You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Slash Chords

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam answer a listener's question about what voicings sound good with slash chords.The ending theme song for today's episode is "On the Sunny Side of the Street" as performed by Octavi Coronado. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail]'s episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let 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, Adam. What's up, Pete? Do you like Jaredelli minis? I love them, but you know I can't eat those, right? Not keto-friendly? No. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin.

The worst, and you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. The worst, what? I'm sorry? The worst. This is so little, though. This would push you over the edge? You know it will.

I don't know. I don't even know what keto's... I keep thinking it's going to be something growing on the side of your head. head, ketosis. I mean, I'm a grown man and I can handle it, but it's not nice. You're not as grown as you used to be, that's for sure. Today's episode of the You'll Hear podcast is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download.

It's a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Delonious Monk, John Coltrane, Nina Simone, and John Cage. Visit Oxfordamerican.org. today that's oxfordamerican dot org slash y h i just want to point out you said comes with a cd sampler right just to let people know because it's not like you're saying a cd sampler like it was something of ill repute it's not it's a cd

as in compact disc for you youngans out there that don't know what that is you ever spend any time in rural minnesota minnesota yes no i have it i haven't i mean i've i've no you know what they call cdies is st paul considered rural like as opposed to minneutral No, no. No. No. Are they called CDs up there?

What? CD. CD. Aren't there parts of West County, St. Louis, that's speaking of similar? It's very similar, actually, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, what do we got today? Well, we're feeling good because it's Thursday. Did you know that?

I did know that. Hump day is behind us. There you go. Changed it up on you. We have a, we have a question here that came in via email from a user in Massachusetts named Gene. Oh, whoa, go. Sorry.

This is my Geraldelli. A big shout out to the Gerardelli. a chocolate factory company. People on churning out in San Francisco. These are tight. Stay calm. Dude, these are tight. Stay strong.

They're so little, though. Okay. Vegan friendly. All right. This was, he called this hybrid cords, but what I really think that Gene is talking about is slash chords. It's something we touched on a little bit last week, but he says, hey, Peter and Adam,

I love the podcast and you guys keep it real for real. That's the truth. 100%. I have a question specifically on how to voice hybrid chords when it comes to soloing and what left-hand voicing to play. Should voicing include the base note and or tension notes? In other words, should a C over F, left-hand voicing, use only notes of the triad plus the base note, or can the voicing add tensions?

Is that not the practice? Chords scale to use. That's a question. C-over-F, maybe one voicing could be more clustering from the bottom-up, E-F-G-C, or F-G-G-C, or F-G-C. Yes, that's one for sure. What do you think? Using hybrid voicings, which I think he means slash voicing is what we call them here.

Sorry, I was kind of another place. It was like Calgon take me away with that chocolate. I wasn't listening. Can you repeat the question, please? No, I'm just kidding. So anyway, Gene, I'm going to just ignore Peter from the rest of the episode. I'm going to answer all these questions. He actually asked some.

I was yes, yes, no, yes, no. All right, you'll hear it go. No, I mean, this is, we talked about slash chords the other day, but we actually didn't address for pianists how to voice them in one hand. Yeah. Which is tricky. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's not tricky, but there's several ways you'd approach it. But I'm wondering if he, if Gene and perhaps other folks, not just Gene in Watertown, big shout out to New England and the Massachusetts area, but if perhaps some folks are actually looking at what they're calling hybrid chords as different as what we think about is slash chords. Well, he specifically says C over F. I know, but that doesn't mean he's not thinking C triad over F triad.

No? No, I think he means, the way he's describing them to me seems like the voicings he proposes, like F, G, C, E, as a voicing, that is C over F, you know, which I think that's what he means when. So I think he's really talking about slash chords here. From bottom to the top, sorry.

And even the other one, which is EF, G. in like a closed position. That's a C triad with an F in it. So I think he's actually onto something there. Like that F, G, C, C, E, that's something I would play if I saw C over F. Yep. You want to put on the cans?

Should I put on the cans? Should we hit a little key station after him? Let's hit the keys. Oh, man, I can't wait to hit the key station. Kid and me? That kind of? Yeah. Yeah. So this is F over, what's the chord?

F over E? No, C over F. C over F. So the voice that he had, And he wants just left-hand voicing if he's soloing. So F, G-C-E. That's a nice one. It's a really nice one.

So, you know, we've been preaching the church of root position voicings for a while, even in left-hand voicings when you're comping for yourself. And I think there's no better opportunity to do that than in these kind of slash-court situations. Because the real sound of the chord, more than even, I think, like a C-minor 7,

is that tension of the triad over the root. Yeah. You know. Actually, this might be more applicable to, would you consider that a root position? Yes. Or you just mean that the root is on the bottom. I mean the root is on the bottom. But that C is like second inversion.

It's not root position. No, no, no. I'm not talking about the triad. I just mean having the slash, having the base note on the bottom. Yeah. And then some inversion of the triad above it is the way I would, it's probably the way I default. Yeah, yeah. And that's really kind of your only option.

