You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Navigating Ambiguous Harmony

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Peter and Adam take some questions from listeners about navigating some ambiguous harmony in tunes and how to hone your gospel chops. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. You're going to need to be quick today. We got rapid fire questions. Really? Okay, I'm ready. Yeah. Are you sure?

Yeah. You don't look ready. What's this? It's rapid fire. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. We have fun here. Oh, you slow down now.

This is the You'll hear it podcast. Um, music advice coming at you. Come on, quickly. You catch me off guard. I know. We go at all speeds here. We do. We go mostly just at a nice medium clip.

But I got to let people know. A little medium swing, a little straight ahead. That's right. Yeah. You kind of threw me off there a little bit, though, because right before we record this, I said, why don't we go rapid fire on because we have three speak pipes we want to get through today. We do. And you know, usually... And you said, no, let's not, because I really want to dig into these. And then we started and you're all rapid fire. You're throwing me off. Well, I want to just make sure that we're on our toes because we do have three really good speak pipes. We get speak pipes. These are actually just voicemails. You can go to you'll hear at dot com and you can leave us your question.

Don't minimize the speak pipe system, sir. I would never. I would never. We got denigrate it. We got three really good ones this week, and I wanted to hit all three of them right in a row. Yeah. And I think one of them is going to take up some time, and it's this first one from Rodrigo. Let's check it out. Hello, Peter and Adam. I'm a big fan of the show. So, well, I want to make contact with you to share with you guys something I have in my mind

that maybe you can address in one of your podcast is about. How do professional musicians or professional just musicians conceptualize and think about the chords in functional harmony? For example, in the Q of C measure, you have the C measure A minor and E minor, and these are kind of related in many ways. They are related courts. And when you start playing with upper structures and 9s and 11s, and even further, if you start playing ruthless voices,

it's not so clear when you are playing a one or a six or a three or between the two and the four or the five or the seven or even the two and the five. So to what extent to professional decisions like consider being the one and the six, for example, something different in their minds like how to conceptualize? How do they conceptualize about it? Like it's something different or they look. I did something broader, like a big broader unit of resolution, for example. So this, or in which context do you think in one way or another? Thank you, Rodrigo. Super thoughtful question. And it's actually something that I've been thinking about a lot.

I've been working on a short with this idea of these related chords. So maybe we can break down what I think Rodrigo is saying and what he's the issue that he might be running. into. And it's something that's very common in, you know, sort of classical music theory, and it's something that I love to think about. So what he's talking about here, he's talking about these sort of families of chords. If we're in C major, you know, you have C major, A minor, and E minor, right? Either side of C major, you know, if we skip a step in the C major scale of chords, the diatonic scale of chords, right? And I think what Rodrigo is saying is how do you think about

those because they can seem interchangeable. C major, if you're in the key of C, C major in A minor, the relative minor, and E minor, right? They both can be used in, all three of those can be used in the similar situation. So obviously C will be your tonic, but sometimes, you know,

you can go to the relative minor as a replacement to the tonic. Obviously C would be your tonic in something like a 1, 6, 25. What's the first thing we usually do? 3, 6, 2, 5, and it's functioning in a very similar way. It's called the mediant chord and then that A minor is called the relative minor. Median.

Median. Median. So if we take a voicing, like our classic six-note C major, 13 voicing, right? E, A, D, so what voicing? Put a C in it. Right? Put an E in it. You got an E minor 11.

Put an A in it. Got this sort of like Suss chord, this G over A, but it is certainly related. to C major. So there's that. And then we have chords that are related. And A minor is, all of these chords, by the way, they switch between all of these families. So let's now move on to like a family of like D, F, and A.

It's called chord switching. Cod switching. Cod switching. Exactly. So let's say you have a cadence going back to the tonic, four, five, one. Classic. Right?

So this penultimate before the ultimate chord is G, right? the pre-penultimate or the subdominant is that f right now you the f can be replaced and naturally is replaced by everything from d minor to five one to a minor they're all used those three chords d minor f major and a minor are used in a similar way and in fact again if you took say um we'll do this voicing here the similar voicing can actually be used I mean, you would change it a little bit, maybe for the A minor, but it's all very similar the way you would use some of these chords. So are you thinking about that, and maybe you just answered this with that last demonstration, of ones that are related in terms of like the chord or the harmony stays the same, and you're moving around to different roots to find things. Like you said, the four, the six or the two, even with this basic triad here, that all works.

but all you're doing is switching the roots, which actually changes the quality of course. It kind of all works, right? It kind of like, I mean, if you were to do, obviously, this voicing, like a D minor, 9, and switch the roots, you would probably want to get rid of the F to make it an A minor, but that's moving one note. Right. You know, so even if you were thinking triads, too, you're just moving one note between those three chords. And so it's really one voice that's changing. One note is changing between each one of those, right?

