You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Live From Instagram (5/9/20) - Part 2

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Peter and Adam are going to be streaming live on Open Studio's Instagram every Saturday for the duration of the global health crisis. On part 2 of this week's edition, they'll answer questions on how to practice arpeggios in a musical way, what to practice to learn how to play what you hear, and discuss a hot take that modern jazz has become too formulaic.On the calendar for Open Studio events today: at 2:00 PM EDT, Helio Alves will be hosting a Q&A on YouTube based on his Brazilian Jazz Piano course. And at 4:00 PM EDT, Peter and Adam will be hosting their Piano Office Hours for members only. To keep up on all the live events from Open Studio, check out this handy calendar - we're adding new events regularly so pop in to see what we've got in the pipeline.In light of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, we understand that money is tight for a lot of people right now. That's why we've decided that for the duration of this crisis, we'll be running a Choose What You Pay campaign at Open Studio. Choose whichever course you want and then let us know how much you're willing to pay - that's it. For more info, click this link.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.Let 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.

Hey, Peter. Hey. Hey, if we do a Q&A and nobody has a Q, is it just an A? Hold on, let me listen. I'm trying to see if the tree's falling in the woods. Timbersh, bloo. Will you hear it? I'm Adam Manus. I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Music Advice coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by AnyTune. Go to anytune. com.us to check out probably the most amazing transcription app that you'll ever see. I mean, it really is truly a complete tool for learning how to transcribe music, for slowing music down, for isolating certain instruments, for setting markers, all of this stuff that's so crucial for how we transcribe. And I'm just so proud that they're one of our

sponsors, man. It's such an amazing tool. I was using it before they were a sponsor because it's just so useful. And I just want to give a shout out to any tune because on Monday, if you're a piano Access Pass member with Open Studio, which you probably should be if you're a piano player, by the way, and you're listening to this. We have our daily guided practice sessions, which is 1 p.m. Eastern time on Zoom every Monday for our piano access pass folks. And this Monday, I'm starting a transcribing club just after the guide of practice session. And we're going to be using any tune for those of us who have it. We're going to be breaking down our favorite solos, just, you know, in four bar chunks every week. And yeah, we're going to be using exactly

what any tune is great at. And that's isolating things, setting markers, going back, changing the speed without losing the pitch, slowing it down, speeding it up. However we want to do it, we can do it with AnyTune. Yeah, no, that's going to be a lot of fun. And AnyTune is amazing. You know, their slogan is music, practice, perfected. And that's not just a slogan. That's actually what you get out of this great tool. And it's so powerful, but so elegant and so simple to use the features really kind of unfold as you need them. So at first you can just use the great ability to slow things down, which is so good, as we know, for transcribing without the pitch changing, of course.

But then there's many different layers to it. And I was just looking. They're actually doing some live streams where they do some walkthroughs, which I'm going to be checking in on. And the next one looks like is Tuesday, May 12th. But check out their Facebook page. Just go to anytune. They have their live streams listed.

And that's a great way to kind of get access to. to some of the good folks over there and to learn about the many additional features. But just when you open it up and start playing with it, it's amazing. The Mac app is great. That's kind of my favorite actually. I love the phone app,

but the Mac app really does it. It's, you know, for me, because of that ability to take everything away except the one instrument I want to hear. So great, man. Yeah. So we're taking Q&As from, we're taking Q's from Instagram

and hopefully giving A's. That's right. That's right. We're having fun. It's Saturday. It's, you'll hear it live Saturday from our quarantine separate studios. Adam, you can't hear this on the podcast, but Adam is wearing a hat trucker style as usual, even though I'm not sure that's still in style, but we're going to check on that.

I'm going to go to hipster. I don't think it is, but this one's so old that it gets a pass. That's right. That's right. You got the angle right. And I am Saint's hat, as usual. And we're going to jump right in some questions, right? Yeah, let's do it.

So we have a couple of good ones here to start. And the first one is very nuts and bolts. How do you practice arpeggios in a musical way? That's from Neat Guy 100, which is an aspirational handle. But how do you practice arpeggios in a musical way? So I don't know what exactly musical way means other than, you know, because everything we're practicing is musical, hopefully. But I can tell you the most effective ways that I've found to practice arpeggios.

And as a pianist, there's a few different. ways that we can, I mean, there's several different ways we can practice them. I would say first, if you haven't checked out the McFerrin scale and arpeggio manual, this is basic Bob arpeggios, but getting the solid foundation of triadic arpeggio fingering in your hands from the jump is going to be more effective than you might give it credit for. Like having that foundational fingering in all keys of all the inversions of triads is amazing. And I was way too late to this game, but I've since kind of got it together, and it's like, it's really changed just how everything feels throughout the keyboard, my comfort level of going up different arpeggios.

And then when we work in things like the jazz arpeggio, which I know you're probably going to bring up, Pete, like it's so much easier because you've put in the work on just, like I said, the basic Brian of regular arpeggios. And then from there, you can do them, you know, in contrary motion, just straight, like triadic arpeggios and all keys in contrary motion. My favorite, though, is double octave arpeggios. This is where you get your big game together, right? This is when you go full dopio.

