You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Our Favorite Soloing Hacks That Actually Work - #8

Episode Date: February 7, 2018

Here's some tips for improving your soloing. Spoiler alert - you just have to listen. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Anus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today, we're going to talk about our favorite soloing hacks that actually work. And you're not talking about musicians who are hacks who solo. Well, we might get into that, but we're going to talk about like some hacks within the solo first. So I guess we're talking about ways to play a good soul that people will stand up and cheer for at the end. And some kind of hacks is like a shortcut, right?

I don't know anything about that, but I'll do what I can. Okay, sounds good. Okay, the first one, we always like to start simple and we like to start effective, and that is to listen. So a lot of times we get to our solo, our time to shine, and for some reason we think we don't have to listen to what's happening around us, and we just want to jump into everything that we know. A lot of times that doesn't lead to the most effective solo. If you listen to what's happening around you, there's a lot of great ideas there. So sometimes you might think you have a great place to start your solo, but, but, you listen to what's happening around you, there's a lot of great ideas there. So sometimes you might think you have a great place to start your solo,

but actually it doesn't sound that good, or even if it was potentially going to sound good, it's going to come out contrive because you've been planning it and you've been having it sitting in your back pocket since the beginning of the night. So what I like to do is a lot of times is just start my solo, give a little bit of silence, which a lot of times is kind of what the tune needs anyway, and just wait for something to happen with the bass player, the drummer, at the room, a door close, or something to give me an idea to kind of,

of start my solo. I also like that because it kind of gives me some confidence then to say I can take anything that happens and turn into something good and it forces me to start that storytelling kind of process. So, but the foundation of that is just listen. So at the beginning of your solo, the hack is don't play anything, listen. That might be for two beats, might be for two bars, might be for eight bars, but just listen a little bit and then let the magic happen. Yeah, I mean, you can even take that one step further and practice, you know, on the gig on the jam session, you know, saying, I'm just gonna listen to the snare drum

for this first chorus and just react to that. And that doesn't mean copying everything that the snare drum plays, but being reactive to what the drummer is playing just with his or her left hand. That's a great way to get into your solo. I like you. That brings us to our second point,

which is to develop your solo like a story. Now, every good story has a beginning, a middle, a climax, and a resolution. And we wanna develop that tension and resolution, and resolution in our solo as well. So, you know, make sure you don't start your solo out with the tension. You know, you want to start by setting it up, by creating an atmosphere. I mean, somewhat what you just talked about.

And then as you get into the solo, you know, you can even time out. Like, I know I'm going to take two choruses. So by the end of the first chorus, I know I'm going to start sort of the development, some dissonance, maybe some tension, and that way I can release it before the solo is over and have a nice resolution. And actually, endings are just as important, if not more important, in the beginnings. Because, you know, let's be honest, most people just remember the beginnings of the solo and the ending is solo. Just like a story.

Just like a story. Just like a story. Just, you know, how it ends is crucial. And, you know, I always find that if I'm stuck trying to think of a clever way to end, or if I'm in front of an audience that I think might not be with me all the way, if I end my solo with the melody just by playing the head, it always works. It almost always gets great applause and people are right there with me and they've enjoyed it and it lands, you know. Absolutely, like a Hollywood ending. Right.

We've started with the melody and we're going to end this with the melody and you're going to like it. You are going to like it, that's right. Good. Okay, another hack I like to use is to start your solo with a real simple, swinging, rhythmic phrase. So this does not have to be anything crazy harmonically, and it really doesn't have to be crazy. It just needs to be swinging. It needs to be simple. And it's basically, you know, you're starting your story, but it's like a way of bringing the audience in to you, giving them something they can really hold on to that sounds good. And knowing that you've got plenty of time to develop your solo later. So the great example of that is Winton Kelly on Freddie Freeloader at the beginning of the solo.

So really, just the first phrase is very simple little question and answer, hard swinging, not like bang your head, you know, with a skillet kind of swinging, but swinging, rhythmic, and simple. So it's like, you know, you're setting yourself up really for success to kind of further develop. You're firmly establishing your place within the groove with something that's nice and simple. And so, you know, we can always do that.

