You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Peter & Adam Answer Your Practice Questions

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Peter and Adam take a look at some burning questions about how to improve a practice session.Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.

Hey, Peter. Hey. Uh, we're late. We are. So just go ahead and kick the intro. There we go. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice coming at you in several formats and several channels. Hey, listen. We're only 14 months into this thing. There's no. Well, today's unique, though. This is a unique episode. It's going to be a little bit of a recap.

And this is actually going to be fun because this is going to be a little bit of a Q&A and retrospective of. something that the actual you now this is getting meta now the actual episode's not going to come out until later so this is going to be a little bit of a teaser we're going back in time and we're going forward in time all the same time yeah yeah so we'll have an episode that gets dropped on thursday for our audio podcast that is an interview with the great ron carter yeah uh that just got premiered here on youtube and so now we're going to take questions a little q and a which we haven't done in a while always fun always fun so we have some good questions all right we have some good questions

ready about practice. Yes. So we love to talk about practice. We're talking about practice. We love to just say, we're talking about practice? And just to think about Alan Iverson, you know. So Musa says, how long do you practice or did you practice a day? How long a day? You know, it's one of those questions that has varied as life has hit us in different stages, Musa. I think I can speak for Peter with that. Yes. When I was younger. And I know this is true. When I was a young man. I really, some days, I didn't even put on pants. I just sat at the piano and played and played and played.

Okay, let's visualize that. That's not. Let's not. But you know what I'm saying? It's like when you're young, you don't have responsibilities. It's like you just play. I mean, I don't even count the hours. It was just play as much as possible.

And then go play at a club and then come home and play some more and then play, play, play, play, and listen, listen, you know? Yep. And now that, you know, we're Peter and I both have open the studio. and families and schools, kids in schools, and all this stuff, right? It's not as much as certainly then, but I know we both try to keep a somewhat regular routine. When I sit down to practice,

it's probably not gonna be for anything less than an hour at this point. Ooh, I like it, dogmatic. Well, yeah, just because like, if I sit down to the piano, I have a little time. You know what I mean? If I don't, it's probably because I have 15 minutes to like write a guy to practice session

for the Open Studio Pro, right? Yeah. But if not, it's like, I'm gonna sit down for an hour, I'm going to get some good technical work in. I'm going to get some good transcribing in possibly and just work on some new ideas that I'll have. Yeah. Well, and I think that, you know,

part of the benefit with having a little bit more experience with practice with your instrument is that you can kind of generally optimize, you know, what it is and how you're practicing so that you really should be able to fit what used to take four hours into, say, an hour or two hours. So just in terms of, like getting right to the stuff you need to work on.

And also being able to not necessarily skip over the more rudimentary things, but kind of review them a little bit more. So you can be a little bit more targeted with your practice. And I know for me, I don't really do any of those. I mean, occasionally I'll do those like six or eight hour days or almost just like you're playing all day and you kind of lose yourself in it. I think the times I do it is probably similar to you as like writing more like you're under the gun on an arranging or composition gig or.

whatever. I still will stumble across an idea, right? Like a new idea to me that I'll want to just take through the paces. And if I have a good four, five, six hour block, I can get lost in that for sure. Just taking it through different situations and tunes I know and keys and all that stuff, you know. What I am noticing is that I've gotten a lot more, a lot better self-awareness in terms of like what my output can be at different times of the day, you know, based on how I'm feeling, how did I rest and things like that. So I generally find now that I have like three to four hours a day of like very, very deep thinking or practicing or creating or just like getting something accomplished.