And so they are very similar. Now, I think the answer that Rodrigo that you're looking at is it's a yes-both situation. So sometimes we are not thinking about these as families, but you'll often see in practical terms, we substitute these chords pretty interchangeably. Like C and E minor gets substituted in functional harmony all the time because of how closely they're related. C and A minor can also be not just substituted, but used in conjunction with each other. So if we were to do...

Conjunction function, what's your function. We were to do conjunction junction, but not, and we did time after time instead, right? We got C minor to G7. We could also put that A minor in as part of the progression, right? That A minor is not necessarily leading us to a D minor, right? It's more just part of that C minor. So when it becomes an actual six dominant, what is that? That's just leading more...

That's a secondary dominant going to D minor. Right, but in terms of like the field, does it have a... tighter connection or is it just a different connection between where you're going, which would be the two? It has a, it is attached, it tonicizes the two chord. So it's attached to that two and less attached to the C. Whereas if it's an A minor, the six minor is more attached to where it's coming from. Yeah, I agree. In that context. So, and I think that that, that idea of what does that sound like, what does that feel like is kind of the most important things with this, like how you can, um, contrast these not so much like oh let's go through all the way with one certain

way but like what are the little things that we can change that will affect how it feels in terms of how we're gonna actually use these absolutely and I like to like break these down and just triads or three-note chords sometimes to really get a feel for like what is it and then you hear that it you feel it you hear it it's like yeah it is more attached like you haven't really changed much you don't change anything yeah you know if you're if you're putting taking it dominant. Yeah.

But where does that want to lead? It wants to lead there. And then another version of this family is going down from C. Or using the medians around A, right? So C major, A minor, and F. Again, each one of those, we're just changing one note of the triad at a time. Right? One note changes.

But if we take like, and this is the magic voicing system, if you take a C pentatonic chord, all notes made up of the C pentatonic scale, The first thing I do with students is say play a C, right? Play an A. Play an F. So you have C, 6, 9, you have A minor 7, and then you have F major 7. That voicing can be used on all three of those, right?

That voice can also be used with C over E. So now you have this whole mediant, you know, these relationships that are a third away from each other diatonically. Yeah. That are really closely related. So Rodrigo, I don't think it's anything. that, especially if you're just starting out on your harmonic journey, it's not anything that you really need to be super hyper-focused on, but you will start noticing similarities between

C and E-minor, C-major and A-minor, F and D-Miner, G and E-minor, G and B half-diminished, of course, like those things are related, and there are cadential examples of E-minor to G. It works almost the same way that C, and A minor work as a relationship, right? Again, because one note is changing. And of course, G to the B have diminished is tightly related as a G7 sound. Yeah. Great.

Yeah. Fantastic. That's our first one. The only thing I want to just throw into there is something I've never thought about before, but I always think theory, like understanding after you hear something for a long time or kind of understand it on more of an intuitive level, it's equally valuable to kind of theorize with it, I think, after the fact. But like, there's, I'm always interested in triads and how they show up in different places

in this music because I feel like it's always, it's the opportunity to lean into that, to lean away from it, but just knowing that that's like going to be an obvious thing. Like if somebody is seven foot tall and they walk into a room, there's no point of them putting their head down. You know what I mean? Like you can either stand up tall, whatever, but that's going to be a seven footer. So it's like, how do you use that for the, you know, and that's what kind of triads are. And so when you look at that C going up to E minor down to A minor, that's a triad.

Yeah. Right? And so like that root relationship of possible movements that you would do are going to be based on that. Because when you get into stuff like you, I don't know if you did that to the three. Not with the major. I'm keeping everything in white keys. Right. But that would be the thing that changes even when you leave diatonic.

But that triad down there stays the same. Exactly. And there's a lot of examples of that. And when you kind of clue into that, it's not like, oh, you have to do it this way. But it's like, oh, I recognize how that sounds. Let me use that at the right time. I'm so glad you brought this up. Because if we look at, again, if we're in the QC, if we look at the seventh degree B, that half-diminished sound.

