You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Making Good Harmonic Decisions/Playing With Guitarists

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

It's the last SpeakPipe of the week and Peter and Adam answer two questions in one: How do I play spicy harmonic choices when comping? Is it possible for a guitarist and pianist play simultaneously?Have a listen to the new Herlin Riley album Perpetual Optimism here: https://music.apple.com/album/perpetual-optimism/1452003796?app=itunesWanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Let 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, Pete. Hey, Adam. If you could step on the toes of any guitarist in the history of jazz, who would it be? All of them. All of the toes? Yeah. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast for some reason. Bad Daily Jazz Prize. No, no, that was, I didn't even mean that. I was just trying, I got caught up in the witty banter part of it. That's so funny, man. Hey, so we made a promise. Yes. On yesterday's podcast.

And we've broken many promises. So why stop now? No, we made a promise that there would be a bonus ultimate tip if they tuned tomorrow for set lists. And that was all the way yesterday. How do I remember? I still got the same clothes on, but I don't remember that.

You still got the same spritzer. I mean, it was literally two minutes ago in our world. So what was the ultimate? Okay, well, we were talking about, you know, I thought we broke it down pretty good, but so we had to go next level.

We had to wait overnight on this one, but talking about how to put together a set list and some different modeling ideas, some different techniques. And the ultimate, ultimate tip for this that I got for y'all, y'all hear it, is,

um, hey man, I'm flexible with my accent. I'm international. Is to listen to great albums and think about them as a set list. That's true. Okay? Of course, the classic kind of blue.

We've never mentioned that on this, but you might want to check. If you can find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, a great album is a great set, actually. And so the same things we were talking about learning in terms of flow of the set, the openers and stuff. Now, especially when you go back in time to a time when people were listening to albums, sequentially, and, you know, I still do that. I don't know if anybody still do that.

You know my favorite is probably of this? Saxophone Colossus. I think that's a really well-programmed novel. That's a great set. And then, of course, albums that are live recordings, that's a no-brainer. Because they actually are sets. But, I mean, there's so much we can learn there,

so much great modeling from that. So today we got a bit of a two-part question on SpeakPipe. You can go to You'll Hear.com to leave us your voice message. Yes. And this is from Kyle. Let's check it out. Hey, guys. This is Kyle here.

I have a question for you about decision making during my improvisation in a way that doesn't clash with what other musicians are bringing to the table, and I'm thinking more about harmonic information. So let's say I'm comping, me as a piano player, I'm comping for a horn player that's taking a solo. How do I go about making good decisions, you know, in a way that I respect what he's providing me with, harmonically speaking,

but also in a way that I can still be bold and creative, you know, trying to spice things up a little bit with my own harmonic ideas. How do I make the best out of those, you know, different harmonic ideas, mine and his? And also, if you have the time, one thing that really haunts me is how do I play with a guitarist? So like do I come for a while and then he comes for a while? Is there any way we can play together at all, you know, at the same time? In a fuller band context, it all seems very complex to me. But I'm sure you guys can handle it. So thank you so much for all you've been doing. And yeah, cheers. Bye. Thanks, Kyle. Good questions. It's Kayo, right?

Cairo. Not not Kai. I thought it's Kyle, but Caio. Yeah. Great. two different kind of issues, but maybe a little bit of overlap? Well, it's all about listing on this, right? Okay, you'll hear it. And you can always go to, you'll, no, it really is. I mean, look, I mean, we don't want to answer the same way every time, but we have to say that first, and then we'll get into some other things.

But listening is that magic pill. But listen, the point, the point of listening on the Matrix. The point of why we say listen all the time is because you have to get out of your head, you have to get out of just what you're doing. It's about the group. It's about coming together. And to do that in a way that is effective, you have to listen to each other. And as someone who's accompanying, literally, like, that's what comping stands for.

You are accompanying the horn player in this scenario that you presented. And you have to listen to them. Now, you can do things to be bold, as you say, or to be yourself. But you have to defer to, I, at least for me, especially if I don't know them. Right. I want to defer to them because they're going to give me bold ideas. And I'm going to do it. And I know it came from them that it's going to be acceptable.

You know what I mean? That we're building this relationship. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I like the idea of building a relationship because, too, to your point of if you don't know them, if it's a new relationship, new musical relationship, that is a different way of playing than somebody that you know when they need to be pushed and want to be pushed versus supporting.

I think a lot of this in comping is about support versus pushing. And maybe pushing is, maybe it's inspiring or providing, you know, because that's a very real part of improvisation. You know, part of supporting is to know when you do have to give them some ideas. But how are you going to know any of that if you're not listening? Yeah. And the listening, it can't just be, yeah, of course, no, I mean, said no one ever. Yes, I'm not, of course I'm listening when I'm copying.

Yeah, but are you, have you done everything to prepare yourself to be able to listen most effectively? So that means spending a lot of time listening and training your ear before so that, you are so much in the habit of being able to hear and having, you know, being attuned to being in that space of like total support once you get there. Because there's only, look, whenever we come to any situation, we are who we are. We're at the level we are at that time. It's our responsibility between every gig to do as much as we can to develop our whole musical selves so that we can be even more supportive so that we can hear even better

and all those kind of things. But that listening day, which is really ear training. and when we talk about the actual practice of an application of listening beyond just someone, I love jazz, I listen to it all the time. You could do that your whole life. If you never apply it to learning, you're never going to get any better. You might not even learn your instrument. Yeah.

