You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Solo Piano Basics

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

On this episode, Peter and Adam lay down the fundamentals of what it takes to have a good solo piano performance.Be sure to tune in to Peter and Adam's Solo Piano Q&A! Starting at 3:00 PM CST, Peter and Adam will be streaming live to YouTube as they answer any questions you have about solo piano.Check out Geoffrey Keezer's new course from Open Studio: Elements of Solo Piano. He'll show you the strategies and techniques you need to know to become a better solo pianist. For a free sample, take a look at Keezer's excellent transcribed performance of "The Nearness of You" right here.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.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, can you give us a little solo piano? I guess. Something basic. Call that basic? Basic solo piano, baby. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily music advice coming at you. Coming at you today, we're talking about solo piano basics, and we're talking about it sponsored by OpenStio. Go to open. OPEOJST.com, where you can check out Jeffrey Keeser's new solo piano course, elements of solo piano. Interesting that we're doing a piano,

a solo piano episode today and also sponsored by elements of... What's that voice? Is that your solo piano voice? It's my little, uh, well, uh, solo pianos can be a little pretentious. Let's get that out of the way right now. Oh, for sure.

Is that what you're alluding to with that voice? It's because we feel like we can do anything we want. We can be the entire band. We have all the power. We don't feel that way. We can. We get drunk with power. If not drunk on Grandad.

Yeah, it's not actually drunk. That's the ultimate level. when you can get actually drunk and be drunk on power and play everything. I feel like there were some live at Merbeck Hall solo piano, never mind. Anyway, today we wanted to talk about just some basic things, actually that not even pianists could do, but any musician, you can sit down at a keyboard or a piano and be able to figure out some simple solo piano arrangements of your favorite standards with some of these techniques. It's not as hard as it needs to be. You don't have to go full keys.

Full Jeffrey Kiser on every solo piano arrangement. There are some basic things that if you focus on, you're going to be a solid solo player. I don't know about you, Peter, but when I learned this improvised music, I started off learning a technique that was more based on what I would play with a bass player, right? I started playing in bands.

I think that's typical. I think it is too. So it actually took me several years to feel comfortable as a solo pianist. And even I still am not as confident when I have a solo piano gig because I am on a, like a trio gig, for instance. Like, it still is something I really have to work on in order to feel confident and comfortable in

because you do feel like the onus is on you to make it everything, you know. Well, it is. I mean, there's nobody else there. But I think that it's like any combination of players or lack of combination solo. You talk about solo, duo, trio, and then beyond, it has its own set of challenges and rewards that come with that. I don't think any situation

I mean look playing trio is no Walk in the Park either But it's all in kind of how you look at it Because some people like it's so hard to play With a great bass player and a great drummer Because their time is so good Their swing is so good They care if they have any problem

It's that they care too much You know But their biggest fault is they swing too hard No but I think that if you think about it Yeah that is hard But then on the other hand It's the easiest thing in the world If you get the mindset of like

Let me ride that wave Let me not worry about it as I am I as good as them, let me just realize, let me, let me concentrate on the fact that I have the opportunity to really concentrate and to elevate, to let them elevate me to another level. And so with solo piano, like, none of that's part of the equation, because there's nobody to pull you down and there's nobody to elevate you. Because when you talk about trio, it's like, what's worse than a horrible bass, piano, drummer you have to play with? What do we usually end up doing? Tell them to sit out. Yeah, that's right. And then we're back to solo anyway.

Just solo, yeah. Exactly. So I think the big challenge with solo, one of them is actually, so I was doing just a couple days ago some duo performances with guitar with the great Hamera Lubombo. And I realized like some of the same challenges with playing solo are actually there when you play duo, basically when you play without a bass player. Right. You know, and you realize what a foundational great thing the bass is.

But we can bring the spirit of that base with us when we play solo. Yep. And I think that, you know, a common entry point is, as you say, like you're playing with Trio, you're playing with big man, whatever, and then all of a sudden, bam, you have to play solo. But that's a great entry point.

