You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Let's Hear it!

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

This week Adam and Peter talk about thinking ahead when playing lines, enclosures, and how to live a balanced life while playing and practicing music. All of these questions and more are from Open Studio Pro members during a live youtube discussion. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

How's it going? You'll hear it listeners. This is Caleb and I got a real special episode for you coming right up. Okay. What do I got for you today? Well, I've taken some clips from an amazing conversation between Adam and Peter that they had Transatlantically on March 7th, 2022. On this day, they did, you'll hear it, but they did live version. So they're taking questions from community members and supporters, fellow students. of music. And they got a lot of good stuff going. So I took those clips and I'm serving them up hot for you right here on this podcast coming right up next and I hope you enjoy it. Copenhagen is in the house. That's right. We're rep it hard. And you're in Copenhagen. I'm in Copenhagen. Yep. Micah says, how does one learn to think ahead to play longer lines? I can manage maybe two or three measures often starting with an enclosure. But I can't think of

enclosures midstream. Why you need to think of enclosures, Micah? That's right. So this, I think, goes to the concept that we talk about sometimes. I think we're, I'm a really big believer in this is like, think about enclosures when you're practicing. Think about them, practice them. Enclosure is one inch, one inch across, go a mile deep, go a mile high on enclosures.

And then when you go to start playing, especially. Painful is the sounds and as much as you think you can't do this, but we're giving you license. Forget about enclosures. Don't ever think about an enclosure as you improvised. And let that come out. Trust in that process of your practice and just revel. It will come out and then so much more prosperous for you in terms of your improvisation when it comes out in an unexpected natural and organic way. Totally.

One thing you might try practicing with this, Micah, is. sort of instead of the what notes should I play method, think of the feeling in your hand method. So just think of like if you're doing, if you want longer lines and you want to connect them, so they're not just like all this kind of thing. Think of like when I get to my thumb, I'm just going to make a little turn.

Or when I get to my pinky going up, and when I get to my thumb when you're going down, like when you get to your pinky going up and you get your thumb going down, just think, I'm going to turn on that somehow, right? Right. That can help. you to like elongate your lines because you're not just going up and down and up and down yeah yeah

and then so the other side of this too is that you can definitely if you feel like you're kind of limited to um you know within closures to only being able to start with them and you want to figure out a way to put them in you can practice in a very restricted way we call it restrictive practicing but very regimented in terms of you might say i'm only going to play like two bar phrases and i'm not going to start with any enclosures because I know how to do that. I'm just going to restrict myself to playing enclosures in the middle. And if that doesn't work, reduce down to one bar. If that doesn't work, just do it like out of time until you can find it. But like you can definitely work that into your playing, into your ears, into your fingers as you practice. I think that's a

great way to do it. But then still, please, once you get to performing or practicing performing, don't worry about that. Don't worry. Yeah, let that come up. I mean, I can. Brian Fielding has a good point too, which is that I recall Keith Gerrit frequently plays relative short lines. Absolutely. And triads. And so you might just recognize here that, who's our guy? Micah, yeah, Micah, that if you go and listen to like phrase length of your favorite

players, they're playing shorter phrases than you think they are. Right. Right. And that's part of like kind of personalization. You know, so you have to kind of find what your thing is. And I think it's important too. Like we don't want to think about it's never like short, medium, long. Like it's always a combination.

You know, I've been starting to think about the way people talk and the way people write, especially, I don't know, for some reason when I read something, you know, what they would call in marketing copy, you know, something that's well written. It's never like five word sentence and then a five word sense and then a five word sense. Like, that's not appeal. Like, the rhythm of that is not appealing. There has to be some kind of, like, progression to it. Like, you know, guess what? I've got a fantastic story to tell you.

Like, that is basic, but that makes sense. It's not like, guess what? I've got a fantastic story to tell you. Guess what? That's two. I've got a fantastic story. You know, so it's like you're juxtaposing things in a lot of the way that we do with syncopation in terms of like syncopation.

It's not just, bap, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. You know, it's like, oh, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, like, you have to mix it up. You have to have different lengths playing off of each other in an interesting and artistic way. So when you're practicing, it's okay to just do two-bar phrases for many courses, very regiment, one-bar phrases, three-beat phrases, whatever it is. But in application, you're going to be taking all of these and really trying to think in a holistic way. how do I want to tell my story? Like, and listening in real time.

