You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Modal Playing: Where Do You Place the Notes?

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

Got modal? We sure do! Peter and Adam talk about what and where to place notes when playing modally. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Special offer for our You'll Hear It listeners: For $129, you can get both Jazz Piano for Beginners and Elements of Jazz Piano ($320 Value). Just add both courses to your cart, and apply promo code "BOGO" to get this deal. Visit https://www.openstudionetwork.com/courses/Be one of the first 20 people to leave us a rating or review at https://www.youllhearit.com/sticker and you can score a FREE You'll Hear It sticker.Today's episode is sponsored by Soundslice. Soundslice is a web-based music-learning software that is a hybrid audio player and notation viewer that syncs music notation with real audio. To find out more about them, visit www.soundslice.com/transcribe. And check out our Slice of Emotion In Motion (the You'll Hear It Jingle)!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, man. Where do you place the notes? Yeah. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you.

Coming at you today, sponsored by SoundSlic. SoundSlice is a beautiful transcribing tool. It's an amazing community where you can check out other people's transcriptions. Go to soundslice.com slash transcribe to kick the tires on the transcribing tool. Absolutely free. We use it every day for our transcriptions here on our courses at Open Studio and have for years. It's really one of the foundational tools of our business, and our users love it. So check it out for yourself.

Absolutely. Soundslice.com. Get to know it, love it like we do, and you'll be in the chain. Absolutely. So where do you place the notes? This is a question from Alex. We did not answer it. We're going to do our best here.

I'm a little confused. Let's do it again. Let's hear it out. Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam. Hopefully I don't sound like I'm in space anymore. It's Alex, by the way. Space is a pal.

supposedly from Colorado, right? Anyway, I had a question about modal playing. There's a ton of stuff on what scales to use, whether it's pentatonic or symmetrical scales or Dorian. All of that's great. But what I want to know is where do you place those notes that you have in that melodic library, right? Where do you place those notes within the measure?

gross simplification comparing it to bebop but in bebop you're told or taught to place your core tones on strong beats or the quarter note super gross simplification

ew it's so gross because it's you know so distilling this complex language into something offensively simple and it's not entirely true, but there's a relationship between the note

and where you place it in the bar. So how do you do that in a modal sense? Where do you place the notes in relation to the measure or in relation to the two bar, four bar, four bar, or eight bar phrase in a modal context? Please, please, please.

Give me some... I want to get cut off, Alex. Oh, did he talk too long? I think it might have... It's right in a minute 30. I think you only get 90 seconds, but I think we have the gist, speaking of distilling. Well, I think we're on that free sound, sound.

Speak pipe. Speak pipe planned still. That's my got off. Sorry about that. One glass of bourbon pears out. Yeah, we're still. A shout out to Old Forrester. We're just late, late edition of the, it's like you'll hear it late night.

That's right. Oh, jic-bong, boom. Okay, well, come down there, but, no, so, Alex, this is a, it's an interesting question. I haven't really thought about this, but as you were talking, and I was thinking about some, some of my note choices where I put them on modal tunes. Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind on modal tunes is that it's a really a good time to get the pretty notes out of the chord.

You know what I mean? So something that you might, it's not even about placing them, but I think it's more about what notes are you leaning into on the mode. If we're starting with Miles Davis's classic modal tunes, so what? Yeah, right? Classic. You know, you can lean in on the root in the fifth if you want. But to me, that's not the most interesting sound when I'm doing this deep.

minor seven, you know, minor 13. I want to hear some of the pretty notes, some of the ninths. That note sounds pretty. And the 13th, and especially the 11th on this. Yeah. So, you know, and then I'll use the root maybe to ground it, but that's not really, it's almost like, first of all, when considering any of this on a modal tune, the melody is very important for this. So learn your melodies of where you are in the tune so that you can play around with that with what the listener's hearing and you can reference that. But for me, it's almost not, I mean, there's not.

not a similar thing to bebop where it's like you want to where everything, you know, can line up on the beat with like the third or the, you know what I mean? Strong tones. Yeah. Because there's really, that's the point of the modal thing is there's not like, it's more ambiguous, right? It's a more airy sound. So to me, I think of like, it doesn't really matter, but I kind of am

hearing something that I want to surround, that I want to lean into a sound, whether that's the 13th, you know, that's what I'll do. Well, it's interesting that you took, you took, you took the question to really think about what scale tones, what intervals or, yeah, really the scale tones of a certain mode that one might start with. And I took it more as in terms of on the beat,

on the upbeat, what part, but both are so important, right? Well, but I don't, I guess I don't, on modal tunes especially, I don't think about, I would never, I would never run a scale literally like that. Right, right, right, but that doesn't mean, but remember he was saying like in bebop, And I would never learn that where you're supposed to emphasize. He was taught to emphasize the on the beat.

