You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Phrasing... What the Hell Is It?

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

It's another SpeakPipe today as Peter and Adam define what people mean when they talk about phrasing. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own?Are you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.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, Peter. Hey. Are we in Nalans yet? We're almost in Nalans. Just walking down at the tempo of the city. Oh, with the skaters on the swamp. Skeeters. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to Goal Hear It. A podcast about listening to and playing music better. What? What? That's our new tagline. That's our new tagline. Say it again?

You approved it. A podcast about listening to and playing music better. Actually, I'm a little undersigned if it should be a podcast about listening and playing. playing music better. I like that. You like that? Okay, so get rid of the two. A podcast about listening and playing music better.

I like that because... Kama? Listening comma? I don't think it needs a comma. Okay. Are any grammatical wizards out there? Yes. Please let us know.

But I think a podcast about listening and playing music better, that really encapsulates what we're trying to do here. And I love the emphasis that puts on number one. Listen. That's right. That doesn't change. We might be going into a new decade, but we might be in a new decade, in fact. So I think it's important to note that these are our last batch in this musty, dank podcave.

This podcave served us well. If you go and listen to the very early non-pod cave, you'll hear it. We were like out in the wilderness. I'll just expose to the world out there. Man, it wasn't good. But we weren't very good either then. That's true. It was appropriate.

But we're graduating again, I feel like. Yeah, no, no. It's time to move on to brighter skies, greener. greeter pastors, greeter skies. You know what I'm trying to say. So these will be our last batch in the pod cave. See, Kranick and Bach. Oh, well, we may be moving.

I don't think we should, man. Let's just let it die. That thing looks heavy a F. We have a whole exciting new setup. Yes. A couple of keyboards, maybe. We got a couple key. Maybe they're sitting in there right now, aren't they?

We got to try about them. We don't know if they're up to the level of the you'll hear podcast commentators here, but we hope so. We're going to be upgrading. No more headphones. It's going to be a whole thing. Yeah, it's going to be nice. So today, though, we have a speak pipe.

Yeah, these are kind of holdovers because the speed pipe is officially closed now, right? It is. It's 2020. We've turned it off. Yeah, but we had so many great ones. We want to try to hit as many as we can. And this is from Neil. Hi, Peter. Hey, Adam.

My name is Neil. I'm from Kentucky. I just wanted to ask you guys about the word phrasing. A lot of my teachers in the past have sort of used it to talk about things like articulation dynamics. But I just wanted to hear

what you guys had to say about it. I feel like it's just used pretty much as a catch-all. And sometimes I don't really quite know the specifics when people are talking about phrasing. So I really appreciate the podcast. Thank you so much. That's a great question. That is. Yeah.

I don't know if we've dealt specifically with the word phrasing. Right. But I love to talk about it. I love to. Because what you say is important, but equally is important, if not more important, is how you say it. Yes. And to me that's what phrasing is. It's the how.

You know what? We're thinking alike you. This is why we're doing this. I was going to say the exact same thing. This is the how you do it. You have your vocabulary. But then how are you going to use those words? How are you going to put them together?

Even the same. And this is what me, to me, if you think about it like you play a phrase and then I play the exact same notes, same rhythm, same tempo, they should be different. Right. And that would be different phrasing. Unless I'm saying I'm trying to do my Adam Manus phrasing. Right. But if I go like,

do do do right you wouldn't do that you would do even cornea you didn't think that was possible I thought you were gonna like really stoop bo scoop bit leave well no but that's really getting into changing

the I don't know what that was that's really getting into changing the rhythms I think even if you're at the same tempo same rhythm you know I think you mentioned articulation dynamics those are like the building blocks of what phrasing are right there's like timbre there's the actual sound you get from your instrument

There's the attack of each of the individual knows. Yeah. And then there's like the kind of phrasing, you know, I learned a lot about this kind of studying classical music in like some of my teachers would talk about how are you going to phrase that theme or that phrase actually. You know, the phrasing of it is like the sculpting of it because they're not in the classroom because you're not deciding on the notes. So that's not an element of how it's phrased. But it's like, are you going to use legato? Are you going to use, you know, a crescendo and the things that aren't necessarily written in into the phrase.

but that are musical choices that we make. Now, are you considering tempo time to be part of this as well? Hmm. Because I'm thinking along when you mentioned classical, I think of like if I'm interpreting a melody. Yeah. It's pre-written, right? I don't want to change the notes too much.

Right. If at all. But I can phrase by displacing it, you know, over the bar or, I mean, I think of someone like, Georges Roberto, who would phrase things like so far behind. Yes. You know, basically, like, starting them, you know, a bar late and then just kind of, like, letting them end late. Yeah, yeah.

