You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Playing With Another Pianist

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

On this episode, Peter and Adam recap their duo piano performance and discuss some tips they've learned about how to play with another pianist.Make your practicing even happier with the official Open Studio Practice Journal! This is the perfect tool to improve your playing, and includes 52 weeks for a full year of notes. Learn more at https://store.openstudiojazz.com/product/practice-journal/28Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet 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.

Jacob who Worst vacation ever I'm Adam Anus And I'm Peter Martin And you're listening to the you'll hear a podcast Daily Jazz advice We don't do retakes We don't do outtakes

We don't do Dude you did about three takes Oh yeah we do three takes though That's true Hey don't tell them that And that's what we got to? That's pretty bad. It's pretty bad.

But you should have heard take one and take... If you didn't like take three, wait a little here or take one or take two! Today's episode is sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. Check out our new practice journal. 52-week practice journal. A lot of musicians hit me up for these.

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What are we talking about today? Step one. Work on singing. Today we're talking about two pianos. How to play two pianos. Not two key stations. That's what you should have done, dude. No, you should have been on this,

and I should have been on the grand. That would have been nice. No. Yeah, so we talked a little bit last week. We did a little bit of a premortem. We might say we're going to do a little bit of a post-mortem on our gigs that we did. This is difficult because when we talked about them, before the show, the episodes came

on after. And now we're talking about them. The gigs have already happened. And we're like retrospecting. Well, we thought now we would just... Mind-blown. We would break down, you know, kind of our strategy for doing two pianos. And this could work, too, with, like, piano keyboard or whatever.

Yeah. Which is not something we really covered last week. No, because we were just... It was two grand pianos. we were, they were put together in the traditional kind of frame to frame situation. There's a lot of soundboard on this. A lot of soundboard and the tops were off. That was one

kind of strategy that I think worked out good. I think it sounded good. The feedback was great. I had a blast, man. It was really fun. I had a lot of fun, man. You were killing it. I think we played some really fun stuff and I think we were in agreement. At least we told each other after we wanted to do more of them.

Oh man, I would love to do more. I felt like it was really It went over really, really well, which was a nice surprise. Not a surprise, but it was a nice feeling, right? Well, I think it's a surprise in that, and like you were telling me, I didn't realize I think until the first, we did three shows, that was nice.

Yeah, three separate performances, three separate audiences over two days. But you were telling me that you basically have never done that with two pianos. And not a full-on concert like that. I mean, I'd done two pianos on the same stage, but with a band. Right.

I mean, we've done that before. We've done that before. Yeah, piano roads or whatever. I've done piano B3, but never just two pianos and that's it. Yeah. As a concert. I mean, you know, practice rooms or whatever, that's my thing.

But like... But when you do it as a concert, it's a very... It's so unique. I mean, any duo, I think, is a unique opportunity. We've, as pianists, we've done those a lot, you know, with a bass player, with the singer. But even so, like, that's a unique thing. But when you take two of the same instrument, I mean, the closest thing, and I've just because I've done it recently, it's kind of on my mind, is the piano and guitar.

And like that's very close in some ways to piano piano because you have, but it's still different. But you have two chordal instruments that have a very similar range or in common. Obviously the piano is much wider range. But when you get the two pianos, you have that. But then you have the exact same sound. I mean, you have two pianists. So the possibilities for it being different are wonderful because that, then you can kind of focus on that, but it takes a minute to get into that.

Right. Because we're used to playing as the only pianists producing that piano sound in a band situation. So you think, oh, well, I'm used to doing solo piano, I've done that a lot. That's going to be similar to this, but it's totally different. It is totally different. And I think that was one of the big surprises

for me, and one of the big things I learned from this week was I was really worried about it's going to be too busy or, like, you know, don't step on Peter's toes or try to whatever, but I was really surprised at how easy it was to blend together and how actually, by that last show that we did, I was able to like, and I heard you doing the same thing.

