You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Keeping Track of the Changes

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer another trans-Atlantic SpeakPipe, this time on how to navigate the chord changes during a solo section.Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Yeah. I've been going through a lot of changes recently. I don't know if you noticed that. Tell me more. Chor changes. Splang, splang, splang, splang, splang. Ridiculous.

I'm Adam Anus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Ulyar podcast. Daily Jazz Advice. Coming at you. Coming at you. Today's episode is sponsored by OpenStio. Go to Open Studio.

Go to Open Studio jazz.com to see all of our courses. We have like a half a dozen piano courses now. Yeah. By Peter Martin, by Jeffrey Keiser, even some a little bit by, I'm getting in on that. A little Adam Manus. You know what we're recording. later this month at the end of August 2019 for our future listeners is

a new composition slash arranging course by the great Ed Simon Edward Simon great pianist, great composer with SF Jazz famously and man I'm looking forward to that. Ed yeah I'm really looking forward to that I'm going to have my notebook out as that's being recorded and learning and Ed has been you know I met

Ed and I think we're exactly the same age or right around and we both were in the Thelonius Monk competition many years ago. Maybe we'll do a little episode, see what he remembers about that. We were both young lads. We kind of placed like second and third to pianists that shall not be named

one, certain French gentleman named Jackie Tereson. Oh, come on. No, also friend. But yeah, it's been so fun to, you know, to see his career grow. And now, and just, I love him as a person, and I love his music,

and that he's coming into the Opium Studio Fold. I'm super excited about that. Yeah, me too, man. Yeah, cool. We've got to speak type. Speak type. You've got a speak and type at the same time. We've got a speak type today from...

No, we have a speak pipe from Dominico. One of our premium members. Yeah. Hi, Adam. A Pete. Long time listener here from Italy. I love the You'll Hear It podcast. And now I'm a premium member.

So I would like to ask your question. How do you keep track of the course? changes during the solo section. You know, I'm good at following during the head, but, you know, without the melody, I kind of, you know, lost the changes and lose the chords. So I would like to ask you this question. Let me know if you have some tips and tricks for doing this.

Thanks a lot. Keep doing this, guys. Bye. Well, Dominico, that is a great question. Yes, thank you for it. You answered it right there in the question. Yeah, yeah. And we may have a few.

I think he did hit on the most important part. I was thinking the same thing. But we might have some other things that will help as well. This is definitely one of those areas that I think is a gradual, like if you're conscious about it and kind of have some good information and a willingness, which certainly sounds like he has to improve, that it's a little bit of a gradual process. It's not like we don't have anything overnight to give you. Yeah. But it's definitely a common issue. I know I dealt with.

And every time I hear questions like this, I kind of remember what it felt like. So I'm very empathetic. You have to practice it, first of all. Yes. Yeah, you have to practice it. Yeah, it's not, you should never feel like, oh, that just comes naturally. It seems like it comes naturally to people that kind of have this ability, but this is definitely not one of those just you're born with it kind of the things. It might seem like that because it's so intuitive to people that really know the changes.

But it's definitely something that can be worked at. And I think if you're thinking the same thing, what he answer was without the melody being there, you actually do have the melody all the time. So it's like how do you get that into the flow? Like how do you hear that? And the first thing I always think about is play the melody. That's right. Because it's one thing, like what we're trying to do is get to the point where we hear the melody and that informs us as far as the link and the connection with what the form is. Because changes are never, it's not like a solitary thing.

Like there's the changes and there's the melody. and there's the rhythm and then there's the bars that go by like all these things link together in a way to um i think you know kind of give us what we call the form of the tune or the changes or it's basically like kind of this this wheel that keeps going around but it's like all those elements together so the more different points of reference that our ears and our brains and our hands and everything that's connected with this the more points of reference we have to where we are at any point just like if you're going on a journey somewhere. You know, it's not just about

on putting one foot in front of the other. There's that. There's the signs that you see. There's the weather. There's the feeling of the sun from the time of the day. All these different things that tell you where you are.

