You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Playing Fast - S3E35

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

Peter and Adam give some quick tips on playing fast.The ending theme song for today's episode is "405 at 6" by Jonas Aras. 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, Peter. You're ready for this episode? Let's go. Let's go. I'm Adam Mness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you a little fast this morning. That's right. That's right. Why is that morning? It's well. It is not morning.

For most of these folks, it's morning. Oh, that's true. We get told a lot. You know, did you know fun fact about you'll hear it? We'll do a little quiz. Okay. All right? Yeah. Fun facts. What time does you'll hear a drop every day? Oh, I know that. What? 3 a.m.

What time zone? Central Standard Time zone. CST. Yeah, CST. I don't know. The best. Yeah. Is that right, Andrew?

3 a.m. Central time. So, yeah. So if you want to get up early and join us, don't bother. It's the same thing you get. If you listen at 8 or at 10, it doesn't make a difference. I mean, unless you're in India or somewhere like that, then it's going to drop in the middle of the day. Indiana or India? India, like in the middle of your work day.

Ever noticed, you know, I always think different cities or countries that are seemingly unrelated but have similar names, like Indiana and India? I have no idea what this has to do with playing fast. but keep going, man. I'm just going to talk about stuff that's so uninteresting that we're going to fast want to get to the subject today. Well, let's do it then. Okay. Let's get on with it. Playing fast.

We get asked about this way too much. That's right. Way too much. Yeah. But, you know, it's an important part of it. It's so easy, though. Just do what you do slow or just speed it up. That's easy for Peter Martin to say.

No, but it's like I'm always like, you know, one of my sons is being in the track and field and cross country. And I'm always telling them, I'm like, this is the easiest sport ever. Like, there's no strategy involved except go faster. Go faster. It's not like, okay, I'm going to. Start slow and then I'm a trick. I guess there's a little. You're a runner.

You know that it's a lot more than that. Well, but basically whoever finishes first wins. Isn't that the concept of a race? That God is not like that in jazz. No, that's right. Often people who finish first have bad time. That's right.

Time is everything. Just like our jokes. Yeah, yeah. The solo's, your solo is not a race. You know, it's not all about playing fast. Exactly.

It's impressive, but it's not everything. No, but I think, yeah. So I think that if you, from a conceptual, standpoint, it would behoove us to think about players that have great technique in terms of

velocity, but that are really tasteful. And like, how do they, and this could be any instrument, really. Yeah. Like, how do they pull that off where you're not like, oh, it's just chops, but it's where it's really dazzling, but it's integrated in with the music. So I'm thinking artatum, certainly comes to mind, but Clifford Brown. Yep. Charlie Parker. Definitely. You know, who else? Chickoria. Chikorea. Chiquillo, absolutely. You know. Yeah. Korea. Yeah, and I think it's part of being an overall rounded player is to have like a fast, a fast gear. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Greg Hutchinson at the drums. I mean, it can play incredibly fast, but he's not a one-trick pony in terms of that as being part of his technique.

You know, the key is, I think our friend of the podcast, Christian McBride, said it best, which is he's good at that too, is the idea comes first. Yeah. You know, so if you have a good idea about playing fast, that's okay. But if you don't have an idea and you're just playing fast, play fast, don't worry about it. Well, I think,

you know, a lot of people, and, you know, to an extent, this, you can get away with doing this, but you think you can play more pedestrian or mundane things when you're playing fast

and get away with it. And you kind of can, but it's not to be advised. I mean, the best is to play the same level that you'd have to play at that, that mid-temple swing. If we're talking about swinging fast, but really for any kind of a groove,

the best is to be able to speed up the things that you can do as opposed to just kind of running through pedestrian type of phrases. So to me, there's a couple of different ways we can approach this episode and how to talk about it. Well, speed it up, buddy.

Speed it up. We could. No, we could talk about ways to practice playing fast. Okay. And we could talk about concepts of, you know, playing fast in your solos. Yes. And how to achieve that.

Like when to do it, how to do it, how much is too much, how fast is too fast. Okay, so I think the number one thing for playing fast is listen. No. actually. Oh. No.

See, you're just like on autopilot. Yeah, no, I'm not even. You're like a lemming going over the end. Are we recording, Andrew? No.

I think the, well, I mean, yeah, of course, listen, but in this case, I would say relax.

