You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - No More Getting Lost

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Adam and Peter talk about how to find yourself in tunes where the form gets tricky. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey Adam. Yo. We're trying something new today. What are we trying? Well, you're Adam Manus. And you're Peter Martin. Right. But we're coming to you from the future.

Did you know that? Did? I'm still very confused. I feel like Martin McFly in 195. Absolutely. Well, it's not that far in the future or the past. But we have a great episode today. And you know why I know that.

Why? Because we've already recorded it. Yeah, yeah. Normally we're doing our repartee, our witty banter during this segment in anticipation of a great episode. But we're actually recording this. I'm so glad we got rid of that. that. That's right.

Because people have been begging us, well, they'd neither been begging us to continue it nor to stop it. No, this was really fun. We got a nice speak pipe from Jeff all about keeping your place in a form, in the ABA form. And I think for folks, if you struggle with where am I at the form, which we all have, I think we've got some good tips. I think we kind of knocked it out of the park on a couple of them. One of them, we did knock it out of the park.

That'll be fun to listen to, too. But two out of the three tips we gave, I think were really solid. And keep an ear out for a couple of jokes that did not land. If you're a fan of that, stay tuned. I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to The You'll Hear It Podcast. Two pianists talking about music.

Talking about music today, Peter, we're taking a speak pipe from Jeff all about keeping your place in the form, which is fun. But how are you doing other than that? I'm doing good. How art thou, as they say in the old country? That's good. A lot of Christmas gigs, man. I know. Oh, my gosh.

Are we doing one tonight? We are doing one tonight with our dear friend, Brian Owens. Big shout to Brian Owens. Big shout out. Adam. Brian. Owens. Christmas?

Are you kidding me? Right here. St. Louis. Come on. Scott Joplin. No, Brian. That joke will not land, but it's a land on about four people. But Brian's a great soul singer, and he's been doing this Soul of the Season concert for a few years now.

Yeah. And it's a really fun show. A lot of great special guests. So we're going to be out there. Peter and I both playing. Christine Brewer. I have trouble saying that name. I'm not going to lie.

Brewer. Amazing soprano. Yeah, amazing. I mean, just, you know, the fact that she is local for us. Yeah, a couple of wine-ins are in the house. Some of the wines, they are not local, but they are, yeah. It's going to be fun. And, you know, to tell you the truth, I am not a fan of, there he goes.

I'm not a fan of jazz. Feedback. No, I'm, I can't say that I'm not a fan of Christmas programming. I'm not a fan of Christmas programming in November, which, which, which, as, you know, It's often the case, you know. But now, you know, we're into December. I'm fine with it. It's the season.

It's hard. They're only like 20 songs, like max 20 songs. I feel like pre- Thanksgiving, it's a little aggressive. It's very aggressive. Yeah, and it just kind of spoils it. If it's Christmas is all the time, then it's no time. Exactly, exactly. You can't be special.

Are you guys listening at the Hallmark Channel out there? Let's get that together. Yeah, let's not slag off the Hallmark Channel because they are the greatest. No, it's Christmas all year around. It's all year around. It's all year round, Christmas in July, which is charitably building houses. for underserved folks. I'm down with that.

I hate that. I don't like that at all. I don't like that. But we will remind folks that if you'd like to leave us a question, one of the most technologically astute ways to deliver it. Right. Don't mail it to the North Pole. Don't do that.

Go to speakpipe. No, don't go to that. Go to you'll hear it.com and click on the speak pipe button. Speak pipe button. It's actually it says leave a message. But yeah. Oh, it does. Click on that button.

And you could be like Jeff here who had a really specific and very good question about keeping the form. Was it oddly specific or just very specifically? Evenly specific. Evenly specific. Here's Jeff. Let's go. Hey guys, Jeff here from Portland, Oregon. I have a question about keeping your place in a song form that ends with the same section that it begins with.

