You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Melodic Two-Handed Voicings

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer a SpeakPipe request for a deep-dive on Adam's system for 4,5, and 6-note voicings without repeated notes.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, Adam. Yes. They let us out of the Katie. Finally, man. We've been in there for two and a half years. But we only moved like seven feet across the room. It's still better. I can see a little daylight.

Oh, yeah. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. And why are you so close to the microphone? I don't know. This is You'll Hear at Premium. Premium episodes for our premium members.

Hey, shout out to everybody who's become a premium member in the last few months. Well, no, just like a month and a half, maybe. Yeah, yeah. We got a lot of folks over there. We got a lot of folks, and we actually had a snark. Did you see the snarky and not snarky puppy? The just straight up snarky comment in the YouTube, obviously from a non-premium member. Wait, someone in YouTube left a snarky comment.

Yeah, they were like, oh, I bet both of the YouTube premium members are on screen. Oh, yeah, like we're the only ones. You're wrong. Neither one of us is a premium member, but you guys are, and so thank you for being here. Now, we're excited to be over here back at the good piano. Oh, man, I love the good piano. Well, we have a premium question for our premium members, we have a premium answer for you. This is a question from Mark.

Hi, Peter and Adam. It's Mark from Vancouver. And I am a you'll hear it premium member now. Adam, you recently mentioned you created a system for four note, five, note, six note, two-handed voicings that you can play over any chord with any melodic note on top when you're comping. no repeated notes either could you please talk about that system you created thanks thank you mark for the question that is a premium question man that sounds like that's nothing we're doing over there

why didn't you tell me about this i've been needing this for years no you know i i developed this like a couple years ago and it's not a perfect system as no system really is but it's really helped me get out of just normal typical voice like I listened to what happened was I recorded myself, right? Feedback, you always want to be doing that. I record myself on a gig and I was like, why are all my B-flat seven voicings just on B-flat at the top?

Like, I'm getting bored. Right. You know what I mean? Like, I was just kept playing that. Every time I'd go back to, I forget what it was. But it was something like that. And I was like, I need a system that I can have melodic options that don't. Because, you know, at the time, if I was trying to play a C on top,

I would do something like that. Fine, but it was a little boring. Like, I wanted a five-note system for a very specific. shape, the three in the right and the two in the left. So I did. I did it. Wow. I did it. Wow. I just developed the system. And what's great about this is you can play melodies, although it doesn't sound awesome to play melodies like this, because the harmony is based off of chordal voicing. Sorry, the stand is falling. Not, and that's not a premium stand. That's the problem. Can we get a premium stand over here? But, no, you can, you can certainly use this to comp for melodies,

but it's not the best for that. Really, what it's the best at is, is just in your comping, in your accompanying, in your accompanying behind other people, you can create these little melodies. Like, it doesn't sound super great if you were to play autumn leaves with this form, but it sounds great to comp on autumn leaves behind someone, and you can make little melodies out of what you're comping.

So I have a sheet that I'll include here, a PDF, that I, and this is something I worked on a couple of years ago, I'll clean it up and maybe update it a little bit. But the basic gist is this. If we're in C, I wanted something that I could start, in with with C on the top rootless by the way these are all rootless

so here I have a C69 C on the top right and then be able to go to that the root on the top sorry I don't mean to jump in the C on the top you said rootless I see what you're saying as in no root on the bottom of the I was wondering about that that what is the

is that proper I guess with two-handed voicing with two-handed voicing it's more with left when it's just a left hand voicing It's usually rootless is not even the root on top, right? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, there's no root on the bottom is just what I'm trying to say. So here's my C.

A non-routed voicing. Non-routed voicing. That's probably better. This is a straight-up, quartal voicing, as Adam Neely would say, quartal. Cortal. Fourth voicing, as Peter Martin would say, starting on E, A, D, G-C. So my next option, D, right, is this.