And I think that the melody is probably the most important for most people to be able to navigate it. Number one most important navigation tool. And remember that the tune is not the changes. The tune is the melody. Right. And, you know, we can change the changes.

And we always do all the time. But the melody is something that is really revered. You know, I don't know any great jazz musician who, A, doesn't learn the melody very, very thoroughly and correctly and is trying to be as accurate as they can be and to hold them to the composer's idea of the melody. That's usually the case. There's a lot of respect for the melody,

more than the changes, I think, in general. And then I don't know too many great jazz musicians that don't have the melody in mind as they're soloing on some level. You know, I even will actively sing the melody in my head as I'm sewing, because I find that it actually makes me play better. Like, it makes me play more melodically.

Yeah. And there's a feeling of groundedness to my solo. And then sometimes I'm not actively singing it in my head, but it's always there. Like, like the tonal centers are always, I can feel them. You know what I mean? And it's always a part of the form for me. It's not ever disconnect.

Like, it's never like, melody's over, turn that off, and now it's just an F minor 7 to a B flat 7. You know what I mean? Well, I think that's so cool because that's when it starts to get really fun. And like this is something that so many things in life are like, like, you know, it's some people, sometimes we look at some people and be like, oh, they're a pessimist

and that person's an optimist. It's very easy to label people that way. But the way I would see it, like they might be going through the same journey. It's just like they're thinking about things. They have a different mindset about it. And somebody that, how this relates to the melody and how you go through things is like, how do we get to the point of hearing. that melody by, you know, as you said, singing it, playing it, then actively hearing it. And then

the ultimate kind of journey is like, it's there, it's unconscious. It's in your subconscious. Like, it's there and it's not there. And like, you can put a smile on your face and be like, you're imagining it. You don't have to sing it or play it anymore, but it's still there. You know, and to me, it's the same thing. Like, we go on this journey and, you know, sometimes it's a relationship with a person that goes on many years. Sometimes it's, you know, an organization. It's a business. It's a playing a song. It's a group of people, whatever it is. Like when you go through, like when you stop and kind of say,

what is the North Star for why we're doing this or how we're doing this? That's kind of what the melody is. And it isn't the whole tune. That's right. But it's that part. And, you know, we joked about it last week with the whole legal ramifications. Up until recently, it wasn't the whole tune, but it was the only part that you could legally own.

That's right. But even that's kind of out the window now. It is now. Yeah, yeah. But it's sort of like once you get this. you know where it's really inside of you and we're gonna I think we should talk next about like how do you actively get because that's always fun like you know not just make it esoteric but but this is kind of that end result of like what a success with knowing the changes actually yeah and it's so much just like having it so you don't have to worry about it then it becomes so fun does that mean you become herbie Hancock or chick career no but it means that like you're kind of connected with their mindset like that's what's fun yeah like when you're playing this music and you can be like man I'm kind of like Herbie. That sounds cocky and it sounds like you're playing. No, no, no, it just means

like you're connecting in a way. And I always think back, it's like we all, it's so personalized because we always, you know, it's like, who have you personally experienced that does these things? But I always remember Nicholas Peyton, like at a young age, like he connected with this way of playing music where it's like supremely confident

but it's like, it comes from such a deep understanding of the changes or so I thought of time. But it's really about this, the melody, the changes, how things move through time. And it's very, very very exciting man as you can see it's put a smile on my face it's really exciting to think about and and so let's get into some ways that maybe dominico can work on you know ingraining the melody and making it part of not just when he plays the head but the entire experience of the tune

the first thing i think of is to listen number one yeah like listen to different versions be able to sing the melody flawlessly have no question about where it's going to go and understand it in relation to the core changes you're playing you know yeah and i think the The listening, this is one of those parts. Actually, a bunch of these things I think we're going to say is going to become about repetition. Yeah. It's really going to help. Now, of course, you can't be mindlessly listening.