I'm just thinking about things specifically you can listen for, especially if it's someone new. The first thing that comes to mind, Kyo, is listen to how the player your accompanying builds and creates and releases tension. That's something that you can sort of start. stepping into. So like a few weeks ago I got to I was lucky enough to get to play these gigs with Ron Miles yeah and Marcus Strickland and not played with them before and and really was trying to support when they were in and obviously setting things up and and when they started to you know build this tension that's obviously going to be released I have to support them for that too so I'm not just going to comp on through

straight I'm going to help them build tension I'm going to give them ideas and then they take those ideas for me and now we're we're building, everybody's building this together, and then it gets released hopefully together, or maybe it doesn't, but, you know, we've, we've set a precedent that we're going to move in these ways as a group, you know, and so if I'm listening to when the soloist creates, things like creates tension either harmonically or rhythmically, and help them to do that, they're going to trust me, you know, to help, help with their solo. Yeah, and really, I think what you're describing there is storytelling, right, collective storytelling, led by the soloist.

Right. So the listening and the supporting is about, you know, of course, listening to the notes and the harmonies and understand the ear training. I talked about earlier. But now we're going next level in terms of like being open to hearing their story as it unfolds and to supporting that story. So this is improvisation. So you don't know what that's going to be. Yes, as you get to know a player, you start to understand the types of stories they like to tell. Well, that's exactly right.

Then you could actually start leading them in those directions. Yes, exactly. And you start to be able to talk on. an intuitive level, no, and this is where we can kind of fold in his question about the guitarist, you know, about playing with the guitarist, rather as pianist, is start to know when they need support, when they leave gaps in their story, they need to be, you know, I mean, it's just like we're talking here. Look, the more, you know, look, this podcast started brilliant. Let's be honest with it. You know what I mean? They always do. But, no, I mean, I'm sure if we go back to some early episodes

and we're speaking back and forth and, like, there's a, you know, once we really get to know when It's appropriate to step in and then go back and forth. And like, whether somebody's taking the lead or not, we're not even thinking about that anymore. Because we're trying to tell a collective story here in 10 minutes or whatever, about whatever the subject we're telling. And this is nowhere near as good as a great solo. But hey, we're doing our best.

But the idea is that, you know, you have to be opening to listening. But then you also can't be just so supportive and, you know, what do you call it, diminutive? You know, where you're just like submissive. Submissive. Yeah, exactly. That's not good comping being to submissive all the time. Yeah.

There's times when you need to be submissive, but that's, you got to be able to listen and, and not plan that out on the spot, you know, on the spot, figure out the times when that's appropriate and not, and then make those quick adjustments to get out of that. That's so true. I mean, I think the key to this is really, is really understanding that when you're accompanying someone, this is a relationship. And just like any relationship or conversation you're having, you have to, you have to want to understand where that person is coming from.

You know what I mean? And so there are clues that can, like I was saying, like when this person creates tension, down to even like, okay, so I usually play a C7 sharp 9, but they're just playing a C9 every time. You know what? Maybe that's time for you to play the changes that they're playing. Right, exactly.

That is a time where listing can help you lock in with them and support them as opposed to pushing your narrative on them at all times. And then if it's someone you know all the time, you could be like, yo, bro, actual changes are C7-sharp 9. Here, check it out. Put that in your story, big guy. Put that in your speak pipe and smoke it. You know what I'm saying, though?

Like, listening to these different details and then helping them build their solo off those details is our job. Yeah. And then, you know, take the opportunity, like this is one of those skills, and maybe just even talking about comping in general is what I'm talking about,

that you can learn a lot, obviously, from listening to recordings, live performance or whatever, but you really can learn a lot playing with someone that's really good at this. And so as pianists, a lot of times we're like, we don't get to maybe experience that as much because we're the primary compers.

But this thing about playing with a guitarist, if you get a chance to play with a really good guitarist, lay out and let them comp, because it's always the default to the pianos, not always, but it's too much. Lay out and let the, as opposed to trying to even work with them, they've got it. I mean, the guitar can cover pretty much

what the piano can from that standpoint in a lot of situations. Yeah, yeah. And then especially if they're good, you can learn by watching how, that's going to give you some other ideas. Also, check out drummers. So I played last week with Hurling Riley, one of my favorite musicians to play with great drummer from New Orleans.

And he's such an amazing accompanist. And it really transcends, like, the instrument in that it really kind of comes forth from his attitude. Like, he wants to support and inspire the people he's playing with so much. It's not even like he wants to do with so much. It's such a natural thing for him. He's just a supportive and inspiring person. And then he's a really good drummer. So he put them both together.

