You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Live From Instagram: Q&A (5/2/20) - Part 1

Episode Date: May 7, 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. Here's part one of this week's episode, and be sure to tune in this Saturday, May 9, for another livestream.Today's episode is sponsored by Anytune. Anytune is the perfect tool for anyone looking to improve their practice sessions. Learn, transcribe, and practice solos by slowing down the tempo, adjusting the pitch, and (for Pro+ users), isolating specific instruments in the mix. For more info, follow this link.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.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast daily music advice coming at you coming at you today we're recording our Tuesday Wednesday episodes or maybe Thursday Friday I don't know how Andrew's going to do this man but we're live on Instagram and we're taking your questions on Instagram every Saturday 1 p.m. Central time 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time come hang with us on Instagram and ask your questions so we're here what's up I see clap or dappers in the house. Clapper dappers in the house And I was actually going to grab his question first If that works for you Oh, but to answer your question, what's up? You know, just living that jazzy pandemic lifestyle, man That's how we do it. I know, man.

Another great show, another great shelter in place show last night, Pete. It was really, really cool. They're all really cool, but I feel like Last night it was like, you're in such a groove with a solo piano thing. I've never played those kinds of intimate solo piano concerts one in a row in a row in a row like you're doing now.

I'm pretty sure you probably haven't done a ton of those where it's like you're preparing a new concert, a new set list every week. That's got to be cool and it's got to be a challenge. Yeah, no, it is. It's been definitely a challenge and it's been kind of combined with just a lot of solo piano playing

and a regular schedule. I haven't done that. I mean, you know, the touring or doing gigs in town, everything's kind of, you do it, and then you stop, you do it. You kind of follow a certain schedule. But like a weekly kind of, kind of thing. It's been very good for me because it's been kind of

dovetailing with what I've been practicing on and trying to prepare for that. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, killing. Just killing. Cool. So should we get into some questions? Is that how we're going to roll up in here? Yeah. What's Jeff Klapp's question? First of all, big shout out to Jeff Klapp. Big shout out to Jeff Klapp. He asked, what's a fabulous part of playing behind a singer? A fabulous part?

Yeah. So I guess that would... Yeah, I mean, playing with or accompanying, I guess. Yeah, that's a fair question. For me, it's, as a pianist, we get to do a lot of free roboto back and forth with singers. I think when you, when that moment where you really get what's where they're going to go and you're almost reading each other's minds and then something special happens unexpectedly, those are my favorite. parts for sure. And then also, you know what else is cool too? Is a really great singer. I think they can command an audience unlike an instrumentalist. There's something about language and the human voice

to human voice thing that is, as much as I love instrumentalists, I think it takes a very special instrumentalist to be able to command what a fairly good singer can do on the regular. Because they have the language thing, because they're using a voice, that everybody hears since they're a child. I think there's something special about that. So being part of that is really cool. Yeah, no, that's cool. Actually, I was gonna say something else,

but that sort of made me think of. I mean, there's so many wonderful things about playing with great singers. But this idea of vocalist ability to connect in a very direct way with the audience, I feel like that, it kind of, when you're playing with them, you know, you're all together.

So it's like they're taking care of that sort of connection. It's like, you know, you go to a party you've got somebody really cool that you're with that introduces you to everybody. So then you can just be charming on your own, you know. Right. Not difficult for me, as you know. Oh, okay. Okay.

But, you know, the idea that, you know, of course we're all, you know, no matter how we play, be it's solo piano, be it with a group, be it with a singer, without, we're always trying to make that connection, of course, with the audience. But when you've got somebody whose instrument has a natural kind of entry point, they've got that kind of. kind of just charm and built-in thing. And if they're great singer, all the more so, that it sort of takes the pressure off and just the amount of energy we, as pianists have to spend

on working on that connection. The connection's kind of already there and it's like set on the table. So what you don't want to do and I see a lot of pianists make this mistake is to kind of ignore it and say, okay, that's taken care of. No, you just got to get on the wave.