Yeah, but if you play that same thing, start that same phrase out, but start on the upbeat instead of on the beat. Like one, two. Ah, I can't even do it. I'm so trained. To me, that's kind of more interesting or can be. Like that juxtaposition of it. I don't know that it's always on.

And for modal playing, too, I don't think that there's any type of beat that one would start on as opposed to not. I agree. You know what I mean? I agree. And so I think these things in terms of, you know, pretty notes or like finding the places within the scale, not playing the scale. Yeah. You know, you'll play fragments of it sometimes.

But like where I like that you use lean into because that's almost like a phrase. I don't have to start there. It might be kind of where you pause in the middle of a phrase or where your target note is or however you want to think about it. But the place where it gives you a little bit of a little sparkly sound of that modality, that modal type of playing. modality, whatever it is. But I like that a lot better, too, as opposed to, like, because think about it, you could play a phrase, either bebop or modal or whatever. And look, the reality is, like, we're mixing these things up.

I think it's dangerous to say, I'm going to play modal now. I'm going to play modern. I'm going to play, you know, um, Netherlands style. I don't know, you know, but I mean, we're trying to get these different sounds and then put them together in an interesting way. Yeah. But in terms of modal playing, you could start on any, like, if you could start on any, like, If you're in 4-4, it could be on one, end of one, two,

triplet and of three. I mean, there's no right or wrong for that. So, sometimes people teach bebop that you can still start on the end of one, but that the on-beat is always one of these chord tones. But that's, I don't believe in that either. That's what I was saying, when you shift everything a half-beat, it can still be like if the melodic construct of that line becomes its own shape. And in fact, when it overlaps like that, that's when the interesting stuff happens.

And to Alex's credit, he did say, like, this is. is a gross gross simplification because it is that's just the way of lining up those strong tones

on the beat and a bebop thing I think it's just a way of teaching people how to line up things if you want to you know

I mean I always think about you know the classic example to me is the melody to Donnell Lee in which it's offset from almost the very first phrase

so when you're a bibid up you're already on the F7 but it's still on an A flat major. Right, right. You know what I mean? See, it stays on the... Yeah.

But it lands there on the third on the beat. So I do think... There is that a little bit. There's some of this, but it's never a hard and fast rule. And DBA players certainly didn't play like that all the time. No, no, no. And I think modal players don't... You know, one thing to think about, too,

is, like, I'm just trying to remember... Like, you know, Cannonball Adderly. So, because you mentioned So What, and we're talking about Miles Davis before, like, So What, Cannibal, Aterly, John Coltrane, people think about them as very different players in terms of Cannibal being more blues and maybe bebop-based, Coltrane being more modal. But if you look at the way they play over so-called modal changes, I think that you'll find some things very much alike in terms of, like, the rhythmic concept. The blues concept, too. Like, you look at John Coltrane, that that can become a real part. of your mold of phrasing is like how do you put blues in it and how do you interpret that into your into your phrases the way both those players you know integrated the blues into that modal style was so

incredible different with you know from each other but very very special and i almost i think the way you were playing at first that reminds me of like the classic sort of miles way of playing like where he's really hitting those pretty notes at the right time well i read then miles thought about that right thought like i don't want to start on the route i want to start on the nine Yeah. And Coltrane, even like with the so-called sheets of sound, he was still like hitting, you know, up to those notes. There was just a lot of other stuff, you know.

I don't think about, for me, modal, when I'm playing a modal tune, like if we're playing like, you know, to me that's freedom that I don't have to put line up notes on the beat or whatever, that I can do these phrases, really musical phrases and the floating. Floating music phrases and the modality. makes allows me the freedom to take that to other places

even when if it's maybe not in the chord yeah but it's so strong the melody in modal modal situations that I can lean on these things they're not even necessarily in the scale you know and like that whole section there too really becomes

is this look at that amazing turn style beautiful beautiful watch my bourbon but that you know, leads like the way you're playing. Like basically, you're playing then in a modal style over a bunch of very standardy kind of two, five ones. And then when you get to the more open sections,

you know, where you've got longer time over those suss chords, it can become very melodically driven. But it can still extend into when you're playing over changes. So even if you're playing over a tune, like a typical standard tune that's not a modal tune, if you apply those same kind of techniques over those kind of standard changes it can be very interesting.

