You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Set It and Forget It - Starting Tunes

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

It's another live edition of You'll Hear It where Peter and Adam take your questions - on this episode, they talk about how to set the groove of a tune and how to improve your musical skills away from your instrument. (Hint: check out our Spotify profile)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.Friday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam Maness on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place solo piano concert with Peter Martin on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast. Daily Music Advice coming at you. Coming at you today. Peter, we are live again on YouTube. We've been loving going live on YouTube. You can go to our Open Studio YouTube channel every Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.

And you can check us out and ask your questions of us. And then we will broadcast this on our podcast. And I've been loving these, man. We've had some great questions on YouTube. Way better than Instagram. Way more interesting people on YouTube. What does that say about the Instagram demographic? I think it's just hipper people on Instagram, but nerdy or nerds on YouTube.

Right, right. I'm garnering here. It might be a little younger crowd, too, on the IG, not quite as experience, not quite as seasoned veterans that are asking. These are some good questions. I still love you Instagram. I don't hate you. I don't hate you. I don't hate you, Instagram.

Well, you know, we already have some good questions lined up, and we can get right into it, actually. Let's get it. So, let's see here. Oh, Vladimir has a great question. to kick things off. Something about count in and how to establish swing, please. So a counten to a tune can be...

Wait, did you say count in? I thought you said it, an accountant. An accountant. Trying to swing and groove. I was like, forget about it. Well, accounting is... It's definitely an important part of any musician's arsenal of tools. You're going to need a good one, because we're usually straight crap at accounting. If I'm being honest. No, I think...

Count in. I got it. Yeah, he means a count in, which is an important thing. Yes. but it doesn't have to be as strict as like a one, two, a one. You know my favorite is one, three, one, two, three. It's so logical and correct, but so annoying. It's so late. The important part about anything, whether you're doing this, one, two, a one, two,

or you're doing something like, both of those can be a counten. Like you can just start playing whatever you want, but the key to both those things you might have noticed, Vladimir, is that I came in with a solid sense of the time from the get-go. It wasn't wishy-washy either way. I wasn't like one, two, one, two, three, four. Like, it wasn't that and it wasn't like,

come on, let's go. You know, like, you're setting things up in a very clear way with the time. That's the most important part. That's like the opposite of the shoe gazing. You're like the, you started gazing to the sky. Stargazing. Stargazing.

Yeah, and I think that's good because Vladimir, you're asking about establishing swing. It's got to be during the count. or the introduction or just starting to play, really the same kind of flow for all those. It has to be that great combination of confidence and actual established time and swing already. That's right.

So what I like to do, and especially when I was kind of more a little greener in this and trying to learn it more, was really to, before I even started the count off or introduction, was to sing in my mind. Your mind's ear. My mind's ear, as it were, as it were. Some of the tune, or maybe the end of the tune or something, like what the temple.

So it's established in me before I even start. Because I hate that when people start like, they're like, no, let's do a little. And I'm like, oh, you got me going here. You know, where you're at? Like, don't start. Like once you start with the count off, you're in charge. You got to be confident. It's kind of like if you're leading people on a hike and everyone's like not sure where he goes,

like, oh, we're going this way. Right. You got to be confident, but you also have to be right. You can't just be like, let's go this way. Oh, no, no, that's going off the cliff. Yeah. So it actually is a great tip, I think, to take like five seconds, right? Five, ten seconds before you do anything that the band could hear or see.

Yeah. And just establish what's going to happen. Where do you want this to happen? And Vladimir, you can, so if you want to establish like a swing feel with someone, it's hard to do just one. I mean, you could do like one, two, oh, like to give some kind of corny, corny-ass swing count off. I want by shappap but do by do do do do do do right We don't want that so much No

So you might have to do some explaining beforehand But like if you do what we were doing You know with the tune I could explain The feel of things from a confident countoff Like Like I could just start the tune that way And is that a countoff?

Well but so by an intro An intro by starting the tune right in this way right Or I could go, and everybody knows that it's a little straighter, right? We're going to do ECM straightest. Right, right, right. Right, or I could do my shoegaze. Shoe gaze? Oh, come on.

Either way. He's a gazer. Either way, it's going to work. Either way it's going to work. Yeah, but that's more intro. Like I say, he's asking count off, but it's all good. Cool. All right, what else we got here?

So we got a question from Nick. Hey, what are some things you guys do away from your instruments to improve as a musician? I already know listen is number one. Ha ha, thanks. Well, guess what, Nick? We're still going to say listen. Listen, number one. There's no more important thing you can do.

