You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Is There Such Thing as "the Right Fingering?"

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions - on today's edition, they discuss scale fingering, building a repertoire, and more.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.Wednesday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Edu Ribeiro/Ignacio Berroa Drum Conversations + Q&A on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet 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.

Just above Rob's great question, great question, Rob, is Tour Talk's question. Last week when you were replying about gospel use some terms I'm unfamiliar with, like a G2 chord. Also you said going four over five. It sounds like a Pontiac Vian. I know, Pontiac G2. I think I know what Tour Talk is talking about here. So yeah, like a G2, it's really a G add too, if you're familiar with guitar, which I believe you are. It's really, instead of thinking about that A is the 9th, because there's no 7th in this triad, right?

So we said... That triad is soul 7. We were talking about like G2 over B. And this actually goes to a talk right along with that triad conversation I was just having. So when we have a B, like the third in the bass, which we do with this G major chord, we don't want to double that third.

We don't want two Bs because it really, it really diminishes the punch of this chord. But we can add a fourth note to this. You can augment it with... An A. add the two. This voicing here in any inversion actually

except for maybe this one. Oh, even that sounds good as hell. I hate you. B, G, A, D in any inversion, sounds awesome. So this is what we were talking about when we were talking about G2. As far as 4 over 5

in the key is C, I have an F triad, F major triad, just over it. That's the Michael McDonald's special right there. F triad over a which is the 5 of C, right? So, and then also, yeah, and then we said 1 over 5.

So that's C, 1 over 5 means C, the root, or the tonic over just the 5 of the base 5. That's the tonic to the chin is the word. Not the chord, but just the 5G. So 4 over 5, F over G, just slash chords, really is what we're talking about. Yep. Slash chords. My St. Louis accent was thick on that one. That's just slash corns.

That's great. All right, our buddy, Colleen, out of the great state of Colorado, says here, what's up, Kyleine? You said in DGPS today that Peter might talk a little about Triad plus one together with minor pentatonic. Is this maybe related to what we were just talking? Colleen, I said if you had a question about minor, we talked about minor pentatomics and Triad Plus One today in the DGPS. And I said, if anybody had a question about that, I wanted to talk more about that, now would be the time. Is that like, I don't think you would know what a triad plus one is.

Yeah, it's just a tri-plus like two, right? Yeah, exactly. That's why I was thinking it's kind of related to what we're just talking about. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. In a way. Totally. Yeah, I mean, I always think about the inversions of that.

Exactly. Yeah, that's what we were working on today, actually. It's like that idea of. Yep. And how this can relate to, like, say if you do, um, do like a C minor seven. Yeah. Now, let's do like a C-7.

Right? You can work through like a G minor pentatonic. Right? like McCoy Tyner will do this, G minor pentatonic to C triad plus one. That's a combination of shapes that sound really good together. Yeah, and I think that there's always like that point of resolution that you can play with tension and release in that case between that F and the E, right? So you got the G minor pentatonic with the seventh and then the third of course. And that kind of goes in whether, you know, I like my little triad concept, B flat C, B flat and all the different universe.

but you can do the tria plus two with that also yeah or plus the four yep yeah and it's important for folks to to realize too that these are like it's so easy to get caught up in the harmony and the melodic implications of this

and it being a harmonically based thing or based on the scale but these a lot of times come down to rhythm when you're actually playing because three note and there's no right. or wrong, but it's just different options. Three-note patterns, four-note patterns, five, seven, all these different things

can be constructed in a way that can be very interesting and very different. So if I'm doing like, so like four-note patterns, like, and then I do some breaks and I offset it. It's very different than it's a three-note thing, right? And then if I'm bobbing my head, it's all the better.

I mean, then it all works really, really well. Well, you know what? So you might think about this, all these concepts, y'all? Like, whatever it is, triad plus one or triads, pentatonic. You know, in that great Fred Hirsch masterclass, he said, you know, don't think about it as exercise. Just think about it as experiments or exploration. And so, you know, you need to realize that this is different than and what the timing is and all that stuff.