You go full dopio. It's hardly a situation that you would use as a jazz pianist, but what it does is I think arpeggios are great for developing our sense of space and spatial awareness at the keyboard so that if we have to do stride, you know what I mean? Like we can jump off the keyboard. We can look at he's lower on his desk. I can see you lower on your desk. We have to do, you know, when we have to do,

make these big movements and change geography on the keyboard, arpeggios help us to have that spatial awareness. Yeah. Yeah. So I would just add that I think we can think about, you know, creative practice and musical practice as complementary, but maybe two kind of different things a little bit. So a lot of those creative scale practices are great, but you always need to layer in the the musicality on anything you're doing.

And the great thing about kind of creative scale practice, creative arpeggio practice in this case, is that it keeps you on, it keeps you out of that automated pilot situation, which is where we would typically abandon musicality. And so that's the whole point of like, get creative with it, try different things out so that you're like engaged in the process

as opposed to just, oh, I'm just running through these mindlessly. Because you don't want to practice anything on musically. even something, I mean, scales and arpeggios, and the more basic they are, it's the hardest things to play musically because there's not a built-in, you know, beautiful musical symmetry of melodies and forms and all these things. It's just, it can become a very, you know, like as you say, basic Bob, basic Brian. A big shout-outs to all the guys, Bart, Brian, Bob, they have to get always put into the basic category. But hey, you got to be in your name, you know what I'm saying? But so we can commit though to playing anything musically, I believe.

I mean, that's always on the table. So just because it isn't a piece of music, it doesn't mean we can't be attuned to what we want to be accomplishing. So for the piano, it's very much about not treating what you're playing like a machine. So it's not a typewriter or whatever. So we're thinking about phrasing. We're thinking about dynamics. And those are the easiest ways to kind of get into forcing yourself into some musicality. So that can be done in creative scale practice.

So even if you did jazz arpeggios, if you did the McFerrin, if you do whatever, and it's becoming your zoning out, think about just doing a crescendo as you go up. The same practice you're doing, or if you're going full doopio or whatever, do it sticado, just do something that forces you to connect

and activate your musical sensibilities. That's so good. Eskil asks, what is the most important to practice to be able to play what you hear. So I think there's two parts to this. I think the more you have your technique together on whatever instrument you're playing, and this is not a sexy answer, but it is just easier to play yourself. And, you know, having great technique doesn't mean playing the typewriter or playing a bunch of

notes. It really means just being able to express yourself in the clearest way possible. So any technique work you do is a vote for you playing from the heart. And so consider that. But then also be able to sing what you're going to play. Be able to hear it, be able to sing it, even if it's like a super fast thing. Like I can just get the general shape of a very fast line. And it doesn't have to be the exact notes. I'll never be able to sing the exact notes like that. But I know how it's going to flow. And I can hear it then over the piano and I don't have to just run my fingers. It can be more organic than that. So I would say those two things. Consider technique practice, a practice of being able to play what you hear, and then consider

being able to sing what you want to play. And I'll go even one step further. You can practice hearing the music that you might play and then just letting it happen. And that's going to be a good gauge for how good is my technique and how good is that pathway between my heart and my hands, right? So if I hear something and I just kind of, I just let it happen and it happens, that's a good sign that I know that piece of language that I'm hearing. If I hear it and it doesn't happen and it's forced or it's clunky or whatever, then I have some music in my head that's not able to get out yet to my hands and that's some technique work or just some repetitive work on that thing. Great, great, great stuff. From Emmanuel, I feel like jazz has become more about licks and

technique and less about expression. It was music built from a struggle, human emotions. Now jazz is formulaic. Transcribe, learn the history. Well, compared to what, though? It's formulaic compared to what? To modern country music, to hip hop? Like, every genre has some kind of bad formula version of itself. And every genre has some pretty creative people that are pushing boundaries. And I think jazz is no different.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that, you know, I think there's always been that element of the theoretical or the technical or copying licks or something. you know, almost since the beginning of the music, that's always been around. So I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's become that. I think sometimes we, you know, thankfully the good stuff, the interesting art is what survives. You know, that's kind of what shakes out over time. So we don't see the, the players that were just about licks and technique and stuff. So you think that it didn't exist. But my dad was always good at reminding me, like once I started getting into jazz

and classical music and just becoming woke musically, I guess, as a teenager, I would say to him, I was like, man, back when you were coming up in like the 60s, man, everything was, man, the music and pop music was so much better. This, he's like, dude, there was so much crap on the airwaves at that time. He's like, thankfully none of it survived. That's all. So we didn't hear it by the time we're coming up in the 70s and 80s. And so, and I mean, I see kids now being like, oh, my God, the pop music in the early 80s was so amazing.