And then there's the rest of the day. I can certainly do things. But like those hours and it does vary a little bit. It's been more regular because I've been on a more regular schedule. But I find that if I can use those times at least two of those hours at the piano, I can get almost as much as my mind and physically I can get done. in a day. Whereas when I was younger, it was like I had to spend more time to kind of get that. So then if I do go beyond that three to four hours or if I use that all up at the piano,

which is great, but I have to do something else in terms of like writing an email or making a phone call that's really I need to be very focused on. I don't always have. It's almost like I've used up that day's very highest level kind of thinking and creativity. So it can still do some other things. So I've started to look at not all the time as being equal either. So that's why it's not always just about the amount of time. It's like, can you take that and look some people maybe can do more than three to four hours and there's some days that like i have two hours of that kind of level of thing but once we start to get in better touch with that i think we can look at really applying and a lot of times people be like i was really in a flow

state i was really super productive uber productive whatever hyper productive like there's all different ways to looking at it but that kind of next level um creativity or productivity can is you can't guarantee that's going to be there all day long can we share you want to share a little bit i would love to share with you that some of the coolest stuff that I've been working on, like, certain stuff. So, and then you can maybe, I'd love to hear some breakthroughs that you've had during the pandemic about, like, if there's any cool concepts or something that you've been practicing. Yeah.

So I've been working on this thing. It's based on like some, some, you know that Barry Harris? You know that thing? That's a little warm up. Sure. So this idea of approaching a diatonic tone from a diatonic tone above it or a half step below it, right? Those are your two options to approach it from either a half step below our target. So if we have a C major scale, you can approach the C from a half step below or a diatonic

tone above or a combination. And we've just been, we've been doing this at the daily got to practice session, but I've just been having so much fun working this through like in triads, using this to like do different intervals, you know, like thirds and six and five. And, fifths and just practice. Like, what happens is you start to, when you spend enough time just working on these beautiful little melodic devices. Yeah. When I've played a couple of, like, trio gigs lately, and my playing seems more melodic

than ever. Like, even though I'm showing examples here where it seems very rigid and like I'm going through... Like a robot. Yeah, like a robot going through patterns. It's not at all how I'm working through it. And it comes out in your playing, and it's very organic. I feel like I'm like Cole Porter, Lodagh.

on the piano like I'm just writing melodies it's amazing it's amazing oh that's great great yeah um well the only thing I'll throw out there it which is not as as interesting and specific as that that I have been coming back to I haven't been practicing it constantly but I keep coming back to it because it's sitting on my piano at home all the time is uh Scott Joplin rags yeah I've been like especially ones that I don't know as well uh or I haven't played in a while uh it's been very interesting to me because it's such a great, it hits a number of different things. One kind of nostalgia for me because that was like the first jazz I played in a way.

I had like the ragbook and when I was playing piano, when I was really young, I tried to play it and I could read music, but it's just too difficult. And then I kept coming back to it. But that kind of first actually pulled me into jazz. And then it's topical here because Scott Joplin lived, you know, a couple blocks from here

from Open Studio, obviously before we were around. But, you know, his persona and his music, his aura about him is always, I feel like kind of, in this neighborhood and rides high above St. Louis is just one of the masters that came out of this area. And also just great for sight reading. And it's just fun stuff to play. And it's a great kind of space to be in between like New Orleans and St. Louis blues and classical and opera and jazz.

There's so much to learn in those too. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been fun. So I've been having some fun with that. That's excellent. So there's some really great questions here. John has an OS Pro question.

John actually says I need an OS Pro infomercial. Happy to oblige, Joe. So what would be the minimum level of piano for OS Pro? Piano is not my main instrument. You plan on expanding it to other instruments like guitar. Yeah, actually, John, we do plan on expanding it quite a bit here. We're taking our time because we want it to be good, obviously. But you do need some minimal piano proficiency to be able to kind of like come hang in the daily guide of practice session.

But not as much as you might think. You don't have to be like a gigging musician. We have beginners in there, for sure. I was going to say, I mean, we've always shocked. away from saying beginner, intermediate, advanced, but I know that we have gotten a better idea about it. Wouldn't you say beginner to intermediate? I think so. A little bit more shaded towards intermediate? I think so. Yeah, there are definitely some more beginner players that are, I think, doing great and really advancing and learning and sort of dipping their toes in

that sort of intermediate, you know, I could almost go out and play a gig now, kind of waters. But yeah, don't feel like, I mean, I would say, John, if you know about music, like piano technique will be something that gets taken care of if you come and practice with us every day. Right, right. Because we do basic scales. Like, we do warm-ups on, like, much slower than that even.