And we look at the notes around it, G and D. And then even if we go up to F, those triads, F, D minor, B half-diminished, and G, put a G in the bottom of all those. they're all this dominant sound that jazz musicians use, those upper structures, by borrowing against that in that. And those are all just notes of a G-dominant chord as like the root, but the triad based on those,

because they're so built off of these upper structures, it's the same thing with C, C-major triad. Yep, right? If we go up to C-Mager, E-minor, and G-major triads, and keep that root. Again, those relationships hold intact is all part of the C major nine chord. It's basically all three chords stacked on top of each other.

Good stuff, good stuff. And again, this is not like crucial, like you need to know this to be able to play jazz at all. But it is something that, especially if you play piano more and more, you start to be like, oh, I see. Like these sort of third relationships in a key are very closely related and can be borrowed against each other to kind of create tension.

So that it is kind of hard to tell if it's an E minor or a C major 7 or if it's a G major over C or a C major 9, like those things can be like, oh, what is that? You know, pay attention to the root, pay attention to the upper structures and you should be able to get it. Good stuff. Yep. Here's John with a question on gospel piano. Okay.

Hello, Peter and Adam. This is John from California. I would love if you guys could share all the tips and tricks and hacks you guys have for gospel piano, whatever you can share to help us get more of that gospel flavor, the gospel sound and are playing. I think you guys have touched on it before in the past bit, but if you could dedicate a whole episode to that, that would be awesome. We can't.

I love the podcast. Thanks a lot. We can't dedicate in a whole episode to that, John, because we feel underqualified. We are certainly underqualified. So Peter and I are definitely not gospel pianists. It's a very specific style, and it's a whole school of it. It's actually very, like, it's a robust scene that we don't see a lot, because I don't go to church every Sunday with, We're not against church. We don't attend, but we're not against it.

But like, I would say, John, go to church if you want to hear a great gospel pianist. And go to one with a really, like, ask around about the band. Don't ask around. I mean, a lot of times it goes good with a good preacher or minister. I played a funeral service, the first Baptist Church of Chesterfield with Denise Times, wonderful vocalists here in St. Louis a few weeks ago. And the organist, I never heard her name before or heard her play. And I was like, we are, this is like one of the best musicians I've ever heard in San Francisco. Louis. Yeah.

Just unbelievable scene of incredible musicians in probably your local churches. So go to church, check it out. And, of course, like tons of recordings from very, very modern stuff to a lot older stuff will suit you a lot better, I think, than any tips or hacks that we've gleaned from them. That's right. So in that spirit, let's talk about a few hacks on how to play gospel. You got it. No, you have some great two-minute jazz videos.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. It's because there's so much crossover between gospel and jazz. Like you're going to. Totally. Nina Simone, Billy Taylor. Bobby Timmons.

I mean, Oscar Peterson. Up to like Corey Henry, Robert Glasper. Like, you're going to hear. Absolutely. Cyrus Chestnut.

Like, you're going to hear gospel influences and a lot of modern players too. Yeah. And I think learning some of the, you know, like this, like Monen, learning some of the gospely,

the preacher. you know, Joe Zavinal. I mean, if you want to learn gospel, go to Austria, is what we're saying. That's how you're doing. No, but learning the gospel music and what has become, I mean, look, gospel's actually a bunch of, you know, it's like contemporary Christian, real,

I mean, it's such a bastardized term in a way. It's a horrible, like, you know, you know our rant against labels in general, and this is definitely one of them. It's been around for so long that there's so many different. But I love a tune like Monon, because that, I think, is what people are asking about. That's sort of what I'm super interested.

is like how do you clue in on the gospel infusions into jazz? You know what I mean? Without, because I never have believed in like, oh, and like I totally believe like, go to a gospel church to hear great music. Go to church with a great gospel, with a great band. Let's not even label it because you're going to hear some of the best music around. 100%. 100%.

But in terms of like how do we apply that, I think that you can get that from some of these tunes. You don't have to feel like, oh, it has to be authentic this. It has to be, you know, authentic gospel. It has to be authentic Cuban song groove or whatever. It's like, no, like jazz is the place where not always, but oftentimes these different elements come in as influences. And so like that kind of a tune like moaning is going to give you a lot of that. I mean, some of it's obvious and basic, but it's all in kind of how you do.

It's the style of it. So you can be like, oh yeah, well, gospel is four to one. Well, yeah, but how do you do it? So it's like, are you going to, because a lot of people like, is it minor or major? is both, right? And when you hear also, it's like, if you want to really learn from great church musicians, look at how they listen and react in the moment.

100%. Because it's a different, like great jazz musicians listen and react in the moment. We do that as well, but they do it in a very acute way. You might take notes on how they're learning this music as well. Yeah. They're learning the music via, you know, transmission from musician to musician mostly.

