You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Should You Practice Patterns? - #24

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

Peter and Adam debate the usefulness of practicing musical patterns. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Anus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. Today we're going to talk about should you practice patterns. Now, I'm going to go out on the limb here because we've actually never even discussed this, Adam. But I'm going to say no. I'm going to say yes. Okay.

So that's pretty binary right there. I know. Can we even be friends anymore? I don't know, man. This might be the last. You'll hear it. Sorry, guys. Okay.

Let me lay out my philosophy on no. And I guess I should have qualified it a little. bit. I'm saying I don't think we should practice patterns the way that it was presented to me, which was like you would learn something and then you would practice that. Okay, now I did pick a very corny, generic pattern to do and play it in a corny way. But I just think that if we, when we say patterns and we don't think about them at least or call them, you know, melodies or motifs or something in the musical realm, then it becomes just like, like, this kind of generic building block for our music that can start to maybe feel good and maybe even

sound good on like a micro level, but it's a little bit anti-improvisation almost. So like the way I like to think about it is, no, you shouldn't practice patterns, but shapes are okay to practice. So like there's certain shapes that I love the sound of I love the feel of on the piano, you know, like maybe like this over kind of like a C minor or 11. Yeah, that's good. Like, and then you might take that and learn that, but I'm not necessarily thinking about it as a pattern only, like, it's more of just a shape that I feel and that I can use as an actual building block to patterns, patterns, quote unquote, as a part of my solo that I would build later. Okay, I think we're pretty much on the same page here.

Ooh, I'm getting worried. The note of blows there. The nomenclature just might have been different of how we looked at it. So you, it seems like to practice sounds. You find a sound you like and you don't consider it a pattern. pattern you consider it a shape, but it's really a sound is what you are into. And I agree with you that just, you know, getting generic licks out of a book and then running through all 12 keys, you know, you could learn how to play a little bit, but it sounds really boring and generic. I agree

at that. But I guess I think what I was saying when I said, should you practice patterns, is whenever I find something, a sound that I love, be it some kind of voicing, I'm going to take that through all keys. I'm going to practice it in ways that. kind of throw me off so that when I have to recall it, it's ingrained in me. And I consider that a pattern a little bit. Yeah, but that's, that was a shape. Now, folks can't see there now that. I get you. I get you. I get you. But again, yeah, you're right. It's the nomenclature. I think it's the same thing we're actually talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, uh, podcast done, friendship resolved. Yep. The answer is yes and no. Yeah. And I think it just begs the bigger

question, like, we should never get so caught up in terminology and dog. in a way when I was coming up and hopefully this has changed a lot too I remember I got a scholarship to go to a Jamie Abrasol camp well don't brag about it well hello full scholarship I might add I had to get there myself but that was it yeah but no it was a really great experience I mean I met some great musicians I had an amazing experience with you know some master musicians Adam Nussbaum great drummer yeah yeah who was teaching there and really kind of took me under his wing in the combo a little bit taught me some great things

is it Pat LaBarbara, the saxophonist? Yeah, yeah. I think that was Pat. Yeah, who played with Elvin Jones and stuff. I studied, well, I mean, I was in his combo, and he showed me some amazing things there. But there was also another teacher who shall remain nameless, who was very much into patterns.

And I remember, like, it was like taking certain licks, you know, licks or patterns that Charlie Parker played. But to, like, I even realized it at the time, Like they were shortened up so much and they were just melodic patterns. But they were so close to being complete melodic ideas, but they were cut off. So it was always by the number of beats.

So it might be two beats worth of patterns. Like dabba, dabba, dababab. You know, whereas that's a horrible thing that everyone's made fun of and there's some funny YouTube. But if you're like, bodoo, ba-dubed and da-da-do-da-do-da-do-bado-da-da-da. It could actually be slick. So it was like taking these two-beats

and just segmenting in a way that the players didn't intend them, I thought. And just you take them through all these keys and then you link them together in a mathematical way and that's jazz. Yeah, it's classic overengineering of it. You know, what we really are talking about here and the way you should practice anything, but if that's, you want to call them patterns or shapes, is to use your ear and make sure

that it's a complete musical thought that you like. Don't just start memorizing patterns because people tell you that it's part of the jazz whatever. Like, you know, listen to the music, get the language in your ears. And then once you latch on to those things, it's going to become evident. You're going to have things that you like. And then you have to practice them in a way that resembles a pattern, but it's probably, I'm going to go with your shape idea.

Yeah, yeah. Conceit a little bit. But practice them in all 12 keys, and, you know, you have to somewhat get them into your hands. So make sure to be consistent with it. Yeah, because, I mean, the actual concept of a pattern, and even from a mathematical standpoint, is identifying, you know, something that repeats or has some kind of code to it almost, which I think is very important.

in music and exists in jazz improvisation in many interesting ways. And many of the scales, I mean, you know, if you talk about it diminished, that's a pattern of half step, whole step, half step, I mean, that is a pattern. Absolutely. And I think thinking about patterns and music and how they apply and how they sound and how they work are great, I just think to force it into a generic little melodic pattern that you practice, you know, in different keys, isn't worth a lot. So moral of the story here is, is practice the shapes and the ideas that,

you're drawn to, but don't just accept some kind of like unmusical, short little patterns of nothing that will make you sound generic and kind of weak. That's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to openstudionetwork.com slash podcast.