So like most commonly like an A-A-B-A form. I've been finding that I have the most fun and I feel the most free when I'm playing on a tune that is, different from beginning to end because once you've internalized the form, you kind of always know where you are. But when I'm playing on a tune with an A-A-B-A form, I find that I have to sort of keep my brain engaged in just thinking about the form, which kind of gets in the way of being free and just kind of letting stuff happen. And yeah, it's kind of been like ruining the experience of those playing on those tunes for me because my brain is too involved almost in just trying to make sure I don't go to the B section early or miss going to the B section.

Oh, we've all done it. So, yeah, I was wondering if you guys have any tips or tricks on kind of keeping your place without thinking about it too much. Thanks. Yeah, no one gets out of life without at least one time or two times or 20 times going to the B section at the wrong time or not. going to it as it were. Right. Brains are the worst.

Humans are great. It's the brains that really screw us out. Okay. So I would say that there are some ways to navigate this, and I can definitely relate, because I do remember the days. I mean, not to say that it couldn't happen tonight, or it probably will happen again, but I remember the days when what Jeff is describing in terms of that anxiety, that sort of omnipresent, like, wait, is this, which A is this? that rolling three A's in a row.

But that's the first thing. Like you got to mentally or not even just intellectually separate those three A's. Don't think about them as three A's in a row, even though as they roll together they are. You've got to have some sort of demarcation of the end of the form. It doesn't mean you have to play like that. You can certainly play and you should play over the bar line and all the things to tell your story in an interesting way. But you've got to internalize that form as its own thing. So like what Jeff is saying, he's like on other tunes that are,

like, you know, double forms or basically something that's not repeating in terms of A at the beginning and A at the end, you know, he's able to just enjoy it. So the way to get to that is to really internalize any little difference in that last A, because most of these tunes, there's something different. Now, they might be the same as the second A. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that's going into the bridge. But that's enough separation, at least from the first. So what happens is sometimes the chord changes. And look, I mean, if we're talking about rhythm changes, that's sort of your prototypical ABA form, right? So it's like the melodies often are a little bit different.

So when you're soloing, you got to be hearing that melody. Like that's your reference point to pull you into the form and where you are. And there's nothing wrong with thinking about, okay, I'm coming to the top of the tune. I'm coming, you know, and yes, of course, we don't want to be thinking about that. And eventually you won't. You'll know the form so good. But until you get there, you've got to really open your ears up, zone in on But you don't have to do that the whole tune just as you get into that last day.

Like so what one thing that you can do is think about as you're coming out of the bridge, it's like, I'm at the A section, but it's not time to kind of slide around and be having fun. And then when you get to the top, you're like, wait, did I already do this once or I'm on my third? I'm the worst. Yeah. So kind of clue yourself in. As you're coming out of that bridge, going to the last A, like, hey, I'm on the A self. Hello, self-awareness.

Let's really hear this. And then when you get to the end, even if you're not playing this in your solo, like kind of hear some, finality to it and then reset yourself at the top of the form so that you're not thinking about which a am i on you're at the top so you've only got two to worry about that's right a couple of things to keep in that's all really great stuff a couple things to keep in mind too about this jeff most wait where are we in the podcast now i'm lost no that's this is a second a second a okay almost to you looked over real nerve almost to actually this might be the bridge like i'm the bridge and you go back to the air see i'm focusing in now exactly no so a couple of things to to contemplate as you

think about this, Jeff. So the songs that are most likely to be A-A-B-A are from a certain era, and the last A section is different from the first A section, and the way that you would phrase in that certain era. Is it always, though? Not always. The last A is often different from the first day. Like you said, the second A in the last day, usually the same. But that's where I was going to go next is a couple of things with that. You'll hear great players from the era that these songs were most often written and played in, they will always mark the end of the form with some kind of break.

And we're lucky, Peter, because we get to play with really great bass players and drummers who are also helping to mark, like it's very clear, usually, with the people we play with, we're at the new chorus, because it is different starting the new chorus. But another way you can think about this

is that the first two A sections, I like to think about it sometimes as one thing. And then the B section and last A section as another thing. So it's almost like a double form. It's almost like a double form. Like you have A, B, A. Especially if those sections are the same number of bars, which they often are.