No. There's no more important thing you can do. I've been really into creating playlists on a daily basis for like, here's my September 14th playlist and maybe has 10 to 20 tunes on it. Yeah. Trying to mix in things that I know really well with things that I don't know at all, right? Really trying to alternate between new music. for me, new to me music,

even if it's older, but like new to me music and things that I love. And that has been a really beautiful Oh, we got a little picture and pictures. You saw that? I was just seen if you're paying the text. That's really nice. I got toys here.

That for me, like, just having because I realize like, so I have my vinyl, right? And I even have, I don't know if you know this, but I have a CD player on my home stereo setup. Oh, I love the hush tone. It's 1996 up in this piece. Yeah. But I love having all these options

because CDs sound freaking sweet, man. They do. But I was going to say, like, I was thinking like, how can I use Spotify in a better way? Right. To, like, make my life better, right? As convenient as Spotify is

and as much as I actually hate having to use it. Yeah. It is, like, for someone who grew up without all the music in the world at their fingertips, it's pretty awesome. Hey, Siri, play Art Blakey. I mean, can we have a magic that his children?

It's really ridiculous. Remember you just had to, like, covet the $20 art Blakey tape or CD when you were a kid and then save up for it but now you'd like $20 a month and you have everything you could ever possibly want

but anyway how do we get over the overwhelmingness of Spotify create a playlist every day here's what I'm listening to today and that's it try that that's been working great for me I've been having some fun

with the shared playlist too you know and we've got some don't we have some still have the Open Studio playlist up yeah Open Studio has a Spotify channel we have all of our playlists on there go check them out we have a ton of great ones but the idea though Nick is that And I know you already know, listen is number one.

You have to make this a priority in your practice. This is part of your practice. Yeah. It's got to be. And if you want to actually consider like blocking off some practice time, like I have an hour of practice time, how about 20 minutes of listening to start your practice time? And that counts.

That counts as good work. Me like you. Yeah. I would say one of the thing that pops in mind that I've done quite a bit of over the years practicing away from the instrument is singing. this can take its form in many ways but like what I would typically do is if I'm working on a tune

or just thinking about a tune or certainly if I'm working on and learning a new tune is to go through a performance of that tune and I'll usually do this when I go walk around for some reason it just flows easier and I'll imagine playing it on the piano but then I'm singing and improvised

almost like accompanying myself you know depending on your level of I mean I know you've been doing some vocal lessons you're a fine singer so you might be able to do this surround people. I go to a very remote, deserted area of St. Louis to do this so that I don't offend anyone

except for the animals. And we'll just go through and really try to sing. And what I'm thinking about is like how the harmony feels and I'm really trying to nail a good improvised solo. And I find that I can reach different things.

I mean, we do this at the piano. We talk about hearing and singing a soul at the piano while your company and then trying to really, you know, flesh that out and to learn that, be able to play that. But when you're totally away from the instrument, like really,

you're just relying on your ears and trying to create something. But then think about how you are going to transfer it back to your instrument once you get there. And it's so funny you brought this up. I was literally just thinking about this yesterday. I was on a long walk. I was singing to myself on the walk. I was doing exactly what you're saying. Like I had some chord changes in mine.

And I was like, I remember that when I was a kid, like in middle school and probably even high school, I used to do this all the time. I used to just sing like, you know, remember that? Remember being a kid? just making an ass out of yourself in front of everybody or drumming on your desk. And how... Shoot, bab, do, ba-dab-dab-d-dab-baw! But remember finding some funky stuff, doing this, right?

And I remember finding, like, my sense of time singing, vocalizing, and drumming on things, right? To the terrible bereavement of everyone around me who hated me tapping on all this shit and hating me singing stuff. I think it made me a better musician. And I was just thinking as I was doing this the other day in my walk, I was like,

I need to be doing this more. This is, this is like, it's annoying, but I think this is what we do. I mean, if it's good enough, like most things, if it's good enough for Clark Terry, it's good enough for you. Right, exactly. You know? Exactly. And I mean, look, this is really the way you start to hear stuff. I mean, we talk about listen.

This is like the actual manifestation of listening and hearing stuff. So it's just, yeah, singing and, you know, I remember like when I first started started to learn some drums, even when I didn't have access to drums a lot, but I do it like a the band room and I started learning some beats. And so I would start doing that and, you know, just, right. And then work on like independence of the hands and stuff. And like I always feel like that helped me later on write for drums and be able to play with drummers, you know, and stuff like that.

Remember those desks in the 80s and 70s that had the big hollow where you would put your book underneath? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect drum. Yep. I mean, you could, I could. It was almost like that. What's the Brazilian?

Yeah. The, uh, what is that called? The one of the Montezas always brings to the Christmas concert. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly. It's Peruvian. Oh, it's Peruvian? Yeah. What is it?