I mean, a lot of pianists have done that. The way to, like, to sort of leapfrog over that uncomfortable period is to not feel like you have to duplicate everything to the bass player and drummer

that aren't there. That's the first thing. You've got to get that in your mind. But if you can hear all those things, then you're going to be in a good position, but don't feel like you have to, like, if your confidence and your feeling of the groove

and the form and all those things are just like the bass playing, and drummer were there, but all of a sudden you erase them. And only you could hear what was going on. Right, right, right. Then if you play with that kind of a spirit, then it's going to come across great, even if you don't have an advanced left hand or independence in the hands, because that's where it really gets interest when you have an advanced understanding and implementation of hand

independence. And that doesn't come over. There's no way to have that come overnight. Yeah, there's no saxophone players that are sitting down on the keyboard with great hand independent just yet. But what you're talking about leads to my number one here thing on the list of, uh, that I made of some topics we could talk about. And that is, I think probably the most important element of playing solo piano and sounding

good and confident is having that sense of groove, that sense of time that is similar to when you have a rhythm section. Yes. And the only way to do that is to hear the rhythm section in your head, even if you're not playing everything that they would be playing. You have to keep it like it's still swinging. And you hear too often, you know, a solo pianist at like a cocktail party or something. like that where the time is just friggin

all over the place and you're like what is going on? Like it's just not happening. It doesn't feel great. And when you hear a solo pianist like yourself or Jeffrey Keiser or a number of amazing, Kenny Barron comes to mind is one of the great solo pianists ever.

Got a chance to hang out with Kenny Barron. Sorry. You dropped the name first though. What an amazing I mean, I'm not hanging with it. I was listening to him. I was nervous because at the duo gig he was sitting in the audience. Yeah, that was woo. But talk about like an amazing groove and a sense of time when he's playing solo, you don't really miss the

bass player. And that's what a bass player's role is in the trio is because they're usually playing that two feel or that walking baseline, they're providing such a strong presence for the time. You really have to have that going in your mind at all time. Now, the first way to apply that to your practice if you want to become a decent solo pianist is you have to work on your two feel. You just have to. There's no getting around that if you want to play in a swing or straight-ahead manner. Like, you have to just sit there. I mean, I still practice that on the regular, that kind of, even that basic, because I really want that feel to be basic. I heard you. Oh, boy. I really want that. Come on, Daddy. I really want that feel to be locked in, and I want to have

that to pull out of my hat. Then, I mean, then you start talking about hand dependence and working on that, but it all springs from being able to lock in a simple to feel with the left hand. Yes. And no matter what we're playing from, and look, You make it sound easy and you say simple. Well, I mean, I don't. No, to get to that, it takes work, you know, and it takes commitment. But what happens is sometimes people think because they can play more notes, they skip over that. Or they have a little bit of hand in the pens from playing classical music.

They're like, oh, I can do some other things, but they don't have that foundational sense of groove, which is so important to be able to have that advanced confidence when you're playing solo piano, you know. And so you can't skip. I mean, you can skip over that, but then you got to go back and it's like a really inefficient way to build up your solo piano job. So you have to think about, you have to make a commitment to not playing more than you can stay within the groove in time and the two feels the perfect place to develop that. And it's left hand alone and then it's after many choruses of this. And look, if you don't enjoy doing this, find something else to do. Is that harsh? Sorry. No, but it's true. But you have to,

I mean, five choruses, just five choruses. This is the fundamentals right here. You put the fun into medals. But then, after you've done five choruses, this maybe just a little bit... A little comping with the right hand. This is another solo piano characteristic that you might not have practiced enough, which is comping with your right hand.

You've got to be able to do that. Yeah. Just like you're saying. That's the beginning of the hand independence, really. And eventually you're going to be able to play melodies with your right hand and comp. And you can be able to play duos. Yeah, exactly.

Have a little finger independence. A little hand. Independence. But that has to be built up. This is as much of an exercise in getting you confident and stuck within this very simple groove. But don't play it simplistically. Like play it with an advanced sense of groove and feel. That's right.

So our next step here in developing a good... Oh, I'm sorry. Can I just add one thing? Please, no, please. This is something I remember I used to do as a little bit of a challenge. I would practice this kind of thing. And then you're thinking about placement, because this is about as much, whether it's a melody or... but you just have one thing happening.

And if you do, like, one thing that's a little bit off, rhythmically, like you're not in the groove and you hear that, then you lose that chorus. So say you're going to do five choruses in a row, and you get to the third chorus, and you do one thing, then you get bounced back to two. So you don't get to five,

they have to be five perfect choruses. Man, I love it. Is that dogmatic? No, it's just... Drop down and give me five choruses right now, son! It's just dogmatic enough. So the next thing that we're going to build on here is... Southerners are very dogmatic.

I'm from the south, so I can say that, right? You are. Yeah. And they are. And you are. But one thing that we can build on from this is now like a solid foundation of rooted voicing. This was something that I was definitely lacking. Where's this idea of rooted it in?

What's that? Where's this idea of rooted in? Oh, buddy, buddy. Oh, buddy. Well, it's rooted in the truth because you need these to be able to play some solo piano. And, you know, we talk about this one concept a lot and for a good reason. And that's root and shell or root and shell pretty. and because it just gets us everywhere we need to go.