It's really fun to play with, too. So it's not just so like I have to put these in a box. Like you're just really... A robot going into a box, robot box. Robot box You're really getting You're really getting a good handle on what works for you

Yep Stealthy Zebra Right below Colleen there says Any tips on how to build And maintain a repertoire Of blues, bebop ricks And line So the biggest tip for this stealthy zebra

Is listen, listen, listen That's so funny how You just said The biggest tip The biggest tip for this stealthy zebra I'm thinking of You know I was on a safari last year That's on them

That's on them I was thinking of, we saw some stealthy zebras. I'm sorry, go ahead. I digress. Oh, no, no, no. I was just saying, listen is really the only way to get this. Of course. You're not going to keep a journal, a collection, like.

A boojo, a poohojo? You're not going to keep behind glass, like butterflies pinned to, you know what I mean? Like a collection like that. You have to listen. And this is going to change, by the way. As you kind of go through time, you collect different things and then things fall out of favor in your brain. And that's cool. And I think that it's okay.

Look, as you play more and the years go by, this gets me more comfortable. But I think it's fine to, you know, it's kind of like if you have a lot of thought, I've always got a lot of thoughts going on my mind. If I have any faults, it's that I'm thinking too much at. You think a lot. You know, you know, I'm a planner. You're a smart guy. You're a smart guy.

No, no, no, just smart ass. Well, we will come to you with this. You are a smart dude. No, no, not at all. But what I'm saying is like, if you have ideas, sometimes we have a panic. It's like, I got to write that down. This is such a brilliant idea. and then you write it down and you're like,

wow, that does not look as brilliant, which is sometimes the reason you have to write it down. But what I find is... I feel like this is very familiar. This just happened to us about an hour ago. Exactly, exactly. But, you know, sometimes if I have 10 ideas in a day, like if I kind of sleep on it...

If I have one idea, it's that I have too many ideas. Yeah, if I have one... If I have my biggest fault, I have too many ideas. Sorry, sorry, so I go ahead. But so the idea would be that, you know, sometimes like you go to sleep or you take a shower or you just something different and then you come back to it like that one good idea or maybe two will percolate to the top without you having to do a lot of work so in or or like this idea of maintain a repertoire worry about to build the repertoire of blues bebop blix lines yeah the maintenance that's going to be like your subconscious kind of doing that don't worry about forgetting them i know that that's hard because you're like oh i've got this great thing i've got to remember but how am I going to use it?

You might not use it for three months, and that's okay. Like let it percolate in an organic way. It will be there. If you build it in an authentic way, it'll be there for when you need to pull it out. It'll come out in a cool and organic and really in the moment kind of way, spontaneous that we want to have in jazz as opposed.

Look, I mean, if you love it so much that you just got to keep it, then write a tune with it. That's probably the tip actually to do it. For sure. scared that you're going to lose it. But if you want it to come out and improvise, you can't catalog it like you say with the butterfly

and then pull it out. It's going to be dead. Yeah. That's exactly right. Mero has a great comment just brand new down the bottom. Okay, we're jumping down. We're going down. He's kind of calling us out here. Hey guys, in your pentatonic boot camp you don't always use the same fingerings

every octave going up. Is that normal and how should I approach thinking great scale fingerings? Okay, let me grab this one first and just say the The right, there is no right fingering for anything except what's right for you. Yes. Okay. So we always tried and hopefully we did it on there.

I know we're always talking about suggested fingering. Yes. So always you've got to find the right thing for you. But the right thing, the right fingering is not the most comfortable fingering. Because it's like, you know, if you learn to, you know, play tennis or I'm trying to think of something that I can do, but I can't do well. If I would go out and play tennis with you, Adam, because you're quite in a compliment. tennis player. Like I can get the ball across the net and the what's comfortable for me is probably really bad technique. And but it's the most comfortable way for me to hit it.

If I kept playing a lot, I'd probably injure myself. So for me to stop and then like say you would show me or a tennis pro perhaps. Do your wrist back. Yeah. Do that kind of thing. Then it's not going to be comfortable to me though. It's not instantly comfortable. I have to practice that. And then after a while I was like, wow, that worked. I'm going to be worse at that at first. In fact, from my crappy technique or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But in the long room, it's going to help.

So I look at fingering like that. A lot of times you do want to take people's suggested fingers and don't be like, oh, that doesn't feel good to me. How do you know? You only tried it one time. You know, you try a vegan diet for one day. Oh, I don't like that. I miss barbecue.

