You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Questions Abroad

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

This week we have a compilation episode featuring questions answered by Adam and Peter from the Open Studio Pro community. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey everybody, this is Caleb Kirby in the studio, and I'm so excited to bring you a very special episode of Y'all Hear It. All right, so what do I got for you today? Well, I'm bringing you some clips from a conversation that Adam and Peter had back on March 7, 2022, where they took live questions from community members and answered them transatlantically, meaning Peter was on tour in Europe. Adam was holding it down in STL. And they got into some really fun topics. So I cut them up.

I trimmed up the fat. I'm serving them up for you so that you can get right to the good stuff. And I hope you really enjoy. All right. Mark asks, any advice on transitioning from basic scales to more complex modes over two or three octaves within a solo? Interesting. Well, one thing I just would say, not even within the solo, is like when you're getting into modes of, like, especially modes, I would say, of the major scale. be careful as you transition like if you look at the major scale is a basic scale and it doesn't get any more basic than that but i would say even more than that it's just foundational because you can of course have a mode of any scale and certain you know like a pentatonic scale or an octatonic type of scale those modes can be very interesting too and important but you know when we talk about like sort of the foundations of the music and like learning different tunes and core progressions and standards even and and and and and and you know

and then like modern jazz standards, the modes of the major scale are just so, they're just used so much. But you wanna be careful on the piano because I think it's important to really learn like the fingerings and like the one three, five, seven, nine, how it sounds of those modes separate from the major scale. So in other words, if you learn C major,

D flat say you're going chromatically, and then you're like, okay, I wanna learn the Dorian. So now I'm gonna jump right from C major to D Dorian, you're gonna be hearing, it like it see you might even be trying to fingering it like it see so it's like try not to learn it back to back like that because you want to hear you want to finger and you want to identify that arpeggio up to the ninth and really beyond as its own separate thing and that's again where going through chromatically can really help you but you want to make sure that you get

those those because it's not just about learning the the easiest fingering for these scales it's about learning the function of them it's learning how that how that they're the underpinnings of not only tunes that you're going to play, but improvisations that you're going to do. And so that's the tricky thing with modes is they can start to be too connected with the major scale. It just becomes like a diatonic running up and down of something that you already know.

Okay, I'm going to grab this one. Related to the discussion from Ed, how do you find the right amount of time to spend on a concept of practice technique before moving on? Okay, so I would say that this is one to really have some flexibility. in your practice because, you know, I think it's important to identify, you know,

and certainly to learn about and to investigate and learn from others. What are the concepts or practice techniques or new concepts that you need to work on or maybe are holes in your playing or you need to review or whatever? So it's like the identification of those things. But once you get into practicing them, I think if you're flexible, and you're really like kind of go into it, you're practicing with an open and inquisitive and humble mindset,

then you'll be able to sort of, you know, have that the amount of time you stay on it guided by how much progress you're making as opposed to like a rigid thing of like, like you can be rigid about, I want to work on my left hand voicing because I don't have enough

and my voicing suck and I don't know what to play. So that's a valid reason to like, cordon off a part of your practice every day for left-hand voicings. But then as you get going, like you want to have a strategy. You know, what was Ron Carter talking about with us up in New York? How many times did he say you got to have a plan? You know, it's like, have a plan. So that plan, you know, for left-hand voicings might be like,

I'm going to learn, you know, four new voicings from, transcribe them from recordings that I love every day or two or whatever it is. And then, or I'm going to like, you know, go through, one of Adams courses where he plays some great left-hand voicings and identify two of those days, wherever your sources. But then in terms of the amount of time, you want to like really be listening to yourself. It's kind of like when you're working out or running, listen to your body. Don't just go out and be like, I'm going to run 10 miles today because last week that worked for me. Well, maybe you go out today and your ankle starts hurting at mile five. You don't push

through. Or maybe at mile 10, you're like, wow, I'm feeling fresh. So then you keep going. So it's the same thing with this. If you're really rolling on those left-hand voicings, after 20 minutes, maybe that was your schedule, but you're like, wow, I'm inspired by this. I'm hearing something. I want to keep going. So don't be like, ah, time is over. No, that's the beautiful thing about this music

is we have flexibility. We have the improvisers mindset. We have all these great things available. So don't be thinking about what you need to be getting to. Just go with the flow. Go with the flow. I mean, they talk about flow state in terms of performance and composing.

I've always been more interested in flow state for practice. because if you can get into a really good flow state when you practice, you can maximize whatever amount of time that you have. You might not be able to get to everything that you hoped you'd get for when you woke up in the morning, but that doesn't matter. Like you want to get to the most amount of meaningful development in your playing. And then the same thing is like, if you start going and you're having trouble hearing those voicings

and you only get one and you're feeling frustrated, that's okay, put it to the side. You know, live for another day and then move on to something else. So I would just say that the amount of time that you spend, now keep in mind, there's certain things you just need to practice at different times. And for a lot of people, that that's every day. So this is not an excuse to be like, oh, I don't like scale. So I'm never going to practice them because Peter and Adam said go with the flow.

You know, it's not about that. But it is about more on the other side of like when things are going well, keep pushing through with that time or once. How is it playing on a different piano each venue? Are they always really good pianos? Oh, Tracy. Don't be so much. So I'm just looking at,

so we've played in, on this tour, Bruno, Bruno, Budapas, Vienna, Helsinki and now Copenhagen. Is that right?