Like, that's phrasing to me. Or miles with a melody. Yeah, laying back. Yeah, I think certainly laying back or playing on top of the beat is certainly a part of phrasing. I think kind of the choice of what tempo you're playing in general maybe is not phrasing. Like, that's more of an overall thing, unless you're changing it as you go, maybe, right? Yeah, the overall tempo, yeah. that's not phrasing.

I'm just saying of an individual line. Like whatever the established kind of groove is, how are you placing that phrase in there? Like, is it phrasing to go as opposed to da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Or do you're changing up the rhythm now, bro. See, that's what I'm saying, but is that phrasing? That's, yeah, I don't know. Do you can see this, but this is the question?

Yeah. Well, let's talk about the stuff that we do know about phrasing. It's just so much better. You picked the one area that we really don't know, right? I just haven't thought about it. I think that's more just sort of improvisational choices, you know. But yes, of course it does contribute to the phrasing. I mean, it's interesting because we talk about a phrase, right?

Or a theme or a motif. Like, I think a motif as being a short phrase. But I'm always thinking about trying to think about music in phrasings. And in what else would you call it? What's another word for phrasing? Or I mean, just like a phrase. a theme themes yeah

yeah so look and that's not always four bar like a lot of times people look at music and say like oh there's a four bar phrase because it's written on one line absolutely it's not it's a complete musical idea right but then how you

phrase it phrase the phrase is about it's like your style really and especially with so yeah I mean if that's affecting how you stylize that theme that pre-written thing that I think it is a part of phrasing it's definitely the broadest level though that's all I want to know yeah I don't want to

I didn't want to get too deep into it. But I think, you know, so he mentioned his teachers talking about articulation, dynamics. I think those are kind of the real core components of phrasing things differently. Yeah. I mean, especially when you talk about improvisation, you know, when I think about also, well,

with improvisation, we can, you know, phrasing could be like the length of your phrases, you know, messing with that and trying to phrase things with expectations and then defying those expectations. You talked about that before. That's storytelling. Yeah. And I think, you know, when we talk about articulation and dynamics,

and it's very hard to separate those in a way because, you know, if we talk about playing a note with an accent within a phrase. So if it's like, bo-d-d-do-b-bap, you know, and po-du-badoop, put-bap, put-dap, like say an accent as opposed to an accent and a dot over it, like a short. I mean, where are those lines, that's a very blurred lines kind of type of situation. But those things in terms of the over-referral, structure of that phrase are super important.

Like that kind of, like, when they talk about bebop phrasing or like bebop style, a lot of people think it's based around these little harmonic and melodic tricks. It's not, I mean, that's a part of it. But I think it's really about like how you're placing the notes and phrasing them, what choices you're making about accenting. And that's not

on a metal level of the individual note. It appears that it is because there's an accent or it's short or it's legato or whatever. And when you're, especially like if you're a brass player, you're thinking about how do I attack that note. But in terms of how it manifests itself in music and in a complete musical thought, it's about what you're doing before and after that you get to that accent and how are you laying

it within the beat. And so I think that's when it's a more inclusive way of looking at phrasing and what it can do, you know, to your point about improvisation, how it can how it can sculpt our improvisational ideas just as much as are we going to alter the harmony. Are we going to play a long phrase? This is going to be short. But it's like the phrasing of it. And I would just encourage people don't get so much stuck up on how you're going to phrase one note. The same way we talk about voicing. It's like the good voicing depends on what the progression of it is. And I think phrasing is a progression of choices we make about articulation and dynamics and legato or not legato and I don't know what else. But I mean, how we play. They contributes to our style.

I'm glad you brought a bebop because that's such a strong phrasing culture. Yeah. The sound of bebop. It's like that's all about the phrasing. Yeah. I mean, it is about the notes that you're playing but if you could play those in a in a more modern with a more modern feel yeah those same lines yeah and it doesn't sound like bbop right or you could play that with that with those accents where they are with the feel and the swing from that era and it sounds like bop all of a sudden right right right the articulation that way so I think it makes a huge difference it's really neal I mean just to again answer your question directly like just think about it is how you play it not not what you play but how you play it and it's really you know we

talk about this like you can't learn to play by just gathering information yeah you know you can't just gather a bunch of information yeah you just have a stack of vocabulary and no don't know how to use it right so phrasing is best learned by uh number one oh listen listen that's right i mean that's because it's this is really the the dialect right like this is you you know the vocabulary but how do you say it how do you inflect the sentences to get your point across how do you become an eloquent speaker of a language and it's got to listen to people speaking it you know and to really get the nuances of how it sounds because, you know, music is a language, and the way we say those things is just as important as what we're saying. Yeah, and I was reading something about a concept that I

used to think about long ago, and it kind of drifted away, but it was this idea of, I love any time we talk about connecting language with music, because I really believe, you know, that music is a language and not just in the way of like, oh, music bridges cultures. No, I mean, it is a way of communicating. It has its rules and it's, and it's things that we break, and it's, and and we listen to it and there's different genres or dialects and all these things. But the idea was that certain music from different cultures around the world and at different times in the history of the world have been connected in a way to the native language of that place. In other words, there's certain languages and I'm not an expert on languages, a linguist at all. But I know that there's certain languages where, you know, different, you know, going up.