You know what I mean? Like getting some chops together. Yeah, and I always think these, specifically OS Pro, but that the kind of level that it is at, if we say it's clearly an intermediate, does have value for some, probably not the most advanced pro player.

You know, you're Aaron Goldberg, your Robert Glasper, might not need to be in there, but you're more kind of going towards a advanced player. But back to the practice question, I always think that it's, and I've spent a lot of time doing this, and it's a big philosophy I got from my mom and dad

who are both musicians and teachers, is that you spend a lot of time practicing things that you can really handle well, that are somewhat basic, that will make you feel like the equivalent of lifting less bench pressing, less pounds, than you know you can do, but doing it with better technique.

That's right. So that's the whole thing of like, if you're practicing classical music, not playing the late Beethoven sonatas, even though you probably could kind of get through them, but to do the early ones where you can really master them. Like the more you err on the side of that, from a jazz standpoint,

learn a soul that's maybe simpler than you could learn. Absolutely. But that's where you're going to put the fun in fundamentals. Oh, boy, this guy. This is a really great question by J.R. Magnus. You sound like a Formula One driver. J.R. Magnus writing for Farhi.

That's right. That's right. I don't know why I said it like. Will substandards eventually only survive as pedagogical tools rather than be part of our actual repertoire? We hope so. We can't, we can't expect audiences to want to hear Autumn Lees for countless decades, can we? Well, I don't know about that, actually. First of all, if you take the terrible jam session versions of Autumn leaves out of your head, it's a pretty decent tune.

Hold on. I'm doing it. It's almost impossible. No, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. You know what? Listen to Keith Jarrett live at the Blue Note play it. And you'll like realize, holy smokes, that's a good song.

Like it's a solid song for sure. Or something like all the things you are, I really hope that doesn't go out of favor with audience because it's just absolutely brilliant and beautiful. You know, it gets to be tiresome to play the same tunes over and over again. If you're a bass player who has a weekly jam session gig and you have to do 100 choruses of autumn leaves. Yeah. But I don't think that those classic tunes, especially the tunes now that every single, are learning to learn the music,

I think they'll probably be around for a while, you know, like maybe those top 20, like Great American Songbook standards. But I don't know, you know, it's hard to say. It's like saying, will Beethoven's Fifth be around for a while, even though it's like totally overplayed in American orchestras. You know what? I rarely do this, but I'm going to disagree with you, Mr. Maness there.

Do it, please. I mean, Adam, I would never disagree with Mr. Manus, your father. I agree with everything he says. But the reason I would say is, it's not like the Beethoven fifth is because, well, maybe a little, like based upon performances, but those notes are already down. The Beethoven fifth is what it is. So that, yes, you are dependent upon performances.

But whether or not it goes in and out of style is going to be more, I think it's going to be more of like a meritocracy of what people want to hear and if it continues to resonate with people. Whereas autumn leaves, ultimately, the way that we consume it as jazz musicians, as lovers of jazz music is really about what the performances are. So, yeah, if it's only crappy versions at crappy jam sessions, then no one's going to hear. But that's not necessarily Autumn Leaves' fault.

It's more pliable. It's in the hands of the musicians. So it's up to like if great musicians and really good players and even just average and above players want to play these tunes, they're going to sound good on it. And people can be like, I like hearing that. And they're going to want to continue to hear that because the meritocracy is going to happen based upon just the general listeners what they're being presented with.

So if the good players want to play the tunes, they're going to survive. If they don't, no one's going to have a chance to hear it. If only the lesser players, but normally your less advanced players are going to kind of be looking up to the more advanced players anyway for those things.

That's true. But then sometimes things can just sort of fall off for other reasons, not because they're not good or because people don't like to playoff just because they just like accidental go out of fashion or just no one's talked about them for a while, through no fault of the tune's own.

Robert has a good question that I think we could probably answer simultaneously. You ready? Yes. Which pianist have each of you transcribed and drawn from the most? Here we go. Okay. Three, two, one. McCormick-Hencock.

Oh, yeah, Herbie Harkin. Okay. Well, we are a finely tuned machine here. You'll hear it. Wow. Oh, we went off again. Are you serious? No, we didn't.