G, B, E, A, D. Now I have the fifth, the seventh, the third, the sixth, and then the ninth on top of D. My next option, right? You're seeing a little pattern here. A little diatonic movement there, right? Oh, no, it's not. That's not. See, that's the weird thing is none of these are actually like a diatonic straight-up movement.

You almost have to memorize the shapes of each one. It takes a little bit of work. Sorry, where was I? Here. E. Yeah. Okay. So for the fourth, you know, on the major chord, nothing sounds great.

So I use the sharp 11 for a ligand sound. Yep. Voicing we all know. That's going on the whole step, right? Those last two? No, it's not. See, there's a jump here. Oh, yeah, shape change.

Shape change. Exactly in the same shape. And then for the G, I could either just take this up, which I don't really want to do, or I can make it a 6-9. Ooh, I like that. I like that. I like that, too. And what's cool is then you can use that

These are all the ones I've played so far And you can hear how they sound Right Yeah And I would say when you go up to that 6-9 Even though you've got the Even when you put the root on the bottom It's not rooted

Yeah it's not down there Because you're high up enough And these are super punchy man All of these And I think that you've got You've kind of hit on some really Good voice leading because you're not moving diatonically,

but you're not moving in parallel with the shape. Like when we look at diatonic and chromatic, and look, all these are good for the right situation. It's about expanding the choices that we have. But I think, like, I'm already hearing, like, really some more advanced voice leading going on because the shapes are changing. That's exactly right.

Even though the harmony's staying the same. You don't get a lot of, like, parallel fists moving. You get, like, you get the good moving shapes, right? From here, from this G, which we have C, E, A, D, G on top. We go to the sixth on top, which is from the bottom up, D, G, B, E, A. No repeated notes. Yeah. You know, I mean, how great to these sound?

There's some premium voicings right there. From here we go to a classic, E, A, D, G, B on top. And then we're back to here if we want. I couldn't figure out a great way to go from Major 7 to just root on top. So it is what it is. You can leave a little break and then just. jump in it. Honestly, you know what I do? Actually, you're high up enough there, right? Well, here, yeah, here you have. But here, if I really want to go from B to C, I'll make one of these a

diminished chord. Either one, I'll make some kind of, you know, there's tension or something like that. But I could see, like, rhythmically, but you're going from here to here, right? Yeah. Okay, even if it's like, and then whatever that is. It's not bad. It's not bad. But, you know, oftentimes, you're not actually going, like, in a scale of these. You're comping something more like, One, two, three, no. Yeah. What I mean? And so, but having this option for melody on top

makes it really, really cool, you know. Yeah, and actually, since you were thrown in some chromatic approaches from beneath, that's another solution, a little bit. Instead of going straight there. Right. Totally. That's actually really nice. That's kind of Bill Evans-esque.

That is Bill Evans-esque. Yeah. But yeah, you can do all those chromatic slides. So I did this for major... Did you say Bill Evans' ass? Or Bill Evans' ask. It's not like you said Bill Evans' ass. I might have.

Well, it's okay, because we're on premium. We can do that in premium, right? I can do that in the regular one, too, bro. Oh, we can? I didn't know that. So I have this for Major 7, Dominant 7, like straight up just regular dominant 7. I think I did it for the altered scale,

and I think I did it for definitely minor 7 and diminished, the diminished ones. Oh, yeah. It's just this shit. Yeah. And this just really fits well with, like, if I'm going, you know, major to diminished, or sorry, diminished to major. It fits in with the other five-note voicing so that if I want to go, you know what I mean?

That's pretty. A lot of folks are going to like those. So like a two-five in this would sound. These kind of five-note voicings where I can just, like you just heard like, Bap-bo-ba-po-po-ba. Yeah. Like a melody on top of the comping. It makes a huge difference for me.

