You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Notes From Chick: How to Hear What You Play

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Peter and Adam answer a listener question on hearing what to play with a list of tips compiled by the great Chick Correa. Check out his list here: https://www.openstudionetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Chick-List.jpgToday's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Coltrane. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!The ending theme song for today's episode is "Sudden Inspiration" by Austin Morgan. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail] 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, Adam. What's up? Hump day. Dude, it's Monday. That's not Hump Day? No. I got to get this right. Yeah. I'm Adam Menace. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast.

Daily jazz advice coming at you. Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download. It's a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonius Mons. Monk, John Cage, and John Coltrane. Visit Oxfordamerican.org slash Y-H-I today.

That's Oxfordamerican.org-forward slash Y-H-I. You know what Y-H-I stands for? You'll hear it. Dang right. You know what I'm saying? We're so excited to have Oxford American as our very first sponsor of the podcast. Our charter sponsor. Couldn't have picked the HIPPER sponsor.

I know. I'm so excited about this. We're so excited. We know that some of our listeners know about Oxford American because it's a very hip audience that we have, a very literary audience. But we think that a lot of folks that may not know about this amazing resource. And it's just so artistic, so entertaining. The writing is amazing. Writing is amazing. So this is the winter. I think this is the latest edition. It's been sitting on my coffee table. And it has the wonderful Nina Simone, who we've spoken about several

times on the podcast. But the issue is about, you know, it's sort of a southern literary magazine. It's sort of its heritage, but it's about this is called the Southern music issue. And it's all about North Carolina. And much more, too. So it's got stuff about John Coltrane, Jodice, Oh, yeah. Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk. Yeah. And the writing is James Taylor, you know, about his time in Chapel Hill. It's just amazing magazine. And it's quarterly. We talk all about the history and the culture of jazz and its roots music and blues on this podcast. And this is some of the best writing anywhere on the history and culture of Southern American culture. And it's great. And you know what I love about it being quarterly is that they're not rushing out a copy every week or a podcast

every day. Exactly. This is actual quality unlike us. It's very, very high quality. This is to be savored, not to just be skipped over to the next day. Yeah. So welcome. Even the ads are killing in here. Oh, man. Come on, man. So welcome Oxford American. Check them out again, Oxfordamerican.org. And look, in this day and age, too, I mean, isn't it nice to like hold something physical? I know you can't hold the podcast, but this is like as close as you're going to get. You know, to have something, like I say, this is usually sitting on our coffee table, and I'll pick up and read. And the fact that it's quarterly is so great to be able to say, we're amazing, you know,

pictures, black and white color, this John Coltrane thing about High Point is just amazing. The graphics, everything. I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So today we're talking about how to hear what you play. Well, it's called Notes from Chick, how to hear what you play. This is kind of a dual episode because coincidentally, in the same week, I got to an email from a listener Austin

asking about how he could hear more of what he's playing when he improvises. And then one of our other listeners, Elias, uploaded to our private Facebook group for Open Studio members. Private or secret? It's secret. This really cool worksheet from Chick Korea

at Berkeley College of Music in 1985. And it has all these notes about basically how to hear what you play from Chick's perspective. So I thought we can kind of combine, like we can answer Austin email with Elias's worksheet from Chick. I like it. That way we don't have to do any work.

Next time you might want to mention that notes from Chick is Chick Korea a little earlier. I thought you was going to be like some old notes from chicks that you knew from back in the day or something. I'm scandalous. I burned all those on the wedding day. So let's check out Austin's email here. He says, hello, Peter. Hello, Adam. Thank you very much for your great podcast.

Well, you didn't have to say that. I didn't have to say that. You're welcome. It's really fun and very good source of information about jazz. I play double bass and I'm struggling with improvisation. My question is, how can I force myself to only play what I really hear? I know that number one will be listen. We have a listener here of the podcast.

Yes. But when I try to solo, my head seems to be empty and I play some random something. Hope I'll hear it, Michael, from Vienna. Nice. Oh, Vienna. Yeah. Austria. Good day. Oh, no. That's Australia. Sorry.

Oh, sorry. You know what? I confused Andrew's note here about the listener tune. The listener tune is from Austin. This note was from Michael. Apologies, Michael and Austin. That's all right. So Andrew fixed that, please, for me. Thank you. Now I'm confused. Don't worry about it. So anyway, this is from Michael in Vienna, and he wants to know about improvisation and only playing what you hear. Okay, first of all, Michael, danka. Danka shit? It's a great question, though. It is. And he's right. I mean, number one, one listen, but so he mentioned one thing in the question.

Well, he said that, you know, he feels like his head is empty and he's playing random. Is that what he said? His head is. Yeah. But you know what? I think that part of it is still a great goal to have. We don't want to be empty-headed knuckleheads necessarily. Yeah.

But we don't want to be filled with maybe many of the things that you think great improvisers' heads are filled with in the moment. Like we've talked about this before in terms of like, are we thinking about C-My or seven and using the Dorian scale and all this as we're creating. I don't think so. I think we're thinking about that when we're practicing. And just from a sort of philosophical conceptual standpoint, we want to approach it that it's okay to be kind of empty-headed sort of in the moment, more spiritual, more emotional, more

creative, you know, kind of space when you're improvising, both in terms of, certainly in terms of gigs, but in terms of that creative practice that we talk about to, that kind of performance practice. Exactly right. And sometimes the only way to fill your head with ideas is exactly what Michael alluded to, listen, right? You have to listen to a ton of music, Michael. You have to really absorb the language so that you can express it freely so that you're not having to think and put in, you know, random things, as you said. But I want to address this Chick-Korea at Berkeley worksheet.