Oh. Now we're back on. We're back. See, if this red button stays on, I know we're good. You know what? I think with this system, though, it's sort of seamless. They're going to be like, what are they talking about? We thought we lost you guys.

They wouldn't know. All right, that was funny because maybe that was the internet God's coming to conspiring, I guess, is because we didn't say the same. So you said, okay, let's talk about this. You said, Herbie Hack, wait, was the question who we had, what was the exact question? Who had we transcribed and drawn the most inspiration? Okay, maybe that's where we got confused because. that's sort of two different things possibly. Maybe, yeah, yeah.

Because I was just trying to. I would say those are both of our top twos, though, actually. I know, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I was like, wait, is he thinking Winton Kelly? Because we, but we haven't transcribed him maybe the most, but that one solo. We don't do a lot of Herbie Hancock transcriptions, actually. No, but I'm saying Winton Kelly, we've drawn so much from that one particular solo in a way.

Off of K-O-B. K-O-B? Yeah. FFF from K-O-B. But yeah, McCoy, Tyner, I mean, Of course, Herbie's a huge inspiration. Although, I got to tell you, right now, Sir Ron Carter is a huge inspiration to me personally. I'm just saying, I'm just putting it out there.

But that's the great thing about this music and the personalities. And somebody, I think it was Chris said something early or that I just wanted to touch on with that earlier question about social media that I thought was so smart. And look, this is great. We're getting so many cool comments that I may not be able to find it. But I'm going to paraphrase him or her in case it was somebody else. And it was basically like the thing they love about social. social media is the ability as they're like as fans of this music is the ability to directly connect with artists and with musicians and to hear from that whether that's music or ideas or

what you had for breakfast or whatever and that's totally that's that's such a big thing I know for me things that I'm a fan on which like our music it's it's not like oh I'm only one who presents on social media I'm looking at Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper and like this stuff is exciting to me even if I know them personally it's still fun I'm not getting a chance to talk to him every day. It's fun. I mean, I could like call Robert Glasper probably and get him on the phone and be like, hey, man, give me one of your rants.

Come on, quick. And he'll do it like one day, maybe even the second day. But if a while, he's going to be like, you know, check my Instagram. You know what? I hate when jazz YouTubers call me up and ask me for a rant just to get them some views. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, so that is fun.

And then just other people like in the, you know, plant-based nutrition and endurance space. I don't know if you know, I watch the ritual podcast. I'm a big fan. But, I mean, I also like to see his, you've heard. You've heard. But I like to see his runs every day Or his bikes or swims on Strava Like I can see where he went in California

And his really cool pictures and stuff And so I think you know The social media YouTube all this stuff When it's in the hands of somebody like Ron Carter And Ron is like has his phone in his house And it's like hello I'm right I mean what I mean he didn't get any cool in that

That was the stuff when we were kids geeking out Listening to My Funny Valentine It would have been awesome Yeah that's what I wanted you know I know I know Cool well thanks everybody It's been a minute since we've done a Q&A

That's right fun yeah we might do some more of these although i do miss the cavalcade of comments the carous that's not what you call it early oh that's what you call it early the crappy cabalcade but you know what you're only saying it's crappy because you fixate on like the point oh oh 1% of negative comments i fixate on the negative you do you do i'm not saying i don't either you want to noodle around a little bit on that for a no go ahead and talk while i while i play no but you really fixate i do though come on you're i never you're i never call it a cavalcade of cool until they started talking about me exactly exactly i think just i get more

negative no when it comes from me it comes hard everybody loves peter come on that's that is not you the guy on the right the guy on the right they don't like if they know me by name as you if they know you by name they love us if they're just like randomly drifting by on the youtube algorithm you know who knows all right well this was a fun podcast so look everybody tune in on this thursday to the podcast here Leave us a rating review if you get a chance that helps spread the word. But tune out on Thursday for the full audio version. You can check it out early on YouTube if you want to. But on the audio pod will be Thursday, Mr. Ron Carter, our conversation,

how was that story about Miles Davis? Does it get any better than that? No, this is good as good as gets. So, don't shade yet complimenting Miles at the same time. So until next episode, you'll hear it.