Those repetitions don't count. But there's certain things, like, there's certain things we can break through at a certain moment in music. And then there's other things that the breakthrough is gradual from repetition. The more thoughtful we are, the more quality as a, I mean, because we're talking about, like, quantity versus, you know, qualitative versus quantitative. So the quality is always important. Like in music is in art in general, there's always a tug between these. But the quality, like that always has to be at the highest level in terms of like how we're practicing, how we're, you know, to the best of our abilities, how we're listening. But certain things like this, I think we just have to, there's a lot of repetition.

So you should allow yourself that time to repeat over and over again when you're listening and repeat yourself playing it and playing through it because that's how it becomes innate. That's how you really know. It's like learning to dribble. Like you might be able to dribble like you might be able to dribble. like Seth Curry or think that you can. Steph. Oh, yeah. Seth is his brother.

He's good dribbler too. Yeah, he's not as good, but he's good. But yeah, so like you're, you think, oh, they've gotten to this level. Oh, they can do that. Like the amount of repetition, even after they could do it to make it where they could think about anything else and like look up and read. And it's ongoing too. It's ongoing.

Right. And so this is definitely like a reps and sets. For sure. Yeah. And one of the things you could do then to do. to do like another set of this is you play the head, you play the melody, but why abandon the melody so soon?

When you go back to the solo, you know, you can practice playing around the melody, just altering it a little bit. That's how improvisation and jazz started in the first place. It was just... A variation on a theme. A variation on a theme. Use the melody as your guideposts,

include it in your solo from the start. And then here's a little pro tip for you what you can do. Sing the melody in your head and play it around it in your solo as if you were accompanying someone playing the melody, but we're not hearing it. The audience isn't hearing, but you're hearing, you know, like, let's say, like Green Dolphin Street or whatever.

You're playing around that. That's my phone playing around the melody. I was saying. I hear it. So that's, I think that's definitely something that's easily incorporated and kind of next step from using the melody as, is to play off the melody. And then something that I like to do, which is kind of next level, is to incorporate elements of the melody and use those as

guidepost in my solo. So let's, again, if we're singing with Green Dolphin Street, it starts off with two repeated notes. I might then take the idea of, I'm going to use two repeated notes in this first eight bars of the solo or until I think of a better idea and just improvised with two repeated notes, not the same, but kind of around the changes or with the melody in mind of two repeated notes. And then maybe when we get to that first, uh, da, bo, bu, but I'm like, oh, that first interval is a fourth. I'm just going to mess around with fourths. So almost taking little micro concepts and then expanding upon them as ideas for improvisation. Right, whatever kind of hits you. I think that's a great way to sort of,

to, you have to understand the melody at such a deep level because you have to know what's happening where and, you know, exactly, and then you're breaking it kind of down and using the melody as a jumping off point for your improvisation. I like it. And that's probably a little bit further down the road, but you can start trying that even at the beginning a little bit because that can you can really develop into some advanced improvisation oh for sure you have to really know the changes the form everything it could be as simple as like okay the first the first melodic phrase of autumn leaves is four notes but i'm just going to use one two three four i'm just going to use four notes to start my improvisation and i'm going to move around like that kind of

thinking of because actually what you're doing is you're analyzing the melody yeah not even thinking about it yeah so let me back up just a little bit something that you mentioned it and uh because it's reminded me of a way I used to practice that I think it would help with this. There's just the playing of the melody over the form repeatedly listening to it. And then, you know, there's the idea of playing around, like as you said, playing around the melody. But what you can do, and you can ship back and forth with singing and playing. Unless, well, I don't know if you could do it like if you were a trumpet player or saxophone. Maybe even so you'd have to take the horn out of your mouth.