You just have to ride the wave that's been given because that's what it's all about. I mean, sometimes I've tried to figure out, I'm like, man, am I just selling out as I get older in terms of only worrying about making a connection with the audience? But I think it's such an important thing and such a big part of what we're doing and what we're supposed to be doing and what our job is and what our role is and really what our mission is as musicians, that anything can help make that connection and that human voice, as you say,

is really the conduit and that connector. That's right. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Okay, other questions. Please leave us your questions. This is our live Q&A for our You'll Hear at Podcast. So what else we got here? Do you see anything good?

Yeah, I see one from Christian Yeh. What's up, Christian? Christian's been here, I think, on every one of our lives. Always has some great questions. I think up in Northern Illinois, I hope he's doing well. And this question is, what are some ways you practice odd meters? So maybe I'll jump in on that. You know, practicing odd meters, you know, anything that we're doing in general that's working on our time.

And I always like to think of like ear training. Traditionally, we're always thinking of ear training as, you know, learning intervals, learning different chords, learning to identify different melodic movements, learning to identify different progressions. And that's probably the biggest part of ear training. But I think rhythmic ear training is very important as well. And I always encourage folks to spend some time as you're doing your other ear training. So like when we talk about, you know, learning a solo or picking things off of recording

or even just picking something off of the radio and trying to find it, you know, a lot of times we're automatically picking out the rhythm and stuff as well, but we're more concentrated on hearing what the notes are. But if you can pay a little bit more attention as you're doing that to what the rhythm is, that's just going to help with your general sort of rhythmic intuition and rhythmic ear training. And so that's like the first thing. And that's the more just foundational in general, like working on your time, working with the metronome, that kind of thing.

specifically for odd tempos it really becomes a matter of playing them enough so that they don't feel odd anymore it's like if you're still calling them odd meters then you need to just work with them more and you can break it down simplify and isolate we talk about and say if you wanted to work on seven

playing in seven you might take a blues or some other form that you know so well that you don't have to think about that aspect of what you're practicing you're just thinking about the playing in seven you know and so and then really kind of slowing things down and then the whole function of how you're practicing is doing it enough so that you can move away from counting you know in that odd meter that's that's when you kind of cross over the bridge

into being able to actually play and it not being odd anymore is when you can just sort of feel it as you're playing but that takes a lot of isolated work I would say also well yeah go ahead no no it's good oh no no no so I agree I think that's those are the those are the main points is you got to spend time with it there's no getting around it you can't just count your way to it because it's going to just sound like you're counting, right? And I'm, by the way, like, no expert on, on super hard odd meters at all, not claiming to me, but I have spent time with some of the, like, basic odd meters, five and seven and nine and all that stuff. And what I found that helped me is, is A, to, like you said, spend time with it, because you first, you just get a feel for

sort of the bigger rhythms of the odd meter, right? So that you're not just like, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, three, four, six seven, you know, so that you can really feel the dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, and, and sort of the chunks. But then, just like in four, four, four, four, one, two, four, one, two, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, like, your first pattern over two bars as opposed to, you know what I mean, like a basic kind of dotted quarter note three, four, like three over four pattern, that can really lock in that four, four then. And we all have that at some point. But do you have that over first three, four, then probably seven, then

probably five, and not like, you, that just takes spending time with those like over the barline things so that when those happen, you're not like, and it's not hard. You just got to get familiar with how they feel, you know? Yeah, no, that's great. And I think just introducing those slowly but methodically into your practice routine as you simplify and isolate over these odd time signatures can really help and you know the idea of playing over a bar line it becomes so important i mean it's always important because music flows as music flows you know and the listener doesn't know anything about where the bar lines are so you know when you're in an odd tempo being able to not be constricted to each of those

one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. One, dipp, da, dapp, dapp, dapp, dapp, da da da da da da da, da da da, da, you know. We usually, what happens is people wait until they're like, well, let me wait until I don't have to count it anymore. Then I'll start playing over the bar lines. But then it's not necessarily too late, but you sort of stunted your growth a little bit. You need to start experimenting with that as you're practicing.

And look, practice is all about making mistakes. You know, I mean, throw up all your bad shots in practice. So you have to challenge yourself. if you want to do it in an isolated way so that your mind and your ears can grow. But that's definitely the time to work through these things. Yes, yes, yes. All right. Mitchell asked, what's up, Mitchell?