We'll give it a chance. You know what I mean? Try it three days. Then you're really going to hate it. You think you hate it now. But you just don't, you know, especially with the physicality, like fingering is so much based around where you're going like next like what you're setting yourself up to do because when we finger and it's like so we talk about panatonic stuff it's all about like setting up the the next

party part of the party right yeah so there's just there's just no way without unfortunately practicing things for a while to find what works for you now i think we have some darn good fingers on there are we hypocrites and don't always play them apparently murals says 100% yes yeah yeah so that There are multiple ways to do it, but regardless, I would say if we're giving multiple options, sorry. But try them both out and see which one works for the best for you. Also, we both did some fingering work on that, on the workbook that goes, by the way, every we have now, did you know this with the help of our buddy Max Scamese? Yeah. Every single pentatonic scale, right hand, left hand, all keys has a fingering to it.

A suggested fingering, right? And again, now we've got three different opinions. Now we have three different opinions, though. But this is what I'm saying. So when I was doing got to practice sessions with some of your. fingering, I was like, well, I want to stay here with Peter's fingering because that's the way we taught it. But yes, I definitely probably abandon it a lot, even sometimes halfway up the scale, because that's how that works. But also, as improvisers, we don't want to just be

locked in to what we think the fingering should be for this, because as you say, you want to be open to the sound you're hearing. That is king. Not the fingering. It's not like in learning a Chopin piece where you really have to lock in your fingering. And it really matters to perform in the way to get the sound you want. You have to get the sound from your head first, right? You have to be able to hear the sound that you want first in jazz and be able to have good general fingering, but also have flexible fingering so that you can get the sound first

and not be just beholden to some idea of, I got to have this fingering right. We want to have as good fingering as possible. Totally. Do we need to just really lock into it at all times because it's the most important thing? Yes. Oh, sorry.

No. Okay. Now we're in alignment. Well, and two, you got to remember, it wasn't that long ago that we were very anti-giving fingerings. We acquiesced as it were because. Oh, yeah. And we never will again. Well, we may.

We love the people. But no, but it always, it always feels a little bit, I feel weird teaching or prescribing something that I didn't learn. But I might execute on it. Not that I didn't learn good fingering, but I never learned like penitonic. You're trying to teach wisdom here, which is just experience that you've had over the years of having to get this sound out that you heard your heroes play. I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm breaking this down for you. No, you're absolutely right. Sorry.

But that's true, though. And it's hard to teach wisdom. That's just something that is, that's kind of gained from experience. And I know it sounds like it's a cop out what we're saying, and it is a little bit. But we put in these fingering. It's, it's, I almost feel wrong to make it so precise and consistent. Yeah. That like this is, because I know people.

like won't hear me saying even though we say it a lot and we write that that like your mileage may vary and like you got to find the right finger for yourself it's it's tricky because you do have to find the right but like I say you cannot go with what the knee jerk like this is not more comfortable for me or my hands don't work that way because you have to try it enough to give it a chance so that's right that's right yeah yeah and man I know we have so many people who come to us because they want to learn jazz and they come from more of a classical background yeah and you know how that is man like that it's fingering is very much emphasized as a path towards a really good sound because it is because if you're playing some you know three-part inventions it really matters if you're playing some

chopin or whatever you know wc fingering getting a solid fingering program really matters on each piece right but it just isn't it isn't the way forward in the same way it's just a different way to think about it so we'll do more we'll do we'll do some more we'll do so right but But the thing is, is, like, we learned with that pendantonic boot camp, we gave a little bit of the fingering. And people were like, well, I really need to be beholden to these fingering. So I need more and more and more. And I think we're trying to de-emphasize their importance. Absolutely.

So we got a couple of comments. We're just coming up on an hour. So we're going to sign off in a second here. But we got some important messages for you in a minute, though. But there's some stuff with our health and wellness section. I just want to put on here. Amy is saying cashews have about as much. have as bad a carmic imprint as animal cheese is because of what

their processing does to the hands of the girls and women who shell them. So that's good to know. I'd heard that there was some problems with that. I actually don't eat cashews at all. You know, I have the first bag of cashews in my cabinet at home this week that I've had in months. And so that's actually, that's good to know. Amy, I'm going to go look it up. I don't eat at all because our daughter is very, very, like, we'll go to the hospital.