They don't get caught up in the secondary dominance, but they play them. know them and they play them, but it's being thrown at them from a very early age. And it's a great lesson on using your ears to find your way. Yeah. And then check out the way that the gospel stuff, especially for the keyboard players and guitarists and stuff, use triads. Because that's like, you know, at the most basic level. Like how do they go through and you can explore with different things? How those are moved around, the diatonic thing. And then, you know, talk about hacks. I'm going to be a hack on this. But like, how do we get from one to four? We talked about

the first question different you know places going dietylating from one to six to one to three or whatever you've got a really cool video that i think hits on some great gospel kind of fundamental uh concepts in just one minute that the what's the one where you're like how are you going to get there the transitions one i don't remember yeah no all of my like harmonic warm up videos yeah are definitely uh applicable to you know really it's just classic voice leading yeah and it works both in sort of like classical, even baroque music, but also in a gospel context. Because it's just voices moving. It's something that humans have been dealing with since we started singing.

Yeah, and you can think about a lot of times, especially in blues situations, we're trying to get from one to four. So you go from one to four, you don't have to go anywhere else, but you can go up to the three, but make that a stray dominant and then go to the four. I want to also. or flat 13. And sometimes, you know, when people talk about jazz piano, they give us a shout out here at Open Studio,

which I'm always grateful for. I want to give a shout out to pretty simple music on YouTube. There's a ton of great gospel pianist, YouTubers who are much more knowledgeable about this than us. And actually, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, check out pretty simple music. Yeah, for sure. Great videos.

Yeah. And then, like a lot of stuff we were saying from the first question, and is interesting to look at how in the gospel situation, they're going in the same place to say the one to the six or the one to the three how do they get there so you get so that's just like one one over five and then it's not really the mood core like we've been playing around with but it's definitely over the third one hundred and it's voice leading man some of the best voice leading in the world is happening and a lot of times they're they're already playing the next card so that's a seven yeah yeah yeah and then you're going to d minor but they're already playing the d minor and then they're picking out just like with everything it's like picking out out those, that voice leading that really defines the movement of the harmony. I will say too, if you're really going on a deep dive on any new form of music to you, hitting repertoire can be very, very handy to like learning the classic repertoire of whatever

that is, whatever style you're trying to learn. It can teach you a lot of lessons about how to play the music. Yeah, and all that stuff was like out of time, which is an important part of that, but then you've got, I did a video on the... Kirk Feinther. And that you can check out is really about the rhythm. It's also going these same places in a little bit different ways. G flat major to B flat minor, one to three. Is that right?

Yeah, exactly. But you can check out the way, you know, the rhythmic patterns are set up. There's a lot of kind of overlap with, you know, so-called lab music, jazz, whatever, that you can hear in there. Great stuff. Yeah, thanks, John. One more. Wrap it. Come on.

Here we go. Hi, Peter and Adam. It's, this is where we're, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's my pleasure to meet you. Like this, my name is Ivan. I'm 35 years old from Belgrade, Serbia. It's Eastern European country. I'm proficient in guitar, learning double bass, and learning alto sax.

My question is, how I actually find the instrument for right, which instrument is right for me? And there is different sounds, different interesting things I like, and I'm, I like. and I wish to be more focused on one thing than in three other things, you know. So how I can do that and how I choose that and which advice you will give me if you were in my position. So I hope you will see you soon or actually hear you soon. Sorry, I can't see. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. You're far away.

but I will be watching your podcast as I always do so. Cool. Thank you once more for the great advice, great stories and great lessons. Your guys are great. Thanks. Love you. Bye.

Love you too, buddy. This might be our first Serbian voicemail. I think we've ever gotten. It could be. It could be. Ivan from Belgrade. And we're very familiar. My lovely wife, Heather, is of Serbian heritage.

And my son's name is Ivan. I did know that. of that Serbian heritage. Oh, there you go. And then Serbia, of course, the great Nikola Jokic, the NBA All-Star champion known as the Joker. That's right. Due to his complicated sounding name.

Sure, sure, of course, hails from Serbia. So shout out Serbia. I actually got a chance to play two times in Belgrade and had a great time. Great musicians there, great jazz players, one of the kind of strongholds of strong European players. Absolutely. So, Ivan, there's no easy answer to this, obviously, because we don't know you super well.

Oh, what was the question? I forgot now. He was so glowing about us. I got lost in that. I know, I know. No, he plays about three different instruments. Oh, right. And is wondering to know, like, how do I choose?