I mean, you could do that. Unless you can reach. That's actually not bad. That's good. That's just nice. But I think that, you know, this is a voicing. that I use a lot, D minor 11. Yeah.

So that's something that definitely feels good, sounds good. I'm kind of like, you know, in there, in a number of different keys. Let's say there's another common one like C over B flat. You know, how, if you were to voice that comping for yourself in your left hand. Well, you know, for that, it depends really stylistically. If it's kind of like a swinging thing and you get to a C over B flat,

you kind of know that the bass player's gonna be doing a lot of B flats and Cs basically. Not because they're, because they don't know that, but they may not be outlining all that. It's usually in context of going somewhere too. Exactly. Like, some of, like, maybe that or something. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. So for me, on those, I actually shift to go a little bit off reservation and start thinking kind of G minor seven-ish, like those kind of things. I know that's not officially that, but there are things that can shift back and forth between that C and B-flat. Because for me, like, that is not, that's two root position dominant seven. Got it. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's true. you have more options. Yeah. I would do that too. You know what else? I might even go up and like sub out instead of the E have that F. So it's like B, flat, C, F, G, which is similar kind of sound with that major second, except it's on the top now. So often, too, these slash chords appear in pedal point situations, in which case, if there's a bass player, that's usually their job to hang that pedal.

Yeah. And then it's our job to kind of do those inner voicing. So, like, let's say you have an F pedal and you know, you're going between like E-flat, D-D-flat, you know, which is something that could happen. I'm not really hanging on the F at all. Right. You know, I'm hitting those triads. So in that case, my whole, what I just started, this whole podcast is total BS. Well, no, but it's different.

You're reacting off what the bass player is either doing. It's different contextually. Exactly. And what the groove is, too, and what the style is. Because, you know, there's nothing wrong with a triad when you're, when you're bust out an Elton John tune, you know? And that's what it calls for. But if the bass player goes down, you know, to a pedal point kind of thing and it's a little

bit groovy. That trial might be okay, but depending on like if your right hand, you want to start doing some tri-ed-y stuff that might be nice. You might want something a little bit more. Like one thing I might do is go to like a C-2 if I'm real triaddy there. But I'm hearing that almost like if you were playing it accompanying someone. Yeah. Whatever, the same thing you'd play in the left hand, but it's not there because the bass player is playing it. I mean, on this thing, it sounds corny. Everything sounds corny. Maybe it is corny. I don't know. There's a general rule, though, in orchestration about voicing chords that if the bass note, if it's a slash chord, let's say it's a C over E, that you wouldn't play any other, if it's a third,

if the third is the base note, you wouldn't play a third on top of that third. Does that make sense? So if it's C over E, I'm definitely playing a C2. No third in my voicing if I think the bass player has it. Right, right, right, right. I'm really not, I'm trying not to hang on that E because that E's so strong. Like play a C-2, play a C-triad, just straight C-triot over E. And put an E in the bass.

Yeah, exactly. It's fine, but with the two, it's stronger. Right, exactly. We kind of default to that. And that's maybe even why I'm, I've started kind of hearing that same thing over a B-flat. Well, it works on seventh as well, too, I think, a little bit. But I know in classical orchestration, like, you're really not supposed to put, I'm not supposed to, you know, there's no rules or whatever. You're not supposed to play C over B-flat and classical.

Come on now, but. No, but in general, like, if the third is on the. bottom of a chord, you don't do it above that octave. Right. You know, you keep it low. Yeah. And also with different instruments. So it's always a, I mean, you talk about context of orchestration. When you're, say, writing for woodwinds or something, we think about it as like this monolithic thing, like a saxophone section, which is even different. But with woodwinds and stuff, they can be really effective because you might have the piccolo or flute

on top and then clarinet, oboe, English horn and stuff. And it's very easy as pianists to think, okay, we're going to put these voicing. But those instruments sound different. They are different. And some of these things that we can stack up up in a way on the piano don't work in that kind of situation. I would say that if you go rootless for this,

if there's a bass player and they have it, don't feel like you have to include that bass note in your trial. Exactly. Exactly. But if you're going to go rootless, make sure you're at certain beaches in France where it's allowed. And generally in the U.S., it's not allowed to go rootless.

Okay. There we go. There we go. Well, thank you, Gene, for the question. It's a good question. It is. I'm glad we talked about it. Well, I think it speaks to kind of a little bit of a what could be perceived, certainly as a problematic thing because it's hard to find things that sound good in these situations.