Like the song forms were so advanced. I was like, only the ones that survived, believe me. Yeah, there was a lot of terrible stuff too. Yeah. Now, do I believe that, yeah, I mean, human emotions and struggles, that's all a part of the music and it's still a part of the music when it's played at a high level. But the formulaic, you know, that's always going to be, not everyone's always going to get that. That's why we, when I talk about, you know, tell your story,

I believe that everybody has the ability to learn enough about the, vocabulary and the lineage and the sound of the music. I'm not talking about, oh, I know the address that Buddy Bolden was born in in New Orleans. I mean, not that kind of history. I'm talking about the lineage of the music, the same way you learn any other language, how it's passed along from somebody, be it live or recordings or whatever, but like you see yourself as part of a genre, you know, a niche, whatever you want to call it. But, you know, once we all can see ourselves within that and then to step into that and say, okay, I'm going to tell my story. That pulls you out of it being a formula.

You know, you might go through and, you know, a lot of the stuff we talk about and teach, it's going to, yeah, we're going to trend more. So it's like, this is the way you, you know, practice an arpeggio. This is the way that you apply an altered scale. Partly, like, that's areas that I think we feel like we can help and be of service to the community. But it's also like, you know, whereas if we're like, okay, let me teach you how to, how to take your struggles that you've had in your life and express.

those in your music. That's a lot harder to do. But these are tools. Like if you know how to use an altered scale and that sound of a sharp nine flat 13 and understand what that means and have a grasp of the technique of that and then accept to use that to tell your story sometime. Yeah. And then you have to have the courage then to use it in a personal way. That's the difference. Right. And for me it's like, and I think what Emmanuel is kind of hinting at it here is sort of learning jazz. Right. Now jazz. has this formulaic, transcribe, learn the history. That implies, like, learning it is formulaic.

But, yeah, I mean, learning anything is a little formulaic. That's how humans communicate how to learn things. We learn what works, and we try to pass that down when people ask us about it. Yeah. And so, but very personal results can come out of that. I've been listening to so much Charles Lloyd during this pandemic. And there's no, nobody can convince me that there's any formula or any lick or anything that's not completely human and beautiful about the way that he makes music and his band makes music.

And I just feel like, you know, if you can find the people that inspire you, and it doesn't, you don't have to think genre at all at this point. There's no reason to think genre, in fact. Just find the people that inspire you and listen to what they do and learn how they do it. And that could be more or less formulaic than you need it to be. If you want it to be less traditional, then be less traditional about it. I mean, you do whatever you want. to learn it and then see if people want to hear it.

That's it. All right. I'm getting a little angry. No, you started angry and dogmatic, but then you veered off into kind of a wood, woodstock 69 kind of do whatever you want. Free love, baby. Well, no, not free love. I just, I don't know.

I just, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I did get angry. Well, I think, too, you know, formulaic, like is, there's some things that are that are related to that, that maybe don't have as much of a negative connotation within this music that I would say are more like, you know, traditions or not even traditions, because that kind of have a thing of like, oh, we have to do something a way that it used to be. And I believe that's really not part of the ethos of this music, but almost like patterns.

You know, and I don't mean like ba-b-a-dube-d-bop, but I mean patterns in music, which is really about. That one takes courage, too. That does take courage, right? Swababah-du-be-wee-how. If you think about, you know, rhythmic patterns, for some reason, that's easier for people to accept than like a melodic, a corny melodic pattern that you're going to take through all the keys. But like rhythmic patterns and variations, you know, and riffs and the things that make up sort of the lifeblood of the things that we can use to tell our story are very important because so much of what we're doing is improvised. You know, a lot of these things we wouldn't be talking about like if we were playing classical music and unless we're, are a composer. And composition is, you know, a little bit more static form of improvisation. Or maybe

you look at it the other way, improvisation is spontaneous composition. So you've got, you know, in classical music, if we're playing Beethoven's 7th symphony, if you're going to conduct it or play in the violin section or play the oboe part or whatever, and you play it, you know, yeah, you're telling your stories you play, but you're playing the notes that are there. If somebody that comes along and is like, wow, it was so formulaic the way you play. You played that. It was like, oh, thanks. You know, the formula is play the notes on the page as good as you can in tune with musicality. And then you're going to have in a great hall with other great musicians, you're going to have a special moment. And so for what we do in jazz, it's different.

But the end result in terms of trying to get to an edifying moment for the audience, I think is actually kind of similar. We're using different tools. And the improvisation is the main challenge, really, but also exciting element that we have to tell our story. So true. Well, thanks, everybody. Today's episode was again sponsored by Ennitune. Go to Anitune. US to check out the most amazing transcribing tool that you can get.

Yes. Also, we will just say that, yeah, and with EniTun, we always like to just sort of let people know. The app, which is on Mac, and I know I said it was on Android 2, which is not. but it is it's a free app and it's a very full feature they have AnyTune Pro Plus

which we highly highly recommend but the free version will get you in the door and get you some of the most amazing features so check that out today and just let that kind of glide into your ongoing lifestyle also check out we're sponsored by OpenStudio

check out Open Studio jazz.com slash live we've got a number of great live events to sash all that stuff and you know until tomorrow you'll hear it