But the idea is that, like you're playing the melody at the piano. and then in the different breaks and stuff you're starting to sing your improvisation and then you're doing it vice versa you're singing the melody and then you're playing in between these are just kind of ways to give variety but it's also to kind of challenge your brain and your ears to further really hear the form

because these are kind of ways that you can hack I hate to use the word hack but I love to use the word hack but you're all about hacking but in an authentic way to actually get a little bit of a deeper learning of the melody because what happens is like if you just play the melody over and over again

yeah, you're going to learn. But you're going to get to the point where you kind of know that and you need to challenge your ears in a different way. Still over the form, still with the melody. So it's like what ways can you challenge yourself without going full like, let's abandon and now just play over the courts because you might not be able to totally hear the melody. You need some in-between steps.

You know what's great about this that I like about this is it's almost like you're exploring the negative space of the melody. Yeah. Like if you're thinking about it is from a visual, you know, there's the front space, the front image that's the main, I'm totally hacking. my way through visual art. Yeah, I'm not a visual artist.

But then you have the negative space and that's as important. And so I think like this technique, I think is great for acknowledging that negative space. Yeah, and it also gives you an opportunity if you do this, especially with the singing, like I think that we can always, especially more at the beginner kind of intermediate level,

I notice that most people have the ability to sing more interesting things and to be able to hear things easier when they're singing than when they're playing on their instrument. It's a weird thing. You think it wouldn't be like that. it starts to make that connection that we need from ear training between really being able to hear and to play what you're hearing. So yeah, you're doing it over the form, but you're forcing

yourself to still play or sing the melody so that further kind of ingrains that connection between that and the form. Because the thing with the form is and changes are that, like if you talk about chord changes over autumn leaves, you mentioned, you know, C minor 7, F7, B flat, E flat, like that's not actually the changes. Those are what the chords are in the changes. But I think when we talk about hearing the changes and knowing the form. It's the time continuum of where they're placed. So it's like, yeah, you're learning those chords, but you're learning the sequence of them and the timing of it.

Like, how long are you there? And there's the sort of intellectual thing of like two beats on this for, yeah, but that's too complicated to actually memorize. Plus who wants to be, could you imagine improvising where you're like, stupid do bit up, I'm going to improvise for four beats and I'm counting them as I'm, I mean, you can't even do it. So it. Yeah.

So it's like, how do you get to the point where you can feel that. And it's always been easy for me to understand and to kind of explain it as being like you're going on a walk somewhere and there's certain things that happen and you're going at a steady beat because in jazz normally unless it's kind of a rabato feel or free

thing. So it's like a walk where you're going steady and you're moving along into certain things and things are happening. Things might be different every day but you're still going from A to B which is what the form is. You could go on to the side and speed up and slow down so that you get back or whatever. But it's like how do you learn how to do that, you know, with your eyes closed? Can you walk a mile with your eyes closed

because you know the route so bad so well? So that's the equivalent of really knowing the changes, really knowing the form, really knowing the tune, whatever you want to call it, I think what he's asking about. Yep. That's all it takes, Dominico. That's it. A blindfold. Yeah. But actually, all these techniques we're talking about are really about kind of slowly blindfolding yourself, so it gets to the point so you can do this with your eyes closed. That's very true. Yeah. So thanks for that question. He's a, you'll hear it, premium member. You know, you can go to you'll hearate.com. If you want to support the podcast, become a premium member, you get access to our archives.

And don't feel like there's no geographic restriction on this. Did you know that? He's from Italy. We have several members from Italy. That's one of our most, yeah. You save some money on some Ullherit swag, like my killer coffee mug right here. And we'll do some specials on that they'll save. Because I think that we have that regular 20% off everything for Yulherit premium members.

But we're going to do some specials. So look out for that. We're not going to say winning on what items, but we want to get this stuff out there. And then, you know, we are releasing content on the regular. that's premium for our premium members at the piano with resources. You know, there are like little mini lessons. But the way you mentioned that, you're almost pooing what we just did. Like, this is important.

I would never poo. This is not normality. I would never poo poo. What are you, Kim Jong-un, he never poo. Pippoos. That's amazing. On that note, he'll never. You'll never hear it.