Oh, yeah. Remember Ruben Rogers when he was here, we were recording some of our coursework. He, we talked about that and he,

he has a great concept on breathing and being relaxed. And I think. You ever see students who do this when they start to play fast? Yeah. They just tense up. And you can feel

attention. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So look, easier said than done, but like anything,

you got to get it in your mind and kind of commit to it intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. Okay, I don't want to overstate it. Well, no,

no, no. But you want to commit to it. It's true. And a great way to practice this is to practice in half time. Yes, absolutely. It's the best way I feel

when I'm, when I'm practicing, really playing fast, practicing in halftime is the way to go. Can you give an example of what I'm talking about here? So instead of going, don, don't, don't you go,

don't you go, don't you go, And with the fast, it's too fast. That's too fast, see? There's something about it when we're thinking about the quarter note is da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It tends to not relax us. Right. But when I'm thinking about the quarter note is

dun-mm-dh-dh-dab-da-da-da. And then even if I'm playing a tune sometimes that's like like with a group, right? Yeah. I'll think of it as like, one, two, three, there. Just, yeah. You even got a relaxed snake face there for a second. It just puts on this, you know what I mean? It like slows everything down.

Yeah. Makes my, seems to make my lines more cohesive, seems to make me less frantic. That's, that's probably the biggest pro tip you're going to hear today. I would say folks, and it's a great reminder for me and for all of us is that.

And look, I've seen a lot of great players do that exact same thing. Christian McBride. I've seen him, his foot is like tapping. And at first you're like, wow, he's tapping on one and three.

That's supposed to be a no-no. But when you can swing, the no-no becomes a yes, yes. I like to double everything up. We're double-timing. The no, no tap tap becomes the yes-yes. Swingsway. Exactly.

No, but I mean that really, and so we talked about mindset, and now I think what you are manifesting physically with the relaxed stank face is that that's taking the mindset and actually relaxing and using it in your body. So if you're saying, okay, we're going to play fast, but we're just speeding everything up we do. We're playing with the same precision, the same kind of relaxed thing that we can do. Even if you can't physically play fast, the entry point, you'll be able to start to speed everything.

That takes time. But you can get into the mindset and then be actively relaxed by only playing things that you're comfortable. So for instance, let's say that you can't really, you know, like if we're going to do while I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the Indonesia. Yeah. So actually, actually, some stuff I wanted to play at the end, I didn't make it. But I kept the time going.

But if you aren't comfortable doing so, if you're like, but you want to jump into that faster playing so it's like, what was the double time? You're like, so maybe like one, two, one, two, three, four. You know, just stay within your zone, but be relaxed, be in the time, you know, as much as you can, and just play simple little things. Like, I'm not even going, like shifting. I'm just playing over the D minor. Yeah.

Because you're getting used to being relaxed in that tempo. And then eventually, you know, you'll start to add. So crucial. And I think it's an important thing is to feel that, that sensation of being. relaxed at those faster, quote-unquote, frantic tempos, right? Exactly. The more you can be in that zone of being just calm and relaxed and still be going that fast, the more comfortable you're going to get.

Another couple of ways to practice playing fast that I think are valid are, and I do this a lot, is to practice playing free and fast, right? So not putting a time value on the notes, but just letting your fingers fly. I think this is a lot of value, just feeling yourself playing, at a fast speed, it's out of time, but trying to get the notes that you are playing, the durations as even as possible, to get an even technical, you know, from a technical...

Should we give a little example? Well, you know, so like if you're... Go ahead. So like, you know, whatever it is. I'm playing a lot there, but I'm really trying to just get... The sound as even as possible and just let it fly. I mean, and that'll start coming out in gigs in a very cool way where you can just kind of let it go.

We talked about it on the ballad playing, especially. Yeah. It can be very useful. But for me, sometimes you just have to like wake up your hands, let them fly and just play fast. That's great. I think that combined with the starting simple, like those are actually the two main elements. I mean, look, there's all the other things that you're, we're developing musically are going to go into it too. Yeah.

But these two specific ways of practicing plus the mindset will probably be the quickest way to improving, you know, on an everyday basis you're fast playing. it's like you're actually getting your fingers to play fast and you can probably do that faster than you can do it in time at first anyway. But you also need to start feeling being relaxed in the temple so that you can play and be able to execute things in the groove in a way, you know, the same way that you're doing it when it's when it's at the medium temple. Right. And that's the most important way I think.

Another way you can do at Herbie Hancock talked about this in his autobiography. I think it was Donald Byrd that told him. He was young and having a hard time at faster tempo, especially on like rhythm changes. And I think he was told to write out a chorus and memorize it and be able to play it fast just so you could hear yourself play fast. Wow. You can do that. That's great. And he did.

And he said it totally worked. Like once he kind of believed that he had that in him, he could start improvising. So that's another strategy you might think of. Yeah. I mean, I think you could take that. I love that. It could also be like a simple solo maybe that you learned that you just, you know, speed it up slowly. Because that's the thing.