And I try to do this. I'm such a better, I mean, you know what? I shouldn't ever open my mouth. I should just sit at the piano. And if people ask me a question, I should just answer it up because I'm so much better at that. But I do try to think about that when I speak. Like,

We open super meetings with you at the piano? That'd be amazing. Yeah, you'd be like, I want a raise and I'll be like, boopee, boopoo ba, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo. I think he said 20% brand. Yeah, but it's like we can apply things that were less talent. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But thinking about, and that's when, you know, when you look at the intersection of language, lyrics, rhythm, and melody,

when you can kind of get to these pinnacle moments, you talk about Brazilian music, Antonio Carlos Jobim, you know, Catana Velos. All those great composers, like part of that is because the rhythm and, you know, texture of, the Brazilian Portuguese, specifically Portuguese, I mean, Brazilian Portuguese is so exciting and like has so much of that rhythm built in. When you can pair that with the words, with the music, with the melody, and the rhythm, it's just such a beautiful sound. But it's never like precise.

It's never like four sentences in a row with four syllables each. It's never like that. Awesome stuff. The beautiful, the beautiful stuff. Awesome. Caleb, I want to just call an audible here. We're kind of, we don't have a hard time out here, but we are getting long in the, in the time. We're way over.

What are you talking about? Way over. No. Dylan has this amazing question here, which is how do you guys feel about balancing your life as a means of serving the music? Which I think is a way that nobody ever frames it. You think about balancing life as a way to serve your life, but as a way to serve the music is interesting framing Dylan. Rubenstein had a quote about musicians living their life as opposed to living in a practice room. You all agree.

So I think this is a great question. and something that is really important. The more experienced I get at this stuff, Peter, and the more like badass musicians I'm around, the more I realize that it is about like living a life that is musical as opposed to, there's actually this really good, can everybody see that? Hold on.

Monon Dion. You know Mononion? Of course. So check out this last, this is his artist manifesto, and this happens at the end of his videos. Look at this. Look at the last bullet. Reject the worldly idea of becoming a musician.

Just live music. How great is that? Yeah. How great. With tights on your head. Of course. With tights on your head. Anyway.

But that idea of that idea of rejecting the worldly idea of being a great musician and just living a musical life, I think, is Dylan's question. is pretty inspirational and realizing that your life and your art do not have to be these boxes where I'm just going to like give up my life to be in a practice room and that's going to make me a better artist. That's not always the case. Humanity is involved in making art and so you have to be somewhat of an interesting human with a perspective on things to make good art. Absolutely. And I think absolutely. I mean the more I'm doing this, the more it becomes just a very simple truth and very much a reality in terms of we're servants to the music and to humanity to humans you know i don't want you i don't even want to overstay and say humanity just to human beings like we're here to serve just like a waiter is there to serve food that we need to for our nourishment we're here to serve music to people for their nourishment and and this stuff is important you know and so what's really and i appreciate all you guys with uh yes i'm going to be with

with Mark, Diane Reeves in Toronto. God willing, I will be there next, whatever that is next month. You know, getting out here to play music, you know, from a logistic standpoint is a pain in the ass right now. But it's, but it's a small thing to like, and I almost didn't do this tour. We all almost did it just because of the way the world's happening and like, you know, the documentation and the testing, you have to do and everything.

But the thing is like, people need. music all the time for their nourishment just like they need food and water just because they don't necessarily die because they don't have it doesn't mean that they don't need it you know and so our job is to provide that it's it's as basic and as simple as that and there's nothing grandiose about it actually so I think that I love this idea of like like we're in the practice room but there's a reason we're in the practice room it's so that when we go out to serve people we can serve them as well as we can. And that's it. You know, and so it's a responsibility that we have

and it's a full circle. And learn that part of your job as a musician and artist is to make things for you that you enjoy too. And so yes, because we're because we need it because we need it. As listeners, as we're playing. Have you ever seen this show alone, Peter, that's like they send out 10 people into like the tundra by the North Pole or whatever? And, And it's like who, and they're not around each other. They're like in their own space alone. And whomever is the last person there, they can like like walkie talkie to get a helicopter to come get them. And whoever is the last person to hang and not starve to death is the winner or whatever.

So some, there are some people who are like avid, you know, survivalists and outdoorsmen that do really well. And they're and they fail and they have to tap out because they're like, I don't need to like do anything fancy or make anything, you know, I don't need to like draw pictures or anything like that. I'm just going to be out here collecting food. That's all I need. And they always get always tap out and they can't handle it psychologically. And there'll be some, then there'll be some like woman from like Oregon who's out there. And she's like, you're kind of hungry, but she's also like making, you know, little baskets that she really loves. And she can hang all day long. Like she's out almost the longest, right? Because she's able to like feed her soul while

she's doing it. We need that too. Yeah, that's so great. I love it. it. I love it. Your favorite jazz city. My favorite jazz city. Yes. I'm going to say it again. Let me, just so it sinks in. Favorite Jazz City.