I might be forgetting something. But they have been killer pianos. I don't want to jinx things going on, all four of them. Yeah, Europe, you're going to, in concert halls and clubs in Europe,

you're going to be okay in general. Yeah. And the one club we played at, which was so fun, the Porgy and Bass Club, and Big shout out to Porgy and Bass in, not the opera stars, but the club in Vienna, which is an amazing place. I mean, I played there a couple times, but it's been years, I mean, probably six or eight years since I last played there. But they have a Fazioly, like an eight foot, like, you know, and that, I mean, that, no, it's, it's incredible in a club. It's almost like, I don't want to say too good of a piano, but it's, it's the only

with that piano is it takes an adjustment like and it's been played a lot because it's a club they are two sets and whatever and so like i can tell it's been having trouble keeping up with it so to answer your question even when like the pianos are really good there's still that adjustment you know what i mean and i think for pianists what our thing is is like how can we like i always try to think about the end result of where i want to get to like when i come into the sound check because that's the time to get to know the piano. I don't think it's the time to see everything that it can do because you don't really know that until you're playing on the gig with the energy of the audience and the band and everything. So I'm not one to like try to push the piano as far as it can go and everything,

but I just kind of want to know like first of all if there's any like limitations to it or workarounds. Like that's kind of level one, you know, like if you need to do any workarounds because it has like some unevenness or weak spots or you know God forbid you know an out of tune section I don't know I mean there hopefully stuff that we can avoid but you know the the act you know the reality of what it is

but I don't think it's a time that you can push it because you're having to fake it too much so I like to leave that to the gig I mean you know and but that that piano in a way was the most challenging you haven't been slum like me for a while man

I played I've played I broke a piano weren't just out of tune in sections. They were missing notes, missing whole strings in sections. That's a limit. We call that a limitation. That's a limitation you need to learn about. You got to work around your voicing.

That can make it fun. It's interesting. So a Fasiole in a club is an interesting conundrum. It's like having a rental car that's a, that's a Ferrari or something. Like it'd be a little bit weird to have general population banging away on it every night and how it holds up.

They probably weren't meant for that, you know? No. There's Kouranos take a lot of, abuse, you know? Yeah. My man, of course, from my favorite pianos are Steinway, like a great Steinway, I think still is the

standard bear for the sound that I love. But when I go to a club and I see a seven foot, eight foot Yamaha, I'm super happy because I know it's probably going to be solid. You know, I know it's probably going to happen. Good things can happen there. It's, I might not get that special Steinway that you sometimes get.

Or Fazioli or Bozendorfer, but I know that like, if it's a club piano, I know that it's going to hold its tune. It's going to be like probably more than likely. It's going to be like easy to play and fun to play and give me what I need from it. Yeah. Well, it was fun too. I love that they put the Fasiole in the club.

It's like four blocks away from the Bosendorfer factory and headquarters in Vienne. It's a little bit of a, you know, a slap in the face to the local, to the local brand. So that's kind of fun, you know. Hold on. We got to stop there. Noriko is talking about cheese. Anyone likes Midnight Moon? Yes, I also enjoy

Noriko. I love that cheese. That's a good one. All right. Where does Midnight Moon come from? I actually don't know. I never heard of that. It might be in New York. The one I used to love when I was

when I was eating that kind of stuff was St. Andre. Yeah, that's great stuff. Which is like a triple cream, Brie, French situation. Oh my God, that was good. Just on some good baguette. Yeah, on a good baguette

are a really lovely watercress Cracker. You know what I'm saying? Bogeillet season. Bogeleet. It's more like Bougillet season. Bogey for you. The watercress cracker. How do you manage playing the song you don't really like? That's a good

question. Ah, that's a fantastic question because everybody experiences this. You know, even even Herbie Hancock, dare I say. Can we just put out that like herbie is we we don't want to say the word because it's disrespectful to people's

religious beliefs god but he's the he's the deity of this pot right i mean let's just be honest we love barry harris well there's a lot of people we love but like if we're going to put up one standard bear who would that be it would be herby i mean right if you switch play career-wise with anybody wouldn't it be herbie right wouldn't it be to be herbie to be like could you imagine a better career for for a for a mom musician who is still doing it, then Herbie? If I were to call you Adam at 4 a.m. wake you up or just knock on your door in Webster Groves, right?

Yes, you would wake you up. Bring out of my studio. Yeah, no, I know that. But if I were to just bang on your door and say, Adam, I got to quit the podcast, but I got you a new co-host. His name is Herbie Hancock. Would you give me a hug? Would you hug me?

No, because I couldn't talk to Herbie. Yes, you would. It would be awesome. Like I like to razz you, man The tone would change It would not be an even There'd be a little It would not be too even squares like this

It would be like a teeny little square And you probably wouldn't pull out your keyboard view As often as you do either No I would not No I would not Just knowing that he's possibly Ever seen anything we've done is enough All right

That'll just about do it for us over a Yule here remember if you like this podcast you got to like and you got to subscribe and then if you're more interested you got to go to open studio jazz.com and see if there's anything for you to bring you and your instrument a lot closer anyways until next time happy practicing