I still don't have this together in all keys, every single shape. I mean, this is a lot to remember, actually. Sure. You got to just kind of start hearing it, and I'm still working it out. Like, it's part of my tune practice. So what I'll do is I'll go through, like, let's say we're working on something like Green Dolphin Street. We're working on something like Green Dolphin Street. You say, we're working on Green Dolphin Street.

There you go. So. I'm a quick study. So I'll, not only am I going to work on like, you know, a two feel. I'm just thinking about like how I practice a two or whatever and maybe blowing on it. I'll take, like, you have to incorporate comping into your regular practice. Absolutely. So I'll take these shapes and comp over it.

One, two, three, four. Something like that. That's great. And I mean, I think we can't understate the importance of this concept of voicing. always being connected with what happens before and after. And I think this way of learning of voicing and expanding your vocabulary, that's what we're really doing. We're saying, okay, these are five-no voicing.

But these are ones, I mean, and people might be saying, oh, I know that one, I know that one. Yeah, totally. But do you know these together? Because I think even before this, when you were singing, and I love that you're singing the melody as you practice comping, that's a pro tip right there. For sure.

Because people are like, oh, I can't practice comping because there's no soloist when I'm by myself. But you absolutely can. You can sing the melody. you can sing a solo. For sure. But the idea of expanding your vocabulary in a way that's already in line

with actually playing melodic ideas as your comping, not static chords. Because people are like, I love that voicing. I mean, he's got great voicing. No, we all have the same voicing. These have all been out there,

but it's like, can you put them together in a pattern that makes musical sense? Right. And then practice them, get them in your hands. Even like how you were making note if there was a couple that you're not crazy about how they lie. Totally.

You still want to know what that feels like and what that sounds like, even if it's not to just, even if it's only to avoid them. Exactly right. Actually, in my very original document that I kind of made up over the course of about a month as I was working through these, there's a couple that have like in parentheses not great. You know what I mean? Because it's just like, yeah, this is not, this kind of sounds weak in every situation I've put it through or whatever. So that's another. And that becomes a thing of like, you don't want to practice those ones a lot, but you do want to know what they feel like in your hands and what they sound like, especially in the different keys.

because sometimes those voices will sound good in other keys. No, I put it so that honestly, it's not even that I wouldn't practice it. I just didn't want to make sure. I didn't want to play it. Like, it didn't sound good in the situation. But you have to know what it's, you have to actually play it, feel it and know what it sounds like, I believe, to be able to avoid playing it. Because I remember, like, do you remember the days when it's like you'd comp and you'd play something like, ugh, ah. Like, you would not, you wouldn't know what was going to come out at any time.

Yeah, yeah. And so the ability to be able to really, you know, I mean, everyone's always going to be at different vocabulary levels. That doesn't matter. If we think about some of the great speakers of English or any language, they're not necessarily the biggest vocabulary, but they know how to use the words that they know. Absolutely. In fact, somebody with this huge vocabulary sometimes doesn't speak in a really interesting way.

They just speak in a verbose way. That's right. And so I think that concept with this with the practice really can set yourself up to be able to speak through your comment because that's what we want to do. Like we have a lot of players that can solo well comp behind themselves, but when it comes to two-handed comping, it becomes the static, kind of sporadic, random almost kind of sound.

That's right, yeah. And you know, a couple of things to really take away from this exercise for me, Mark, that you should keep in mind as you're doing this and anybody who's going to try to do something like this, is that, first of all, know why you're doing it. Right? You're not doing it just so you know a bunch of voicings. You're doing it, in this case, I was doing it

because I wanted to have more melodic comping, right? But having this sort of big goal in mind as I'm working on something really helps me stay within the parameters of that and keeps me focused on it. I didn't get, like, distracted and go do other things or start working on drop two stuff. You know what I mean? I was like,

all right, I really want to have these five-note voicings together. What do you mean drop two, by the way? That's another episode. That's another episode. So know why you're doing it, but then also a couple of things just inside baseball on these particular voicing. Like, the reason why you don't want to double up any notes is because It actually, in a lot of cases, unless it's the right voicing,