They often are. But they kind of serve two functions. And you can actually hear this, Jeff, in great soloists, the way they naturally, I don't think they're planning this out, but intuitively, they will use sort of this, the A-A as a way to sort of set up a theme, and they'll use the B-A as a way to, I mean, it's storytelling. Right? So you do like this character development, right? this character

introduction, introduction, and then the B and A is exposition and resolution. Yeah. Right? So you'll do the exposition on the B section. Thelonius Munt talked about this. The B section, the inside makes the outside sound good, right?

So that B section is where you sort of start swirling some tension. And then you can resolve it on that last A and sort of punctuate it by the end of that last A section. A lot of the A sections on standard 32 bar ABABA tunes are designed to punctuate by the end of it. And then you'll often hear a lot of solos. I mean, if you're going to take a rhythm section and we start at the B section, right? We're swirling.

We're doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Just creating tension, right? That's what that B section is for. And then some kind of big thing on that, even if you're on the first chorus, reset. And then you're resetting, right? So you can do, like, even if the rhythm section

doesn't do a break for you, you can think about it as a break. Yeah. Right? You have this, again, introduction of, your theme on the A and the A and introduction and maybe, what is it, capitulation? Yeah, recapitulation. Recapitulation.

And then you have your sort of character exposition, you're sort of swirling in the B section, and then you kind of wrap it up in the B. And then you can turn that into its own form once you cycle it over and over through it. But that, to me, like kind of breaking it up into those two stories is where it's at. Yeah, that's great. That's great. I think if you, you know, as you start to use these sorts of techniques to navigate and to, you know, give you a little bit of a different lens on how you hear and sort of see and feel the form, the next level of involvement for you needs to be some confidence with this. And a little bit of this is some kind of fake it until you make it.

And by that I mean, instead of using the energy or at least trying to get to this point, instead of using your energy to be like, wait, where am I, this all sounds the same, is to just listen to yourself and be like, where does it feel like I am? And am I actually comfortable without knowing where I am. Feeling it is so part of it. And then just kind of going for it. I mean, look, this is not, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You're going to go to the bridge early or you're going to go to the bridge late. Yeah.

But it's happened to all of us. And then at least if you're kind of confidently listening to the moment, you'll hear when you go. Exactly. If your ears are open, you'll know what's going on. Yeah. And now if you're playing solo piano, that's another thing. you could, but then you can just be like, oh, I'm rearranging it, so it's fine. And you can rely on the melody here too, Jeff.

Your melody is helpful. A lot of these songs were written with the melody wrapping it up nicely at the end of the second A section so that you can go to the bridge. But I would bet for Jeff and for a lot of folks that when you think you're not sure where you are, that there's a better than 50% chance that you actually, whatever you kind of intuitively go to is where you are actually in the form. Totally. And with more experience, but also with more, you know, intentionality in terms of your focus and being like, I'm going to tell the story as opposed to worry about where I am in the form, then I'm going to let the chips kind of fall where they may.

Yeah. Like that can accelerate that process a little bit, but you've got to be willing to walk out on that ledge. Because if you don't, you won't really be able to develop that confidence to do it. Because, like, now I know, like, for most of these students, if I know them, I'm not at 100% accuracy, but I might be at 98 or 99% in terms of I don't have to think about the form. And if I'm lost, that I can just kind of go to where,

like listen for a second. Okay, that's where I'm at. Without having to worry about this. And definitely not the A things, being in a row. Like, that just doesn't really happen to me anymore. But it did. So that's what I'm saying.

Like, this is definitely something, it's not like you have to be born with it. You need to work your way through it. Oh, sorry. I just went to the B section a little quickly. Oh, that was a joke. Sorry. Yeah, let me know.

Okay. I'm not a fan of jokes. No, I got you. I got you. That was good. But that's a great, thank you, Jeff,

for the question and definitely something that I think everybody on different levels and in sort of the spectrum of where we are at with this struggles with this, but just know that there is

a solution at hand. So, trod your way towards it. It gets better, too. Like, the more experience you have with it, the sort of easier is, like you said,

to feel you right through it. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for today. Until next time. You'll hear it.