Once you get the mindset and relax and it really feeling, they go, bing, ding, ding, ding, ding. Because there's the whole bar when it gets really fast. Or like we were doing one and three. I mean, you can feel the two and four, too, but it's harder when it gets faster. But then it just, once you can feel that and you've got the mindset going, then whatever you're doing,

so that's like the beat. And then the next day, you do a little bit faster. Yeah. And then maybe depending on how much time you have to practice, this is a week. And then you go up four beat, you know, Four clicks. Yeah. And you commit to that, whatever the, you know, Cherokee, night in Tunisia, I mean, blues,

it can be anything. Then it's just a matter of slowly pushing it up. And then what you'll see is like your creativity and your sort of mindset, everything will be able to, it's almost like, you know, you're lifting weights and you just add in a couple pounds every few days. Yeah. You know, you're not trying to, trying to double your weight in a week or anything. But after a couple months, all of a sudden, you'll start to have some breakthroughs.

That's totally cool. Let's get back to what we were kind of talking about. You were kind of talking about playing what you know, like being relaxed at faster tempos. So let's talk about some things that, like some strategies when you're playing fast with other people of playing fast solo or whatever. I think as pianists, and this is not just

at faster tempos, but in general, we forget to breathe sometimes. It becomes a typewriter. You know what I mean? I am a very fast robot out of control. But I think something that I know pro players, I feel like, have a grasp on that maybe intermediate folks don't

is that there's a lot of music to be had by not playing eighth notes, eighth notes, eighth notes. You know what I mean? Like, don't forget about your melodies. Don't forget about rhythmic stuff. Can be so effective. Rest. You know, doing these over-the-bar things

at fast tempo. First of all, you can't be a typewriter for three straight minutes at those kind of tempos anyway. Like, no one really, maybe our tame can. You know what I'm saying? It's got to be musical anyway. It's got to be musical anyway.

You got to save some of it. So if you want to rip off some of those lines later, you can do it. You know what I'm saying? Well, plus, if you think you can't play fast, well, play a line and then take a break. Now, maybe during the line, you're not playing well. But during your rest, you're playing great. You're playing really well fast. Just like any other solo architecture, right?

Like, we need to have start in general in my personal experience. It sounds good to start with shorter phrases. Well, I mean, it's just like you might go here at opera singer and be like, she was horrible. Except when she wasn't singing, she sounded okay. Right? You know. Strategy 1 musical career, bro.

But then really that does be too to when you enter and when you exit, that's always important in swing or any kind of groove-based music because that's your biggest chance to like, you know, really be in the time or to set yourself up to play something in a time. So when you're playing fast, like having those rests and knowing when to come in is crucial, you know. And you're a thing of that can really delineate where the time is in a way that just kind of the typewriter thing doesn't necessarily, even if you're very precise, you know.

Yeah, I love it. And like you said, too, it breaks up the sound of everything, too. Yeah, and then it just gives you a chance to force you to kind of take that breath that we need to do to keep us relaxed. Another thing I've got to say,

practice playing pretty fast. You know what I mean? I feel like it's always power, power, power. Right, right. But yeah, if you can play like a beautiful, languid melody at a fast tempo, that's a whole other skill too. That's something that maybe you might not have spent enough time on.

And if you're talking to my same. Andrew, if you can make a note for me to check my dictionary for the word language. I'm very interested in learning what that means. Thank you. Side note. But Andrew, our producer? Yes. I said,

That was my daily cursing this week. I just want to make sure I got that in there. Daily cursing coming at you. So your last point before that was, I think important too is like even on a performance level, that's another little trick to playing fast. If you listen to the people that, like the Giants or the artists today or whatever, that you're like, man, they can play fast so well. And really check it out.

They usually are not playing as fast as you think they are. They're doing it so well. Then you can get away with playing a little bit under. Even like, you know, giant steps or something. Like listen to John Coltrane play Giants. I don't know what the BPM on it is, but it's not as high as you think. It's not as high as everybody calls it that I play with. Exactly.

Yeah. Somehow the standard tempo for giant steps got up to there. Exactly. Well, this is fun. Yeah, man. It wasn't quite as fast as I was hoping, but, you know. Well, you'll hear it, and you can go to you'll hear it.com. We are going to continue here with our ending tune, our new tradition.

I'm going to call it a new tradition. We've got some great tracks in from our listeners. That kind of surprised. Well, it didn't surprise, I mean, how many good ones we got. I think surprises a little bit. We've got some talented folks. We do have some talent folks. We're going to step up our game here.

That's right. Yeah, you and I personally. So what is this? Who's this from today? This is from Jonas. Is it Jonas or Honas? I'm going to say Jonas. Okay.

Jonas Aras. Okay. Honus Arras. Yeah, I like the most. It's more exotic. Yeah. This is called 405 at 6. Enjoy.

And until next time. Well, hold on. Actually, I want to throw something in there. I don't know if you know Jonas Aris is very famous for his work with the Jonas Brothers. No, I don't know if that's true. Oh, my goodness. Okay. All right.

Sorry, Jonas. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. You'll hear it.