Are there any cool ways to use common tones between chords? There's a lot on guide tones and connecting non-common tones. It would be cool to add cool ways to use common tones. Maybe they're not cool. No, common tones are totally cool. The first thing that I think about when I think about this is that the old adage that any melody note can be played over any bass line and chord. That's up to you.

Can I get an amen? You need to spend time learning how to put any note and make it work over any bass note, any root, or any chord. It's possible. It does work. So you just have to do that. Take your favorite tune and see if you can

hang on one note over everything and make it work somehow. It's challenging, but you can do it. Right. Yeah, and I mean, I think that you know, common tones is something that, well, it's something that you and I share in common, right, Adam? Oh, boy. Yep.

Yep, yep, yep. No, but, you know, when we look at re-harmonizing certain melodies, I look at that as kind of a conceptual approach to common tones in that you're taking one tone that's common to several different harmonies and starting to learn about that. Again, you can experiment in this as you're practicing, especially on things that you know really well. You know, I can't stress that enough.

Like, like, when you want to learn new things or develop parts of your practice, keep as many elements sort of stable, you know, as you're going. It's just like if you're cooking and you want to try a lot of new things. Don't, don't try a new spice and a new vegetable and a new saute pan and a new wine to go with it all in the same night. Like, get the ones that you know you can do and introduce one new thing so that your mind, so that your ears as us, because we hear before we see the music, that we, you know, get a chance to really even if you can do more than that.

Like you want to train your ears to be able to concentrate on what it is that you're working on. That's where you get into that kind of flow state that you get into that rapid progress in your practice. That's right. Another thing you might try Mitchell

is just take one right now, like today. Take a D-sharp, right? And see if you can go through the cycle of fourths, starting on D sharp and keep a D sharp on top. So you just have a D sharp in the bass, a D sharp in the melody, and put a chord there that works for you.

And then see if you can take the base note, the root note up a fourth and keep that D sharp where it is. And make a chord that sounds good. So, right, so you could go like just D major six to, you know, or sorry, D sharp major six to like, you know, G-sharp minor 7 or something like that.

But there's options. You're going to see all these options for the common tones. And just take that through the cycle force in all 12 keys, keeping that D-sharp on top and you're going to get a really, really good feel for how to put any chord

and any base note with a melody note. Good, good. Why don't we do one more question here for today's episode? See how I did that there, Adam? What? Yeah, and we just want to, well, we're going to keep going,

but we just want to say that we are sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio jazz.com to check out everything we have, including the All Access Pass. Peter, I don't know if you know about the Allex Pass. I don't think we've told you about it. Honestly, we just kind of built it behind your back. But it's everything that we offer at Open Studio. I wasn't supposed to tell you that. It's everything we make. Like private concerts, private concerts with Adam Manus? No, not at all. Nothing like that. But all the video courses that we make courses from people like you and Jeffrey Kieser and Aeli-A-Lavez and myself. And then, then other non-pianists, I don't know why, but we've invited people like Christian McBride and Diane Reeves and Greg Hutchinson and Rubin Rogers and just Steve Wilson, Sean Jones, Warren Wolf, Peter Sprague, Ameri Lobambo, so many amazing folks over to make courses for us. And yeah, if you go get the all access pass right now, you can check all of that out. It's not that bad either. It's pretty affordable. So go check that out, openstudiojazz.com. Right. And I believe that the correct me if I'm wrong because I'm just hearing about this all act this supposed

all access pass right now. We really should have told you about this long ago. But does that also include access to our growing popular Sunday green room sessions with our artists and surprise artists? Does that give them access to that? It gets you access to a couple things that are only available for all access pass and piano access pass folks. The green room Sunday sessions where we've had people like Diane Reeves show up.

Yes. Last week we had Sullivan Fortner and Emmett Cohen and Carl Allen show up. up. Ameri Lobbo's in there every Sunday. You also get access to my guided practice sessions every day. I'm leading a daily guided practice session. Those are only available for all access pass and piano access pass folks. So go check that out. Yes, absolutely. Cool. Well, until tomorrow.