it can weaken the voicing big time. If you're not doubling the right note, like if you're doubling a bunch of thirds and seventh, it's going to sound really watered down. I mean, at best, it's going to sound no stronger. Right, maybe one out of ten. And then the other nine is actually going to be weaker. It's going to be, it's going to clutter up the voicing,

or it's going to do this weird thing where it sins it out somehow. Well, we were talking another day. Remember, we're thinking about becoming minimalists. Maybe we should start with our voicing. Just here's my C major. No, you're doubling. What are you talking about? See, that's already bad.

No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I know. Here's my C major. So that's another thing. And then the third pro tip to take with this is that notice that I'm still getting results out of this. And I'm still working on this. And I still don't have it two years later now. But it's...

Come on, Adam. I know. But the value in this was the deep dive that I took on this, right? So I think everybody who can play with their weight in... salt. Wait, that's not a sailing. Everybody who can play where there's... Hold on. The salted cod on the Portuguese ship. Yeah, every pretzel that's salted, no.

Anybody who... I think your ship has sailed. I think so. Anybody who can play has taken these, like, deep dives into these subjects. So it's well worth, like, taking the time and commitment to see what you can come up with. It doesn't have to be this. It can be whatever it is you're interested in, but that's one of the things that I was a real lesson for me with this was like, I got more out of it actually than these voicing. I got some concepts of how to create my own concepts. You know what I mean? I got some great ideas about what I can do if I just like focus in on. I think as good and as important as these voices and as helpful as they are to folks,

I want to just jump back before we end to where you started, because I think that could be one of the most important concept from this premium episode, and that is that you develop this and add it into your practice routine and then eventually made it into kind of an exercise because you heard and identified a deficiency, a perceived deficiency in your own playing, like a little bit of a hole. And it wasn't like, I'm sure you were like this horrible,

two-handed compor before. But, like, that's what we want to be always doing and evaluating our playing. Like, think about your playing. Like, it's so easy for us to be like, oh, that gal is such a better pianist or Herbie Hancock's this. Compare yourself to yourself. First of all, it leads to a life

happiness. It's a lot easier comparing yourself. But, but, but like this idea of like, what are the areas of my playing that I want to develop? And of course, you could be like, well, everything, time, melody, harmony, vocabulary. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, we all, if we can get some self-awareness in our playing, can start to identify those areas that are lagging behind a little bit. And really nine times out of ten, this is where I've experienced my biggest breakthrough. So it's, it's bigger than just five no voicing. Yeah, you've got some cool new voicing's now. But this idea of like how do we develop our playing, have the self-awareness to know at any time on a micro and even more of like a macro level what it is that we need to kind of plug

into our practice routine. And that also can solve a lot of like what am I supposed to practice? Oh yeah. Didn't we do an episode? We did an episode or two minute jazz or something on what should I practice? Question mark was the title and it's like one of our most viewed and searched videos because people have a problem with that. And so like once you start develop some self-awareness about your own playing, that will oftentimes tell you what to practice. I think that's probably the most important thing you can take away from this premium episode even more than the voicing's is just this growth mindset of there are just, you know, when you listen to yourself, you shouldn't beat yourself up or hold yourself up too high.

Right. Right. It should just be what are the things that I want. Give yourself a C at all times, right in the middle. Really try to be neutral with it and then think to yourself, what is it that I'd rather hear in my playing that I'm not hearing? What am I not hearing? What do I want to be able to do?

And then it's as easy as working on that. That's all you got to do. Awesome. Thank you, Mark, for the question. We got the PDF here of Adams' five-note, melodic voic voicings or whatever. Let me know what you think. It's been a minute since I've updated this list. Maybe I'll briefly brush it up before I put it up.

I don't know. Let's do that. It's premium. It's premium. We got to go. All right. Cool. Thank you to all of premium listeners.

Until next month. You'll hear it.