But it's almost like a half-diminish, you know, we kind of struggle with that and different good voices. But once... Cool. Oh, you're cool. Okay. I mean, I'm trying to, you know, the royal we. These are not the universe. Like, it's not the easiest of situations.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like a minor seven rootless or rooted voice. Like, we can just lay out like eight, ten different. standard ways of playing and then some cool ways on top of that but just some standard ways that sound good you know whereas with these you do have a little bit more inventive and also move things around because you're going to as you mentioned earlier often encounter these in pedal point situations that's a great opportunity like if stylistically you don't want to be

sitting triad but the bay players kind of go in there triads can always shift around to give them a little bit of ambiguity and tension and stuff yeah I mean Any shape where you keep that shape that can be moved around in that same shape. And because the structure of the shape stays the same as you move it around, there's some kind of consonants to it, even though it's dissonant. Triads are the most obvious example,

but you can do that in fourths. You can do that with whatever cluster you feel like. Yeah, but because they are so obvious in triads and a slash chord often is including that triad, you know, it is a triad on top of it, most of the time, right? Yeah. Then take, we can turn a negative into a, not a negative, but just something that's playing

into a positive, in that we can shift it around more than we can other more complicated structures because everybody's just focused in it and can hear that triad. So use that to our advantage and get advantage. You know, it was a game changer for me for solo piano playing was like starting

to really incorporate slash chords in my improvising on my voicing. In other words, like not everything has to be, have the root on the bottom, but using like getting familiar with the third on the bottom, the fifth on the bottom, especially for like dominant chords. Yeah. It really can help with voice leading.

and help create interesting baselines so that you're not just reliant on the route. You know, you think, like, especially if you're doing things, not in a walking feel or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, working on two fives in slash chord situations,

the seventh on the bottom, you know, like all that kind of stuff is very helpful. Now, that was a game changer for you. Did you incorporate that into your St. Louis Cardinals hit from last year entitled Game Changer? I did. I did actually do. Oh, it was a couple of moments.

Nice. Google it. Google it. All right, a reminder too for our listeners that for limited time you'll hear listeners can subscribe to the Oxford American for only 20... Oxford American.

I shouldn't flub the sponsor's name. No. For only 25 bucks, visit Oxfordamerican.org forward slash YHI to subscribe today. Yep. Good stuff. I think we have some ratings and reviews. I've been derelict all week and we are coming.

I'm feeling a little bit of pressure. We have a subset of listeners who actually love listening to you read ratings and reviews. And we have a larger section that hate it and are turning their are you serious way i don't know about this are we going to name names we're not well you know some people personally who say oh yeah well that that guy we know he's our friend okay um first of all we have we haven't said this in a while but we do

ask when you leave us a rating and review yeah that you do give us seven stars we do we remind you that it's impossible on all forms of rating and reviews i'm not going to accept that you know i'm not I'm an optimistic guy. But you can write in seven stars, and that's what we ask. At least. Because five stars isn't enough. That's right.

We have our lists of seven, seven steps to heaven. We're bringing the fire. We're bringing seven stars. We're not bringing eight, so we're not asking for eight. We're asking for what we feel we're delivering in terms of value. C major seven over G, baby.

That's what we're talking about. That's what I'm saying. So this is from, um, Swaree Fiasco from France. That's a great name. Swaree fiasco. Um,

and, uh, the five stars. I'd be, you know, stuck into the, you know, France is more restrictive on their rating systems apparently. That's okay. We love you. Okay. It's la vie.

And, uh, how many do you, my frere? Okay. Uh, amazing podcast. That's my morning routine. Coffee with you'll hear it. I kind of like that. Coffee with you'll hear it. Uh, sorry, but the fact that this is about 20 minutes makes me finishing the podcast almost every time in the toilet area.

But don't worry. This is a very important part of my routine. Keep going. I forgot to say there was some. potty language literally in this but I didn't write it so take that for what you will that's got to be a given though we're doing a podcast

it's going to be listened to in environments that we're probably are thinking of but this is the thing 20 minutes I don't think that that's do we ever hit 20 minutes Andrew oh he says yes he's like frowns

okay so I was going to say I didn't think but you know sometimes when you're in the bathroom it's like time stand still you know so I think that's enough for for this week, right? We only have that one? Are you serious? No, we have some other ones.

Okay, here's... Okay, I'll give you another one. And then tomorrow I got a special surprise at the end. We're not going to do ratings and review something else, but you've got to tune it tomorrow. Amazing, smiley face. It is definitely the greatest podcast for piano players and from another top pro pianist.

And definitely for all levels. But all the others can find tons of useful and great advice about how to win, what exactly, and why. Respect from R.D. Drum, Mario, from Ukraine. and I've read that one before. Sorry about that.

That was such a good one, man. I love it. It's all good. I wonder why people hate this part. I want to hear about that in a second. But until tomorrow, you'll hear it. All right, and don't forget to send in your tunes. If you want to hear your tune on a you'll hear an episode,

you can send that to Andrew at Open Studio Network.com. Today's tune is from Octavi Coronado. It's Octavi's version of On the Sunny Side of the Street. This rover goes over if I ever had a scent I'll be reaches, rock and feather With gold and south my feet To the sunny On the sunny