One, two, three, four. So if I start there over a blues, just think of all the things I can do now. So it's really, you just made the whole process of playing a solo easier for yourself, and you've invited the audience in, and you're playing something that sounds good. Well, it's so funny, because this was exactly my next point,

is use as little information as possible. And I don't mean don't play a lot, although you probably shouldn't play too much, but just what Peter just did there, he did the same rhythmic phrase two or three or four times and then answered it with a different one. So you didn't actually have to think about what rhythm you were going to play

for most of that chorus, because you'd already established that, and just do it again. And not only just the beginning, but as you develop your solo, you know, try to use as little information as possible. Try to get as much as you can out of one little idea and really milk that. Not only is that going to save you bandwidth as you're going about it and you're not having to think too much or overthink it or try to constantly come up with something, you know,

crazy, creative or flashy, but you just naturally sort of develop a great solo. When you take one little nugget of information and you start revolving around that, it becomes melodic. It becomes, it builds. It tells a story naturally. Yeah, and I think using as little information as possible is so crucial.

And some of you might be saying, but wait a second, what about John Coltrane on Giant Steps? That's a great solo, and there's a lot of information. But if you think about the tempo and how quickly the chords are moving, he's actually using, in some ways,

the minimum amount of information to tell his story. He is. So he's outlining the chords there. But it could be like, there's a lot more that could be happening that wouldn't give it the simplicity and beauty that that solo has. Well, and he will also reference back to, you know,

phrases that he played earlier in the solo all the time on that solo. I mean, yeah, da-da-da-does that like three or four times and it really starts to land. And, you know, that just saves him some band-list. of having to, you know, create something out of thin air, use what you already have. Yeah, plus most of us, including most of you listening right now, 99.999% of you are not John Coltrane anyway. Wait, I'm not. Wait, I'm not. Yeah, that's good. Okay, another hack that is

very important for, for soloing. It definitely works is to start your solo and to end your solo somewhere, okay? Now, Adam, you referenced this earlier in terms of telling your story for sure, but just always think about that not only because yeah that's what the listener is going to most likely remember but that's also the easiest way to give your solo some form now you notice

that I said start somewhere and end somewhere I didn't say start somewhere and end at the same place that's kind of the bookends technique to solo thing that's a great thing but that's not the only way to do it just think about where you're starting and where you're ending and you don't have to and you don't have to and you shouldn't plan that

out when you plan your soul, when you start your solo, because you don't know where you're going to end. That's part of the beauty. You don't want to know, and you don't want the audience to know, and you don't want it to sound contrive. But just know that you are going to end somewhere. And, you know, pianists, we're like a lot of times really guilty of this where we solo, we solo, solo, and then we just stop. Yeah. And we haven't really ended anywhere. We've ended, but we didn't end somewhere. And then we wonder why people don't clap for our solos. You know, a trumpet player, solo solos, at least they have to end somewhere because they take the horn out of the mouth and they walk off the stage. Yeah, that's not fair. They get to actually leave the room.

Right, and they might not have really ended anywhere melodically to tell you the truth. Well, and so we're going to end here with one last tip, and this is primarily for pianists, but I think... Pianist, whoo, woo, the idea can be applied to instruments, and that's really to switch up your tone. You know, as pianists, when it comes to single note lines, we really don't have the luxury of expression that, say, a trumpet player or a tenor-saxophone player has with one note. They can really. really shape those notes to be expressive in all kinds of ways. And we really just have this hammer hitting a string that we have to deal with.

But we do have other things that we can use to express ourselves as we play. And I think what we typically get in the habit of is just trying to become a typewriter and just, you know, just laying on these thick, you know, these thick eighth-note lines and this very rhythmic thing, you know, those, that's great. And that's one effect. But don't forget, we're playing a polyphonic instrument, and it's okay to do a half a chorus or a whole chorus of a solo or a whole solo

just with chords. Just to break it up. I mean, that's something that a trumpet player can't do, and that's something that really shows off the value of the instrument we're playing. So don't forget pianists, you know, use the polyphony of the piano. If you don't have voicings together in your right hand,

you know, four and five note voicings that you can pull out as you solo, you know, make sure to get those together. Those are going to be very valuable as far as just breaking up the monotony of, you know, we want to be able to throw in some harmonic soloing techniques as well. So make sure you have that together. That's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear a Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to openstudio network.com