It's like allergic to tree nuts. So kind of all those anyway. But thank you for that. And then also, Joe, I'm doing a virtual half marathon in two weeks. That might be the same day I'm doing mine. So we got to be thinking, oh, you might be a week before. I think I'm in three weeks. So good luck to Joe on that.

And then Kim is saying no meat, no dairy, no fish, no oil, low salt, no life. No, he didn't say that. Low salt on day 45 and getting used to it. So congrats to Kim for jumping in there on some, some, some good health stuff. Hopefully you're feeling really good. You've had some great experience with more than just day 45 of things, not doing things,

eating, putting things in your body that you like a lot. Yeah. Any advice for that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Again, man,

for me, I think working on the intention behind it, just like anything else, whatever it is, if you start any kind of new program, whether that's practicing or some kind of health thing, or quitting cocaine. Like, whatever that is.

You've been doing great with that. Yeah, I've been doing, yeah. I've seen you do Coke in years. In years. No, but you know what I mean. Like, really, I think, I wanted to be kind of playful with that. But I think, you know, really kind of coming to terms with your intentions behind it, for me, that's everything. Yeah.

That helps keep the ship going in the right direction. And then we've got, from Coach Ian here, we've got love this anecdote. He made a mistake on here. such an important principle, Adam is illustrating here. You know it. Except he meant to say Peter. Okay, but that's okay.

You know it. You got your digits a little confused there. No problem. It's all good. Cool. We got some, hold on. What else we got?

We got some messages. Are we going to do, do we do that on here or is that the audio podcast? Well, first, we want to let folks know, we want to say thank you guys for being here. Oh, yeah. First of all,

because it's a pleasure and an honor just to talk with you, Adam, but to have folks tuning in for your great questions for us. I mean, this is energizing to us. We love this. We've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've, like five weeks in now with this, but we've got a nice little community.

We already have the community, but it's so great that you guys meet us here on Mondays. Um, but just so you know, this is part of an audio podcast that is five days a week, daily, daily five days a week, work week. Um, um, and is available wherever you get podcasts. We're award winning. Now, the awards have been given self given so far, but that's okay. You know, you got to love yourself. Um, but we gave ourselves. awards.

Remember we were up for the pot. I was calling it the potty. The potty. Yeah. But it wasn't the podcast. It was like the podcast awards. We were finalists. We lost out to like Switched on Pop some big time.

Who? Switched on Pop. Yeah. Well, they were guests of ours at one time. But yeah, you anyway, you can get our podcast. If you're into the audio thing, check it out. Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast. And we're in fact, we're going to record a couple right now.

And what else? we got. Oh, you know what? Just to everybody know, we do have our duo concert coming up on Wednesday. Yes. 8 p.m. Eastern on the Open Studio YouTube channel. That's coming up. You can check out all of our live events because we're going to listen to Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus Tuesday night. Yep.

At 8 p.m. And then Wednesday night, we are going to play the entire saxophone Colossus record. No, we're not going to go to this. Yes, we are. Well, we might. We'll see I'll go tomorrow. Shout out to Amy on here, who's I think she's going to be part of that Wednesday night thing. Oh. Three pianos? No. Okay.

You could never fit that in you. So, yeah, we want to thank everybody. And then look, we are at, I don't mean to get greedy, but do it. Really? We're at 86. Oh, no, we're not. We're at 50 likes. We're at 86 people.

50. Can we get to 60? We're not going to leave this live until we get to 60. Oh, that's the fastest way to get it. We will finish the live at 60. We're going to go like this until we get to. I don't know. Look, I don't know how you're, you get to.

Get away with holding people hostage. Oh, that's what we're doing? We're going to that until you come back. No, let's get to 60. Actually, you know what? What would be even more important? We're talking about the different lives. We're going live tomorrow.

We're doing the live. Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already because that's great. But then you also press the little bell. It looks like a little fist or whatever. Because then you get notifications. And who doesn't want more notifications on their devices at this point? Yeah, don't we all? Nobody.

No, but you might want to be notified whenever we go live spontaneously. It gives you a little reminder, maybe sends you an email. But it's a good kind of notification. It's not like the, you got to pay a bill's bill kind of notification. We're at 60. Get out of here. Oh, we're at 60. Okay, cool.

I'm going to try to find the video. What video? The video. Boom. And keep going here. See y'all next time. You'll hear it. Dope you.