Cajon. Cajon. That's right. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, it was those desks in this. Cajonis? Is that the same? No, that's a different.

Oh, sorry. I didn't know, Cajon. Those desks were perfect. Cajon. We're perfect cahones. Yeah, you could put some snares on the back of those. That's right. Those joints.

You could really do some damage. But I think you're totally right, man. I mean, think about like, I think about, I was doing that all day. there's no doubt in my mind that the hand-eye coordination it takes to do stuff like and then you start exactly you start putting like

shri-flit yeah over-the-bar stuff on it you start like improvising even though you're not a great drummer we're pianist right let's do a little rhythmic improv all right ready okay I'll go

oh man okay hold on yeah let's get our mics yeah you can have that for free everybody you're still gonna ask for change yeah but I think that that's That's, you know, rhythmic conceptions, melodic conceptions. Getting away from the instrument can be such a profitable time for us in our development if we're open to it.

Love it. So what was the question? Oh, what are some things you could do away from your instrument? So that's it. So listening, vocalizing, drumming. It all sounds trivial. I mean, you could certainly, you know, do some exercises in your brain. I would also say you could practice like,

this sounds weird, but again, going back to the integrity of being an artist and being a performer, you could practice going, like, how long can you go saying exactly what you're thinking? Because that's something that it takes courage to do in real life, and that's something that is, I think, directly translatable to playing music in front of people. How long can you go playing what you're hearing in your head without judging what's about to happen and trying to be cool? You know what I'm saying? This is what artists do, man. Three seconds.

Exactly. No, it's freaking tough. Okay, let's keep going here By the way, Hermetto has a question that he's asked twice, and I just want to put out there, Hermeto, if you're still here, you say, can you please give examples of tips of when you were using the one-tone scales?

And I don't know what that means, and I'm not sure, Peter, if you know what that means. No. But if you can clarify what you mean, Hermetto, we don't really know what that means, but we'd love to answer your question. I mean, is a one-tone scale... That's hard. Didn't we kind of just do that on the table?

Yeah, right. George says, is this thing on? Yes. Jake should mention some pianists to start out with transcribing albums, artists, something easy to hear. Great question, Jake. Oh, yeah, to start. So let's see. Well, you know, we're always talking about Freddie Freeloader, Winton Kelly's solo.

I wouldn't, it's a relatively simple solo, I think. I don't know if it's total beginner to start out. But hold on. Come on now. Sorry. Allergies, not COVID. Allergies, not COVID. Thank you.

Um, the, what's the, okay, I would say horn players before almost any piano solos would be good ones. Miles Davis. Yep. I like this solo on, well, there's several versions of it, the main, the first approved take on Bagsgroove. Yep. The Green Album on Prestise. I think it's called Bags Gruve, uh, Miles Davis. I think that one is, is very, it's very beginner in that it's approachable.

It's not like going to take you five minutes to transcript. You still got to, you know, something to dig into. Um, but I think that's really good. good. The Thelonius Monks Soul, actually on there is relatively simple. I always like to kind of gravitate towards that. But whatever you want to find, like, what's even better is to find a solo that you love, that you've listened to a lot, like the simplest solo that you can find and just do one

chorus from that. Like literally, think of all the different tracks or albums that you like. And then try to go through and find what is the one with the least number of notes in it, on any instrument. Totally. And that's where you should start because you already know it. You've heard it. You can hear it.

but the process of learning it's going to be so much easier if you take something that you love and know already. Yeah, I'm going to put Sonny Rollins Blue 7 solo in that camp as well, especially if you take just the first few choruses, which by the way, when you're starting out,

this is totally legal. Don't let anybody tell you have to... Well, the jazz police, you got to... Don't let the jazz please tell you that you have to know every single note of the entire... I mean, yes. Ideally, yes, eventually. But if you're, like, stuck and you don't know what to do,

like, speaking of Bag's group, at the Monday Transcribing Club that we have here at Open Studio that we're going to start very soon again. We did Oscar Peterson solo in Baggs Group from Night Train. And the first, I would say, two choruses, three choruses,

even of that solo, are very simple. And he just is in the pocket laying down some amazing blues language. So stuff like that can be really helpful. The first chorus of Bill Evans solo on Autumn Leeds from Portion and Jazz. Easy to hear.

Actually, the first solo on Herbie Hancock on one-finger snap. Easy to hear. It's relatively simple. very fast. Right. Then it kind of takes off after that. It takes off.

All these do, kind of. By the, you know, by the end of Oscar solo, it's like, who can, who can hear that? Right. He's doing all this crazy stuff. Same thing with Herbie. But I think for the start of those, it's very easy and accessible to get into, in my opinion. Great, great.