It was like, if you were somewhere doing something, I could actually get in there with you in the same range and do like things that complemented that. And it's actually a really cool sound that you would never hear in any other situation. Right. As opposed to just like, okay, if he's here, I got to be out here, which we did do most of the time. but I was really surprised at how it's like you can actually blend really well in the same range it never felt like if it felt like it got really thick it felt like it was appropriate it got purpose you know what I mean I mean and there were times where one of us would step back and obviously like during solos or whatever one of us would step back and kind of lay it down or whatever

or even sometimes step out completely which was your suggestion at one of our sound checks which I think was a really good suggestion was like hey you know we both don't have to play all the time we can And that's a sound we can utilize, and it's more powerful, too, when we play together. And those kind of, like, on the spot arranging things really work. But I was really having fun with, because we played two of the same kind of piano, the same brand of piano. So even though they were very different pianos.

But, like, you know, if you were to do something up high, I could go into that same range and kind of compliment what you were doing. And it was actually a really awesome sound. Yeah, exactly. And I think those times, you kind of hit on the two main areas that become apparent once you do this. I'm not sure so much to the listener, because it's more about the overall effect to the listener.

I do know these things, it's harder, depending on the positioning and where people are sitting. It's hard to even tell who's playing what, which I think is fine. You know, it shouldn't be, like, because their frame of reference, just like ours is different than a duo, like a guitar or a piano, where you can just hear what's, you know, obviously.

Even if you're in the same range, you know what a guitar sounds like, you know the piano. But for as the players, we know what we're playing at any time, so we know exactly what's not being played. So it really becomes, and I think, you know, out of necessity, but I think it's a good thing and works is when you realize that it's about the entire output. And so it's not so much like four hands or four hands on two pianos or whatever. No, it's just like about what piano plus. It shouldn't be doubled. Everything shouldn't be doubled and everything shouldn't be twice as thick. Because what the music calls for at any time is

exactly the same as if there was one piano or if there was one flute player or whatever this situation was what's called for in the music is what's going to unfold with the music so yes you have the possibility instead of 88 keys you could look like you could look at that as double i guess that would be 176 or something is something like that no so is that right 166 maybe 66 i don't think so i'm right what do we do it here 80 80 yeah 176 i carry the seven carry it carry it divided by Yeah, 176. So, okay, that took way too long. Not me.

No, but no, but the idea is like not that we have 176 because actually we still just have 88. Right. Because they're the same ones. But we have, and that was my only like suggestion because I remember, because I've done it a few times, is that the tendency we have to say we always have to be taking advantage of four hands.

No, flip that around. Like the beauty of it is that now we can make music in a different way, but still have the completion. which we know solo piano is already complete. So it's not like when you do a duo with a saxophone player, there's a certain amount of support in either in a very traditional way with like a root or baseline and kind of chords above or below or whatever.

But there's just a certain amount of support and that it's always going to be a single line instrument. Solo piano we know can be a complete thing. Now I'm not saying Sonny Rollins playing solo saxophone or Joshua Redmond or all these people that have done. Of course, that's a beautiful complete thing, but it's different. You know, it's different.

So when we talk about like a piano being a symphony, yeah, it isn't actually a symphony, but it can represent that. So when we get two together, to me, what was really interesting about like kind of how we approached it and maybe a fun way if any of the guys get a chance to do this is to think about it as like how do we still get to the solo piano level but with two pianists at two pianos. Right. Almost like in the classical thing when I did a little bit of that playing too was like actual forehand stuff on one piano. A little bit awkward, sort of both at the bench together. Yeah. You don't want to be next to a portly person because you might fall off. I guess separate benches would be called for it.

But I mean... They have the double bench. They have the forehand vents. Of course. The dopio. Yeah, the dopio. But to me, that's a lot harder than doing, even though, like, you're restricted into the music of what... And I've only done classical stuff there. I mean, it's playing around.

It would be harder on jazz, too, yeah, for sure. Well, there's certain things that are simplified in terms of, like, if you're sitting at the bottom, you're going to be walking some bass, you know, playing some stuff down there or whatever. Right. So that just physically gets you. But I think it's a super interesting thing. It's something we don't do enough. You know, we're really excited.

We've talked about doing it some more because the possibilities are like, I mean, it's just such a great instrument. When you get two of them, you know, it's like the old, I don't know if you remember the double mint, gum commercials from back of the day. Yeah. Twins doing skiing and rollerblading. A little sexist and racist, not racist, but sexist. Couldn't be used today. I don't think those. Like double the pleasure.