Which one should I choose? I mean, my first instinct here, Ivan, is to follow your heart. Like, what are you naturally spending more time in? And if it's all three, if you keep getting pulled, you might be a generalist. And there's nothing wrong with being a generalist. There are a lot of great musicians who are incredibly impactful, who play many different instruments. Yeah. And maybe none of them are as mastered as Keith Jarrett is.

playing the piano, but don't forget, Heath Jared also recorded on drums and saxophone. We got Warren Wolf over here playing drums and bass. A lot of musicians who are phenomenal on one instrument do not just stick with that one instrument. And in fact, playing several instruments can help with your overall musicianship. So I would be very careful to say, just stick with one instrument and focus on that one instrument. I would say follow your heart in the moment. If you feel like playing guitar, play guitar. If you feel like playing saxophone, stick with it because that's where you're really going to make some progress.

Absolutely. I think. I totally agree. And I think this is definitely not cookie cutter, one size fits all. I think some people, you know, need to just play one instrument, like in order to sort of maximize their service output, if you would call it. Because like always remember, sometimes you can get lost in these things and it can be a little bit of a paralysis by analysis because it's like,

how many shall we be playing? What's the best way to get there? And I think, you know, the concept of action versus just being in motion, which I believe came, I'm not sure where it originated, but I know it's in atomic habits. James Clear talks about this a lot. But it's the idea of like, you know, sometimes we can be in motion doing things, but we're not actually affecting the result that we're trying to do at all. So like this would be an example would be like, which I don't think Ivan has, but it would be kind of like, I'm not sure which instrument I should play. like what are my hands best suited for? I'm going to do some reading and some research on the best instrument.

So like there's always preparation we need to do, but that's not the actual like taking action upon learning the instrument. That's preparing to prepare. Right. And so when we look at like playing three instruments, well, is that in the service of you've got something to say that's edifying to yourself and hopefully to other people and you can best do it through three different instruments at different times

that absolutely do that? Maybe you're just curious. Yeah. I learned a ton of different instruments, you know, just at least the basics of them, just because I was curious, like, how does that work? Right. How could I do that? You know, I bought a mandolin once just because I was like, how do I do that?

Right. But I think that if you think about the motion versus action in terms of multiple instruments, like can you actually play all the instruments? I'm not talking about it. Are you the greatest? No, it's not about that. But can you express yourself? Can you tell your story on those three instruments?

Because some people will like pick up an instrument and never, they just are going through the motions. Right. Right. Like you've got to get to that place where you've not mastered the instrument, but mastered the basics. Like, can you play some scales? Can you get around? Do you know what the strings are? Don't dabble in a bunch of things, but really look at it as taking action on those. And three, I mean, people have done more. Nicholas Payton is playing like a lot of instruments. It's ridiculous. Yeah. But he's really good at a lot of instruments. Exactly. Yeah. And you don't have to be as good as Nicholas is on any of those instruments.

but the idea is like you, I would say the barometer is like, can you express yourself on an instrument? And I don't mean, like for me, I can pick up a guitar and somebody might think I'm expressing myself, but I know it would be in a very putrid way. You know, I can like place, but I'm not. So if I'm going to start playing it, like I'm going to get at least to a level of proficiency where I can play. I'm never going to be able to probably play it like I can play this. That's fine. But, you know, I'm just going through the motions if I just continue like I am now.

That's why I don't play it. Man, I feel like learning multiple instruments is a great way to round out your musical education. The piano is awesome, and it's definitely my primary instrument, but I don't think I would have as enjoyable of a musical life had I not learned drums when I was in high school and saxophone when I was in middle school and guitar when I was a kid. That's helped with like writing songs, you know. Drums has helped with everything. And then just recently just working on my voice, like I've thought more about. pitch than I've ever have in my life. And what is in tune and trying to hear that more than, because we're playing little buttons here that are always magically kind of in tune. You know what I

mean? Yeah. And so those exercises, even like you said, even if you don't become world class or like Nicholas Peyton, you can play everything so beautifully. Like just the act of that, it helps you rethink how you're phrasing, how you're performing on your primary instrument. And everybody's, look, the voice is for everybody that has a voice is at a minimum, your secondary instrument for everybody. So like that's already one like so when people say only play one instrument it's like no you can always so it's just about you know taking that action. Same with the drums that everybody's moving everybody's in space everybody's in time. Everyone's a dancer everyone's a brain surgeon. We're all just singers and drummers with different

boxes put on us really. We're all psychiatrists. Anyone is qualified to do that. This was really fun. We got it we got it going. We got it rapid. None of it was rapid until now. Pop-pop-pop. Ever heard of it? Until next time. You'll hear it.