that we can just sit on one chord? Or maybe we... Oh!

And then come back to it. That's another way to do it. It doesn't have to, like, it can sort of stay in the listener's consciousness. But that's one of the ones... And then you can combine those. That's fun too. Where you just show.

shifting up a half step from. So it's like F, A, A, F, A, A, F, B, C, B, D, E. It's very important to move up on your chair, too, while you do this. Stang faces. Ah. And one more. Can we go one more level? Please.

So same thing, but sometimes, and I'll just do it the whole time. Now, stay on that F7 sauce. But just do this in the left hand. So you go out with your left hand, but not with the right in. That still is out, right? But all I did was... That's so good. Yeah.

I was staying right there in F7. Hot. Hot. Coming in hot. I got one more for you here. One more technique here. Let me lift up my chair even higher. What if I told you the notes don't matter?

What if I told you the changes don't matter? Isn't that what this whole episode's been about that? What if I told you the court changes don't matter? Okay. Doesn't matter what it's in relation to? Doesn't matter where it is or where it's going. I'm with you. What if I told you you can build all of this with triads?

What if there's some rules that you can work on, a little bit of a game? A little bit of restricted access? Have you ever heard the name Garzone? Oh, I've heard that. Welcome to the Garzone zone. George Garzone's own zone. What's they say in Spain, Zona di Garzone. George Garzone, mountain of a tenor saxophone player.

And I was luckily enough to get to study with him when I was up in New York. Focally, he's a baritone, I believe, though. He's got a rich voice. He's an incredible musician. He's a great guy. And he came up with this concept back in the day called the triatic chromatic approach.

you can find it online still. You can go buy some DVDs, and I encourage you to go, go to the source. What would one do with those DVDs? You can play those DVDs. But, man, I'm sure there's some books that George's got.

Maybe, Caleb, if we can link to the books. If there's no books, please cut this out of the episode. If there's a dusty little back, maybe strand books down in New York City and down in the basement, a dusty little music theory corner. I just want to make sure he gets to credit

because we're about to spill the tea a little bit on his concept because it's been, I mean, it's not, it's out there, already. It's been out there for a long time. Everybody knows about it, and it's a really cool little concepts. This is a little game you can play to help free your mind from some of this stuff. And it's so clever.

You're so smart to come up with this. Called the triadic chromatic concept. Peter, you know, there's four main triads that we can, the four sort of first triads you might think about. The major triad, the minor triad, the augmented triad, and the diminished triad. So what the triadic chromatic concept starts with is connecting these, and there's two You can use any of these triads. You have to connect them via a half-step, and you can't do the same inversion twice.

So, for instance, if we were to go, let's say we start at an E-flat triad, right? We're going to connect this by a half-step up or down. Let's go up, E, and we want to do maybe another major triad. You couldn't do B. That's against the rules, because you can't do two of the same inversions in a row. Oh.

So you could, yeah, so not the same inversion. You can do E and you could do G for a major triad. Yeah. Because that, those are different inversions. It has to be bigger the next one. No, it can be anything. Okay. But it can't be first inversion.

It can't be root inversion. Yeah. Sorry, the root position, not first inversion. But you can start connecting major, minor, diminished, and augmented by these half steps, down and up. And it gets you this. this really cool, really interesting way. And again, you can phrase it,

rhythm is gonna matter here a bunch. And he's got, this is a very, this is just the bare bones basics of this. And so it takes a bit of work at first. You start like, for me, I love combining like major, diminished, augmented, you know, and you can start doing some rhythmic patterns. And it gets you, now you're not thinking about any changes, If you're not thinking about any, this chord goes with whatever,

it simply becomes this, like, rhythmic thing. Can we try a little bit? Yeah. I'm going to go a little bit medium. It's been a while since I've actually worked on this. I use this all the time. What's that? What are we placing this over?

Let's just do a C minor, right? Or an F7, whatever you want. And we can also do it over on them leaves. Like, it works great because it doesn't matter. The notes don't matter. The changes don't matter. But as an exercise, I haven't been strict with this is like trying to do this in a minute.

But I do use this all the time. If I want to play out, like, especially, I have my go-to shapes with this now at this point, you know what I mean? And then you can take this, especially like I would, combine this with like, you know, playing inside.

So if we do an F7, I'll try to play inside, I'll try to do this chromatic, triatic chromatic hookup. Yeah. Hoking up major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads via a half step,

and then go back to something inside. That's how I like to do it. One, two, one, two, three, and as you can see, nothing is being played like within the changes themselves. There's these beautiful, shapely lines. Shapely.

Shapely. Lines that are happening. Shapely. And it's really, you've got to check out George Garzon's music, listen to who is playing to really get the full effect of this technique. But it's super fun. And then like I said, if there is a book, hopefully check it out and buy it.

It's great. That's so good. I mean, whenever we're using a triad as a foundation, as a connection, as a destination, within our melodies, you know, within our improvisation, we're setting ourselves off for success, I feel. 100%.

And these kinds of exercises that really are about forcing you into playing something that then you have to hear. I mean, how many times do we get used to something that's comfortable with the same concept of moving triads around

with different inversions, but they link up somehow. So for a saxophone play, they have to do this. If they want to do stuff like this, like we can just play the chord or even, you know, if we got two different,

triads that we want to play around with Stravinsky, whatever, we can just play it. But if you're a saxophone player or horn player or a vocalist, however, you have to start to conceptualize it this way. But this kind of reminds me of that

that thing that I've messed around with over, like, say, the F7, E flat triad, F triad, E flat F with the different versions. But this is kind of expanding it out in a way that a sax player would want to do it, which makes sense. Yeah, it's very horn-playery because they're connecting these really thinking intervolically more than like, like linearly.

Like it's definitely like a, is it horizontal or is it vertical? It's horizontal. It's a horizontal way to think about it. I love this man. I'm going to actually, I'm going to include this in my practice this week too. The rhythm stuff, if you add that rhythm stuff and this chromatic triadic concept. Yep. And this stuff can be used with like moving in the minor thirds, the diminished,

Like, you could actually take this and move it around up and down in minor thirds. Like, this stuff can stack. These concepts can stack on top of each other. Man, let's go out with a little playing, shall we? Sure. Almost went there.