Okay. I mean... Yeah. Oh, Lance already's jumping in. Liverpool. Wasn't expecting that. I mean, the obvious answer is New York City, right? I've had some... Is that the obvious for your favorite?

Jazz City. It is. Yeah. I think it is the greatest city in the world for music in general, but also, of course, jazz. But, see, Nick is saying New York City hands down. Nick, I've had some nights in New Orleans. I think that rival nights I've had in New York City as far as, like, the power of music. We were talking about music to feed the soul. You know, New York City is there's some heavy shit going on all the time. New Orleans, there's like the reason we breathe music is New Orleans.

So it's a toss up for me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. They get in St. Louis. It's hard to argue with that. Yeah. So I'm going to throw out Paris. Maybe that's just on my mind because we were talking about that.

But I've had some, I've had some, you know, transcendental experiences there with the music. So but then you talk about New Orleans and that took me back to. And that's the great thing about this music is like there's that intersection. of in the moment at the gig, in the place, with that combination of people in the audience and on stage, that community, that whole thing that can never be replicated. You know, it can be done again, a different version, which is what's so great about it.

You know, each experience is different. But I do think that this, you know, the intentionality of it being at a certain place at a certain time in a certain city is what makes it so beautiful. So Baltimore. I think, I mean, A lot of great stuff is going down in Baltimore. A lot of great stuff.

Austin is also legit. Paris, of course. But you know the thing is I was thinking about that New York City, New Orleans dichotomy is there's definitely the heaviest music in New York. At any given moment, like some unbelievable thing. But every great gig I've seen in New Orleans, I feel like the rooms are packed with people who aren't musicians. And it's the exact opposite in New York. I feel like every gig I go to in New York is just packed with me. musicians mostly.

Right, right. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but to be somewhere where it's just the music is the, the, the smell of the city or like there's just that combined. I love it so much. And the reason I afraid, oh yeah, for sure. And I didn't, I didn't say what's the best jazz city? Because that's more of a debate. It's like, no, it's, no, this is your favorite.

You're like everyone should have a different answer. I mean, it doesn't need to all. There is no right answer. It's like your city that, you. You and I love somebody said, you know, like Joe Henderson in the Vatican City. It's like those moments that always will connect you with a certain place. Chip said my wife and I went to New York City and saw it at Disney Club. Best night ever.

I mean, how do you get better than the best night? You can't get better than the best. It's the best until something else happens. So I think that that that's the cool thing. And that's what I'm excited about with getting back. Oh, sorry, man. No, I was saying a couple weeks ago when Benny Green and Christmas. Brian and Gregory Hutchinson were in St. Louis.

I think St. Louis was the best jazz. Exactly. Exactly. No, I would have to agree. Yeah. So it's not about like the best musicians from there, the best venue. It's no. It's where did you connect great?

So I appreciate all you guys answer. Baltimore, NYC. Boston. Don't put a question mark behind Boston. I know I've had some great times in Boston. The audience is great there. Copenhagen, but Marcher for sure. And the old jazz house, man, I still miss the jazz house. Now, I don't know about it.

Montclair though. Come on now. Actually, we got a couple Montclair people on here. Yeah, Dexter lived in Copenhagen for a long time, I believe. There's a great picture of Dexter on a bicycle riding around

like everybody does here. Stan gets, too. I didn't know that. Did you know about that? No. Where is it? There's a ton of Danes up in here, man. Yeah.

Lucas is, I'll try to get some tickets for back name. Yeah, so that's, I think that's our only German day, maybe. Love to meet. Yeah, I'd love to meet up, meet up with you too again, man.

Lucas, I hope to see you there, man. That'd be awesome. Amsterdam. Okay, that, that's, I've had some great, I remember playing with Roy Hargrove there and being like, man, it doesn't get any better than this.

But that's part of the reason I said Paris too, because I mean, I did it get with Roy Hargrove at the New Morning, Betty Carter, the first time I went to Paris. You know, so it's like, I always connected with that, but it's not just about playing.

It was like the, audience, just the city, you know, the whole thing, man. All right. That'll just about do it for us over here. You'll hear it. Remember that if you like this podcast that you got to like and you got to subscribe. And if you want to find out more, you should check out openstiojazz.com where you're going to find a lot of content made by legendary jazz artists that are going to help you

and your instrument grow a lot closer together. Until next time, happy practicing.