Come on, wink, wink. We know where they want with that. a while. Not cool. One thing that... No bueno. No bueno. For me, like, as the week went on, I started to get more comfortable with was...

And it's because it's something you don't do a lot of is blending the two instruments. Yes. You know, dynamically and timbre and tone or whatever. You know, I'm used to blending with a horn player or a singer or drummer or whatever. But I've never had to blend with another pianist. And it's a different kind of blend. Right. You know, because you have to take into factor things like, you know, what chords are you playing?

Yeah. How are you voicing the chords? Not like chord voicings, but what are you bringing out? Yep. You know, what's your, what's your expression level of like legato, staccato? I mean, like, all that stuff is something. What's my sign? Like, we had to talk about that.

I'm a Leo. I can't even remember now. I'm a Capricorn, man. Capricorn. Yeah. But that to me was a really interesting process that, like I said, I was actually just starting to get really into by that last show. That's why we need to do some more because I was really starting to feel like,

oh, man, you could, the more. more you do it like with anything you see the possibility start to open up you know the more you learn you're like oh there's more questions that need answering now so yeah and i think that the blending thing is is really the like that's a fertile area to explore as we do it more um is that it's like the kind of two different ways to look at it it's really the duality of the blending on the one hand it automatically blends because it's a piano sure so like you don't have to do anything but on the other side it's like you have to do a lot like talk about voicing registers you know timbre harmony. I mean, like all those things, you know, touch, all that affects that in order to give

some differentiation, not necessarily differentiation as into who's playing what, but what is needed. Like, because we have, I mean, yeah, of course, we could, we could have just gone into it as like, you play C and above and I'll play C below, and you play exactly what you normally play as solo piano there, and I'll play what I normally play here, and we'd have a blend and kind of a solo piano thing. But obviously, we don't want to do it like that. So it's like, how do you go in and out of those moments where, as you say, like, we're getting out of each other's way we're playing solo piano we're playing stuff together in the same range we're playing things that aren't the same but we're still challenging a little bit in the same range and then like using

that as part of the dramatic flare of the performance or even just like you know you were saying like sometimes the audience can't tell but like really trying to blend we were just starting to do that towards the end too of like yeah really trying to blend of like oh you won't be able to tell yeah yeah yeah this could be either one and then you can go in and out of that it's a fun thing it's like oh now you can't and we did a little bit of you know like outside of the piano percussion on the thing. Yeah, that was fun. And that was totally spontaneous. You went inside a little bit. And so, like, that's, it's a great, I mean, it's always a great time to explore that. But to me, it's always fun when that organically happens. And because of the exposure that we have. Now, yes, we have that exposure when we're solo piano, no bass, no drums, nothing to get in the way. Like, I don't do a whole lot of that just because, like, it can't really be heard unless it's solo, you know. But with the two piano. It was nice. Like, yeah. And then you've got, like, some, some, you know, some accompaniment to it still from somebody that understands what's happening because it's the same instrument.

So I think we were able to take advantage and leverage that technology, as we say a little bit. That's how we do it. Oh, see, you are a toucher. Look at you. Go ahead, man. Pounder. So, yeah, we'll definitely do it again. And that would be something, now, is there a page on here for two pianos practicing?

No. I don't know if that's anything. But as a pianist, you're going to be able to, look, to me, this makes this book worth, we're talking about, what are we talking about? The Pujo. The Pujo. Now you've accepted what it's called. Yeah. Rhymes with Kujo.

Open Studio, but beautiful artwork. I like you say it rhymes with Kujo. It's based off a Bujo, a bullet journal. But it does rhyme with Kujo. But it also rhymes with Bujo. Well, so, that's all good. But look, you've got the week of, but I love the goals for the week. That in itself is just beautiful.

You've got some notes to write. I think this lays things out. It gives you some self-accountability. Who doesn't need that? I definitely need it. Yeah, we all need it. So check that out, Open Studios, along with all of our new courses lead sheet basics

volume one of jazz piano basics, lead sheet breakdown, I'm sorry Jazz piano basics checked out very affordably priced I tried to raise the price nobody let me do it I'm going to sneak into the back end of the website and do that very shortly though so pick that up when you get a chance by our very own Adam Manus

and until tomorrow you'll hear it