And he's an inspiring and supportive drummer. you know, go thinking. That's how that works. Yeah, yeah. And so, but you can learn a lot from that. So don't just think about I can only learn this from piano. So if you're lucky enough to get in a situation where you're around a musician that has mastered this, you know, try to tap into that energy source, talk to them, you know, imitate them, buy them a drink,

whatever you've got to do to impart some of that knowledge to yourself. So true. Listening to drummers, I've learned a lot about when to leave space as an accompanist, when to play more. Leave space. What drummers? I never heard of it. No, great drummers know when to, you know, just lay back there. in the spangling or really get in there.

And sometimes I like to play with, like, a company with the drummers in mind of like, you know what, I'm going to give the drummer the lead on this space-wise. Yeah, it's the last tune of the set. We're getting towards the end. Most of the people have led. Let's give the drummer a little bit, right? Yeah, I'll go to the bar and get a drink.

So I usually say to that. You got it. Take it out. Yeah, I just want to shout out Hurley Riley. Have you heard his new record? I have. It's amazing. Perpetual optimism.

I have to look up. Got to check it out. That's highly recommended from the You'll Hear a podcast. Yeah, absolutely. That's going to be a contender for, I guess it was that last year? It was it this. It should be a contender for album of the year.

It was amazing. And then for me, I don't know how you feel all the time about guitarists. Guitarists are tricky. I can play with guitarists, especially guitarists I know really well and I know their tendencies,

but it's always less than how I would play if we're not playing together. A lot of times I will just lay out and let them take a chorus and then I'll take the next chorus. Right. Not the chorus, sorry, the solo, and I'll take the next solos.

Like playing with quintet or something. Yeah. I wasn't listening, sorry. That's why I said, yeah. But I mean, I have such confidence. I'm supporting you. I'm supporting you. Thank you very much.

You know what I'm saying, though, with the guitarist? Like, it can be a trait, especially if you don't know each other, it's easy to play clashing things either rhythmically or harmonically. So, you know, if they're taking the, they start just chunking away on whatever, then I can get in there with some rhythmic stuff. But if they're actually comping, maybe I'll do some like, some orchestration, single note lines, you know, leading tones and stuff like that. I agree. Oftentimes it's just like, you got it.

This, I think, yeah, right. So maybe we'll have an ultimate tip for playing with a guitarist. We'll think about that for a second. We'll put that at the end of the show in just a few minutes because we're coming to the end. We're coming to the end. So if you want to leave us to speakpipe again, go to you'll hear it.com. You can also check out the podcast. No, that is the podcast.

You can also check at the blog. On that same site, check out the blog. We have a lot of great free content videos, two-minute jazz videos, transcriptions. If you're a pianist, we do have some court arrangements that have become pretty popular over there of standards. really good stuff, go check it out. Also, make sure to go to openstudio network.com. It's the sponsor of this podcast. It is.

And we have a ton of courses, from a bunch of courses from Peter Martin. Peter Martin has recorded like 650 lessons at this point. It's too many, man. You've got to take a break. More than even the you'll hear your podcast. Is that possible? It's possible.

You've been doing it for eight years. That's true. But we also have courses by Christian McBride and Diane Reeves and Jeffrey Kieser. Ooh, the Diane Reeves course. That's got some piano guitar stuff. That does. And if folks sign up for that,

another reason to get the all-exists past. You can jump in on, maybe you're not feeling like you're interested in vocals, although who doesn't love to hear Diane Reeves sing, right? It's amazing. I've learned a lot. But there's some stuff in there. Like, you know, actually we talk a little bit about that, you know, piano, guitar. How do you play together, especially in a duo situation, a company.

Yeah. We do a lot of accompanying. Duo is a whole other animal. Yeah. It's worth checking out. All right. Well, what's our ultimate tip for playing with guitarists? Well, you know what I was thinking?

This is a little one, but I think it could be used a lot of it as fun. It's a little ultimate? No, I mean, it's just a little technique. It's a small thing, but I love doing it, so I will call it Ultimate. And that is when the, like, really learn what the range of the guitar is on the piano, which is not hard to do. Like, once you kind of figure that out, think about comping entirely outside of that range. Yeah. Like, that's your only rule.

They're in the tenor range in general. Exactly. They're in that low, mid range. Exactly. And so what that does is it gives you a lot of space to do, and it kind of pushes you into an area that we don't, necessarily think about for comping. A lot of single line stuff. You kind of notice about the individual notes and stuff,

but you can go octaves, but basically just move everything out to there. That's right. You know, and you're going to solve a lot of your problems. And if anything, you're going to be able to hear some different things. But then be active with your comp. And remember, like we think about clashing with a guitarist in terms of harmony. But that's only, there's melody, harmony, and rhythm.

And when we talk about comping, it's really about harmony and rhythm. But rhythm is important, just as important as harmony. So think about not only clashing, but syncing up with. Maybe you're going to be very simple harmonically, but you're going to really focus in on the rhythm then and linking up with them on that rhythm. And then you're out of their range, so there's no chance. I mean, if that doesn't work, then, you know, just unplug their amplifier. That's true. Just straight up unplug them. Right. I've also been noticing a lot of

guitarists like to keep their phones on the stage. I guess they think they get so many gigs. Have somebody call them at that time so they get distracted, then you can take over the company, right? And then you'll hear it.