I was going to say, can we steal some of his answers to answer this? So I think the first four points on his list here of what he said. says cheap but good advice for playing music in a group. Number one, he has, play only what you hear. So he kind of like preemptively 30 years before stole our number one. Listen. Exactly. Listen.

Chick is ahead of his time. Play only what you hear. His number two is. Wait, but let's just analyze that a little bit if we can't. Play only what you hear. Right. So now a lot of people say play what you hear. But he says play only what you.

That's a deep little statement there. It is deep. Well, check out his number two. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything. I like, he's getting a little. dogmatic back in the kind of mid-80s chikerea acoustic band

with a K I believe you know that's kind of a and then check out as number three don't let your fingers and limbs just wander place them intentionally right so good so good and number four don't improvise on endlessly place something

with intention develop it or not but then end take a break so all four of those are pretty intentional pretty dogmatic pretty specific you know they're not like you know but thinking about yourself prancing in a metal with flowers and then turn that into a Dorian scale. So one more for this, and I think we can analyze the entire list of five here, even though

it's a very long list, and like I said, we'll post the whole thing. But number five is leave space, hyphen, create space, intentionally create places where you don't play. That's kind of echoing on number two there a little bit, right? A little bit. But I think these five points, play only what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything. Don't let your fingers and limbs wander.

improvise endlessly, play something with intention, and leave space, create space in your playing. I mean, those five things can get you really, really far. Yeah. And can really, you know, put your playing in this like very concentrated zone. Yep. You know what I mean? Where you're not just blowing just a blow.

And I think the order of them is important too, at least in terms of these five. Play only what you hear is the first thing. So if you're going to follow that, and before you even move on to number two, you're not going to play anything. Like, if you're going to try this, you've got to actually try it. So play only what you hear.

That doesn't mean try to play what you hear, play what you hear, play only what you hear. So you got to be honest and like if you don't hear something, it's kind of like if you go to one of those churches, I don't want to get myself into trouble here because I don't know the exact terminology, but you know, the Holy Ghost type of church. Oh, yeah, yeah. Hardcore church where people are speaking in tongues and stuff. Yeah. Only speak in tongues if the Lord is moving you to speak in tongues.

You know what I mean? Don't get up there and just start imitating. what you hear around because then you're playing you're saying what other people are hearing. You got to play, he says, I mean, hey, you can follow someone else if you want, but Chickoria is pretty good. Yeah, I think he knows.

Play only what you hear. Keep it simple. Yeah. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything. That might even be a little bit more important because we can hear so much, but if you're really trying to listen to your to just be present and listen to what's coming out, and you don't hear anything, don't force it.

Don't just start running your hands, which is why don't let your fingers and limbs just wander, right? Because sometimes if we're not listening and we're just playing, just things, especially as pianists, man, just things. And double bassists too. They don't have to breathe either. So you can just play endlessly

and then go to old tropes without actually playing anything intentional. Yeah, and I mean, if you're following this, play only what you, even if you just follow number one, but also if you don't hear anything, don't play anything, don't let your fingers and limbs want, just wander. If you start to follow these, everybody, unless you're chikerea or somebody on his level,

you're going to be playing less than what you played yesterday. Totally true. So that's going to be your first thing. Like you will not be playing as much if you only play what you hear. Believe me, you think you've been playing what you hear. You had not been hearing that much. And that's a muscle, though, that needs to be worked, that ability to listen to yourself and play only what you hear. I think it's...

And it's kind of just like self-awareness, too, on a musical and creative level, I think. Yeah. And, hey, listen, Michael, you're not alone in this. I think everybody struggles with this. This is like, you know, Chick obviously thinks about this. Yeah. He probably does it more naturally now than anybody. but like.

But he got to that, I believe he got to that level by being disciplined about and like having an understanding. It wasn't just like random and somebody else came up with this and he was like, oh, well, that's pretty cool. Am I doing that already? You know, there's some intentionality there that it's manifested in these rules. Totally. Man, I love that.

I love that so much. Yeah. Thanks Elias for uploading that to the Facebook group. Thank you, Michael, for the question. Yeah. What else we got? I think that that's it for today. I mean, you know, we're always asking, we're not asking, we're begging for ratings and reviews.

But, you know, that's kind of a continual thing. So we'll just throw that out there wherever you're listening to this podcast. Drop us a little rating. And if you got another 20 seconds, I know you're busy. Yeah. Give us a review, seven star preferred. Six, accepted, five, unacceptable. That's right.

And remember for a limited time, you'll hear listeners can subscribe to the Oxford American for only $25. What? 25. Oxfordoridamerican.org. Yeah. Slash y-h-I to subscribe. And look, they got some great, you know, free content or just exploratory content. Go check them out.

And you don't have to subscribe today, but you do need to by tomorrow. But I think you'll be pleased and you'll be in the club with us here. And you'll have this wonderful thing in your hand. And you know what else we have going on today? What's that? We have another listener tune. Oh, yeah. To end the show.

So we've been doing this as a regular feature where we're asking you to send in, you know, a recording that you might want to be played at the end credits of the you'll hear it. credits. Like we're rolling like starring. It's not really a feature. This is more of a service that we're providing. I mean, we're hooking them up. They're hooking us up too. I don't know. Oh yeah. No, we've got music we can play. We can play it. Well, except for Keith's Jared. We're not allowed to do that. We want to hear what our, we want to hear what our listeners are doing musically. It's a win-win. It's a win-win. So this is from Austin Morgan and this is called Sudden Inspiration.