I can stick with my two feel with just root and shell in my left hand. And that frees me up to do like whatever I want to do in my right hand. I have that whole baseline and harmony cover. Thank you for continuing on. I have everything covered with that root and shell. And then if I want to add pretty notes with the rest of my right hand,

now we're talking about real finger, real hand independence, middle hand ideas, which is not basing. but it springs from it springs from the root and shell concept. Yep. I love it. I love it. And then the thing too we want to stress is like we're building these

elements and these skills up. This might be a month of each of these or it might be a week depending on your practice time but like you talk about the groove, the feel, the two feel and then the simple comping and then the root shell, pretty. Like we're not just working on those and abandoning

what, you know, this is additive. That's right. By root shell, we mean the root, in this case of F7, stumbled there for a minute, F7, we mean the third and the seventh of the seventh and the third, E flat and A in some combination. That's what we mean by root shell. And by pretty, we usually mean things like the ninth, the 11th, the 13th, the fifth, all that stuff. The pretty mean B.

Okay, the next concept we want to talk about. We have now some voicing. We have a two feel. Hopefully our groove and time is being worked on. I think what really sets good solo pianists apart from great solo pianists is the use of dynamics

because nothing is worse than hearing that's bad than just pawing down bare paws down of uh well I wouldn't say nothing is worse than that no nothing is not nothing

pasta that's dente as opposed to al dente that's worse you know what I'm saying I just there's no dynamics there's nothing like if you again go back Play solo piano, Aldente. Kieser has this thing where he talks about three kinds of dynamics.

The melody is the loudest. The bass line is second loudest. Yeah. Come on, Keyes. And then the comping that you're doing with the left hand or the middle hand is the sort of mist in the air. I almost missed that. But I'm glad you pointed that out. But you just kind of feel it, that comping.

You don't have to really do super thick chords all the time. Well, the thing is, yeah. Because it's in a very strong part of the piano, so you need to diminish the volume anyway. It's in that tent. Normally you're talking about that comping. You've got multiple notes being played. You're playing them, like, jabbing at them with staccato and accents anyway.

So you've got to compensate because naturally they're going to stick out. So you have to use that balance. You've got to use your ears, though. People think, like, playing with dynamics and being able to adjust your hands and hand and finger independence is a physical thing. and there's an aspect to that but the more and more I learn about this instrument and I mean the piano not just the

hammer 88 the hammer 88's but I mean it's such a it's so much based upon listening in real time for sure active listening it's like the whole thing I mean it's just like and I really make parallels with you know the more I learn about running and stuff it's like it is not about the muscle

it's about your mindset it's about your mind and like can you do this or not of course your body just like with the piano you have physical limitations you can't will yourself to reach 12th or anything. But using your ears, which I would say is the kind of equivalent and is certainly connected with using your mind, is such an important part of this because the mechanics of this, you know, you can work on on an individual basis and everything.

But if you do all that, but you can't hear it and you're not used to listening and concentrating and meditating on what that balance is, it's going to all be for naught, as I used to say. So you're saying number one. Practice. Oh, sorry. Listen. Remember when we did that course, like number one. practice.

Yeah. But you can practice this idea by listening, even with that basic two-feel. Like if you play just a melody, you know, trying to bring out the melody as opposed to that two-feel baseline, you can make one a little louder than the other. That's the easiest way to practice this. Two notes at a time. It's not that hard. You know, you can practice that for hours, and you will see such amazing results.

If you concentrate and, like, really listen. And like, I noticed, I don't know if they caught up caught on the camera because we are on the YouTube's big shout out to YouTube. Keep on Googling. keep on searching. Come on now. You get a certain look, a little bit of a transfixed look, when you're kind of concentrated, even on a simple thing like what you just play.

I look like like an idiot. Well, no, no, but it's not about, but you know what? But it's a concentrated, it's not a thinking like, you know, a formula. It's a listening. That's your listening look. It is my listening face. And this is like something that is so important. Yeah, we're demonstrating here.