No, you can do this on having met Miss Jones, right? You can do... Oh, hello, man. Yeah. All that kind of stuff, man. Works great. No, and it's just a great thing to remember that playing modal...

I mean, although, look, until we started talking about this, we never actually said, hey, man, you want to play modal. But it is a thing, and it's a fun thing to talk about. It's mostly a fun thing to play or whatever, but it should never felt like you're restricted to certain tunes.

We're just using those as an example. But the fun is when you apply it in an interesting and innovative way to any tune. That's right. Or maybe something that you wrote. I mean, it just becomes part of your musical identity at a certain point. Right, right, right.

You got to get that in. You got to shed it, though, Alex. You got to practice it. Just as much as you're trying to line up the B-Up scale on the down-bue or whatever. Right. You know, practice getting, leaning into these different chord tones,

having the freedom to allow the melody to dictate where you want to go with this. Absolutely. Absolutely. And remember, space is the place. Space is the place. Take the cue from Miles. That's right.

Oh, and that's right. This is Alex. The space is the place guy. Yeah, yeah, Colorado. I don't think he's really from Colorado. Yeah, yeah. CBD. Thanks Alex for the question.

Yeah. If you have a question, hey Pete, let's say, for example, you had a question. If you wanted to send in that you'll hear a podcast, like, hey, when are we done with these things? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, where would you leave that, that, that, that, voice question. I would send it to outer space. Oh, okay. That was not going to get answered. Well, via the internet. And the portal to get there would be you'll hear it.com. That's right. You can go to you'll hear it.com. You can leave

a speak pipe. You can check out our blog. We have lots of cool musical blog posts up there where you've got some videos. You can... Two minute jazz. We are ladled with two minute jazz from all of our artists. Two into jazz is, it's the OG. It's the OG of our free content. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Two minutes to jazz mastery. No. Well, well, You're on your way, though. We also want to thank our sponsor SoundSlice. Go to SoundSlice.com slash transcribe.

Check out the world's best transcription tool. It's amazing. Go check it out. Also, we still have our offer for, you'll hear it listeners for Open Studio. A special offer for just this week. Bogo. Just a couple more days.

Well, you know about Bogo. I like to get on my Bogo stick and jump around town. Wait, weren't Bogo when I was a kid? It was two balls and they had like a cylinder and you remember that? Yeah. You put one, the top ball between your feet. What was it? No, it was a Bosu.

That's a bowsu Oh no That's for exercise The half sphere No no It's kind of like that But you used to jump

Pogo stick Pogo jump Pogo jump I'm gonna look it up Are you talking about a Pogo stick? It wasn't a stick It was like a Two balls

Two balls that were connected Vertically And then there was a sphere That went in the middle of it And that's where your feet would go So you were bouncing on one ball And your feet were holding I'm gonna send a link up

And you'll see it Okay well does that have anything To do with our offer? No but our offer is amazing It is amazing Tell them about it So $129 you get the jazz piano for beginners course and the elements of jazz piano. Lifetime access, $129.

It's over a $320 value. Check that out. And yeah, it's our beginner course, our in immediate course. They go hand in hand. And if you're a beginning pianist, very useful. If you're a bass player or a guitar player or drummer, you want to get better at jazz piano, perfect time to get this. We've heard from a lot of, you know, our members that are,

saxophone as singers or whatever. This is this jazz panel for beginners. They say really kind of unlock some doors to them. They'd been wanting to, you know, just didn't have access to a teacher or a time or whatever. Wanted to go through and sort of get some voicings and really learn their way on the instrument. Comp for yourself, record charts. This will help with that.

Yeah, it's very, uh, it's beginner, but it's very much based upon being able to hear, listen and imitate. I do a lot of that kind of stuff. Jump right. It's not heavy on the theory. It's got that. But it's mostly about just listening, imitating groove blues. Uh, the PM Blues.

It's kind of a classic. We're not going deep into the modal one-finger snap. We're keeping it simple with the blues. That's right. Yeah. Good old fashion. Check that out. Put them both in your card, I guess, is what happens.

Jazz panel for beginners and elements. Elements of jazz. Yeah, yeah. And then there'll be a place for like an offer code or something at the top of the checkout page. And you put B-O-G-O-G-B-O-G-B-O. All caps. Yep. Or all lower.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's not case-sensitive. That's not case sensitive. Just in case you were wondering, hey now. Yeah. So go check. Check out that offer and yeah, till tomorrow.

You'll hear it.