up and down and like when we finish with a question like that's not even a part of their language certain asian languages i believe that there's everything is kind of straight ahead whether it's a question or a statement you know and then there's others that at the other extreme like Portuguese especially from Brazil where there's you know the the cadence and the up and down of it is is exaggerated is such a beautiful part of the language but if you listen to music from these places people have found a connection in ways that you know are a lot deeper than just saying i'm going to play like i talk. But I think that, you know, especially as we move into this era where the world is so much smaller and we hear people speaking different languages and we're learning them and you can actually

hear somebody the way they speak in Japan, say, on YouTube or something for hours at an end and actually hear what that language sounds like and try to duplicate it. If you're willing to, number one, listen. It's the same thing with like jazz phrasing and stuff and bebop, but you have to know what to listen for. I mean, it's just like somebody could hand you, you know, this great model has these clothes and he looks so slick walk around New York and then all of a sudden you put it on and it's like wow I've got the same clothes but you don't have the style right you know you don't have the hat the right way or whatever and I think that's what you know we're talking about phrasing being how you play something it's how do you inflict your own style onto how you're going to play that

have you heard of this 7% 38% 55% rule of communication I know the 8020 rule which is a lot easier for me to add up but no so this is like uh it's being talked a lot about um about um basically about what we're talking about here so how people respond to what you say and i think this works well with music too nice um so seven percent uh like what what really matters right um so uh the importance of of content of what you're saying is only about uh important i'm trying to uh let's see trying to say this the right way. I'm trying to communicate this the right way. Yeah, I got you.

What you're saying is only 7% of communicating it. How you say it is 38%. Like that's more important by a measure of 38%. And then your body language, as you say, is 55%. Now, that's some data-driven numbers right there, oddly specific. I'm trying to get a better way of communicating this right now. I'm trying to get better body language so that it comes through. Now, it was a study by this scientist at UCLA in the 60s,

And it's being talked a lot about, especially from marketing perspective, of how we communicate things. But I think this is where phrasing is so crucial. It's something we probably don't practice enough if you're an intermediate player. It's like when you realize that you need to spend time learning how to say things. And then for me, the 55%, the body language, that's performance, right? That's being able to convey it to an audience, right? So if you think about how much work you do on trying to inquire that content, which is like 7%, you know, people think that's the most important thing.

as they are being communicated to, you're going about it a little bit wrong. You could do more with way less content if you know how to say it and then how to sell it. Right. That's great. I'm gonna start thinking about those percentages in my improv now.

I'm gonna try to nail that 38% especially, right? Yeah, 38%. So it's 7% are the word spoken. Yeah, so that's vocabulary. Yeah, right. These are the elements of personal communication. 38% are the voice or tone you use and 55% is body language.

Yeah. That's how people break it down. is the most important things and a bunch of scientific studies about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, this might be stretching even a little further, but if you think we were talking about it earlier,

we were listening to something really good pianists that we know, but the recording was kind of low quality. And at first we were like, but then we listened to what he's playing. He's like, wow, he actually sounds really good. Yeah. But the recording, maybe is that recording quality,

almost the 55% kind of thing? Yeah, the body language, the tone, the presentation, yeah, so. That's cool. Phrasing. We all have it, we all use it, and now we all understand it. But you can practice,

it, Neil, and you should practice it, make it as an important part of practicing as it is your scales. How you play the scales, it's just as important is what scales you're practicing. Yeah, and scales is a great time to kind of get a little bit meta with it and really practice, you know, like all the different elements on their own articulation, you know, staccato, legato, so you can have those, be able to pull them out at the right time and link them together into some effective frame. We've talked about it before. Like when I'm practicing scales, I'm practicing different dynamic levels. I'm practicing crescendos, de menuendo, staccato, legato.

you got to do it. Yeah, cool. All right. That's it for us. That is it for us. We have some surprises coming. Obviously, it's not a big surprise that we're moving into the new studio. That's going to be super exciting. But we've got a little thing coming up called B-Sides.

What do we got? I'm putting it out there. I'm putting it out there. Yeah, we're about to record it in a second here. And that's only going to be a... Are we going to have that on the podcast, Andrew, too? Yeah, I think it's going to be on the weekends. We're going to release it on the weekends.

Don't tell them when. Oh, sorry. I mean, weekdays. No, nighttime. It's going to be released sometime. But that's going to be a little fun, a little fun thing. So look out for that by popular request. No, that's not true.

Also not true. No, the B size. But that's especially going to be on the YouTube channel, the new YouTube channel. More on that tomorrow, though. Man, you're giving everything away. Well, you'll hear it.