We're having fun or whatever. But it's like, once we play this thing, we want this stuff. to sound right, you know, and that's as much a personal commitment to what you're hearing and putting yourself as a listener as much as you are a player. And it really starts with the practice, because we're going to spend, you know, 90, 95% of our time at the keyboard practicing alone. And if we're lucky, maybe 5% performing for other people. That's just the reality of being a musician. I mean, that's a great ratio, actually. Yeah, yeah. All right, the last element of this that I think we're going to suggest is to compose a solo piano arrangement. That doesn't mean that you have to write out every

note of it. But, you know, for this course, for Elements of Solo Piano Kieser's course, Jeffrey has this amazing arrangement of The Nearness of You in 3-2, like a big 3, and it's super funky, and he obviously has It's the one that's on the YouTube now. It's the one that's on the YouTube. Andrew, give a link here in the description

to this incredible performance. And we have it all transcribed. You can check it out on the side of the slides. If you see on the elements of solo piano course at the bottom, that we have a guarantee for everyone who bets the course they will be able to play the nearest of you. No, no, no, no, no. I thought that was point. No, no, no, no. Okay, sorry. But it is good advice. You'll learn from the person who can do that.

You'll learn from Keiser's performance of this. And you'll, you'll kind of come to understand, he has this arrangement worked out. I have a few solo piano arrangements on the, you'll hear it blog, one of all the things you are, of Green Dolphin Street, of someday my prints will come, and even of autumn leaves that were just really practiced devices for me to expand what I could do on this, on solo piano. I kind of, I didn't even write them out at first. I just worked. some stuff out that I wanted to do. And then I made that head part of my arrangement when I perform the song. That kind of thing though, once you do that those elements start showing up in other tunes you're doing. You're kind of like teaching yourself

how to make an arrangement on the fly by coming up with an arrangement that you repeat over and over again. It's kind of like a framework or a system for playing. It's not about the style or about how much do I use my left hand, how much do I use, right? It's really a system for navigating this wonderful instrument.

and being able to exploit it in a way for the music for how it sounds to you and then build upon that. Absolutely. And although you're right, we cannot guarantee you're going to be able to play the nearness of you to the level of Jeff Kieser. We are legally not allowed to guarantee that as part of this course. But we cannot guarantee that you won't be able to either, right? That is a triple negative. No, we cannot guarantee that you won't be able to not play like Keiser.

WhyMMMV? That's all I got to say about that. Nobody knows what that means, P. Hashtag, YMV. Okay, we're near the end of the episode here. But did you know what we're doing later today? Drinking some old granddad. Oh, no, boot camp.

That's every day. Well, no, I mean, yes, today. But people are hearing this on Tuesday, February 11th. And if you're hearing this in the morning, they're going to see it before they hear it. If you're hearing this before, let's say, 3 p.m. Eastern time, there's still time. We're doing a live Q&A about solo piano today. this afternoon.

I don't know anything about it. February 11th. Andrew, provide a link there to the live Q&A as well. Future Peter and future Adam. Hello. We're doing a live Q&A

where you can ask us anything you want to ask us about either solo piano or Jeffrey Kieser's solo piano course. Hit us up today on the YouTube. Follow the link in the description.

That's if you're listening to this on the morning of February 11th. Let me check my schedule and see if I'm available. Because a lot of people, a lot of people listen to the latest episodes so we thought it'd be cool to me.

Yeah. Do a little Q&A after this episode. I'm looking forward to that. I've got a couple hours to prepare. That's right. Please leave us a rating or review. Don't stop watching now because we've got a special. We don't have a special, do we have a special bonus? No. Okay, but.

Oh, no, we do. I have a special bonus secret. I mean, other than they're invited to a live Q&A with Peter and Adam. That's pretty exciting. Oh, we gave that away already. No, but leave us a rating or review because, like, you don't have to pay us for this. This is a public service. No problem.

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But we did have a fun comment and we're reading all of the ratings and review and we're reading all the reviews. If you leave us a review, even if it's horrible, we'll do it. But we had a fun one that was, Peter and Adam, I regret the loss of Pod Cave, which with its Batman reference captured so well the whimsical coolness of your show. I have no love for the Pod Suite.

Come on. Which sounds like a software solution. That's true. It does. It does kind of sound like a software solution. Yeah. Come on, Andrew. Your show rules.

Do it from the Pod Palace. I mean, that sounds slightly pretentious. Cheers, David, in Ottawa, Canada. Man, I love Ottawa. That is one of my favorite. People are funny up there. It's such a cool city. Yeah, it's very funny.

they talk funny too which is really fun funny but you know I'm from the south do you know where I'm from you don't even know we'll talk about that on another episode you're from Florida Florida but central Florida which is very different like southern Florida is very hip and like Hispanic you know where I'm from Missouri Missouri yeah dude you we joke about

it's country where you're from if you saw the little town I'm from you'd be like wow really the train tracks go right through we're going to gate keep our countryness here on the podcast because let's just say that the town I was born in is featured in the movie about Jackie Robinson. Not in a positive light. Predates me though. Anyway, until tomorrow.

You'll hear it.