You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Spicing Up Your Solos

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Adam and Peter teach you how to add interest to every solo you play. 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

This is how great players play great souls every time. They start with a great idea. I want to play a great solo, but I want to make sure that I play a great solo every single time. How do I do that? Well, we're going to get into that. Okay, so a little backstory here. The last six days I played with Christian McBride in Inside Straight, two sets a night at two different jazz clubs, Indianapolis and Chicago. You know, when we're on a – if it's a recording,

especially a live recording or you go to a gig, I think there's a lot you can learn about great players and how they play and how they do their thing and how they're different and how they're alike. But there's nothing like playing with great players to really get an insight. But it's kind of funny because it's like you're having to do your own job too.

So it's like you're listening in more of a like intent way because you're being paid to listen and play with folks. Like you're at a gig, you're paid to enjoy it. But then I also find myself enjoying it as well. And so it's like a weird thing. It's like a lot of like, it's not really stress, but it's a lot of like, I feel that I need to really be very, you know, really intentional about where my mind is at all different times. And then I also like to try to find some commonality between really great players and the way they do things. I always feel like for teaching and for sharing with the pod, that can be really helpful.

If I tell you like, well, Christian McBride played this incredible solo over theme for Kareem, you know, he started on a D flat seven, he just killed. And it's like just about him. It's very easy to be like, well, that works for him. but he's kind of like his own dude. You know, like he's at such a level most people couldn't imagine, including myself, being able to kind of process things this way.

But when you find something that a number of players that are really good do, then that's something that we can all grasp on to. A great solo that's edifying to the listener is by its very nature not boring because it's like an interesting story that somebody tells, a great book, a great novel, a play, you know, any kind of artistic work

from something as small as a one minute solo up to a four hour movie or whatever. It doesn't mean it's not slow or to some people that are not engaged enough. I might be like, oh, I'm bored with that. That doesn't mean what's there isn't boring. Hey, Peter, I'm bored. I'm bored, man.

Yeah. But, I mean, you want to be engaging from a listening standpoint with things that are not boring. So it's really easy to do. Just listen to great solos that you like. And you want to always be thinking about the many things, the myriad of,

techniques that that soloist uses to keep from falling into like that boring kind of doldrums. One thing about that general, you know, concept of like how do you kind of go next level on something? How do you hit? I mean, we're always trying to put together a cohesive and interesting story in our solos. I think that's, that remains the goal. It's not like, okay, we're just going to phone it in and every once in a while inspiration is going to hit us. I mean, no, we're always going for that. It's like I imagine if you're acting in an epic movie or something, you have to, you know, you have to move in a certain way and talk in a certain way.

The way I approach it is like you have to be open to being able to really be present and, you know, able to in the moment kind of rise to the occasion of these kind of bigger tunes. I don't know if you've, I'm sure you've been in this position before. It's very exciting to like be accompanying somebody and the crowd goes wild at the end of their soul. But then it kind of dies down and then everyone's looking at you. And it's like, all right, what's you going to do? you know and it's like you're either going to go hide under a rock or you can't really you can't try to recreate what just happened because there's no way you're going to be able to

die yeah you're going to die if you try to be like okay i'll just do what warren did yeah good luck it's right exactly when i was younger i would be like oh it's how do you learn how to play after somebody that's so great that you don't even have the confidence that you can get to their level so it's going to be a let down to the audience so i try to turn that around and and say um like how can use the inspiration? Isn't it great that you have this fantastic solo? That's like giving me a head start, actually. And I love that you mentioned presence and that it's a matter of presence because I really think that that is the key.

I have the same. We all, every musician who improvises and doesn't regularly goes through the same thing of like, well, why are some solos feel like epic and effortless and others? It's like, yes, at a certain level, everything is, is great, you know, it's all good. But like, there are always some that are more special than others. You need to be with whatever is in the moment. And sometimes it's not as epic the moment as it is at other times. Like sometimes you can't like force some kind of incredible transcendent experience on every single tune on every single solo because then none of them are transcendent

or epic. It's all, it just becomes this like everything has its place in a set and in an evening and on an album or even in a tune with the flow. And so naturally, I think in the set, like, you're going to be sort of keyed in on different things. The band is going to come together in, you know, in sync in different ways. And it can just naturally can't happen at every, like in the same way at every single moment. Like, and that is actually synchronicity.

That is actually being present when you accept the fact that some things are just, they just have a slower tempo or a less intense vibe. And you just go with that because that's what's there in the moment in your and you're playing with the band. And that creates for great evenings. That that creates for great solos that are honest. And then that creates for like epic, like, you know, really elevated solos that can happen in the same space because there's space for them. I know a lot of folks feel like, you know, we hear this all the time. This used to happen to me all the time.

I don't think any improvising musician has not gone through this state. for longer than they would have wanted when you hear back what you're playing and you're like, wow, that's so boring. Or you'll look out the audience as your solo

and they are going to sleep or bored or playing on their phone or any other way that you might find out or have an inkling that what you're playing may not be quite as exciting as it should be.

Do you ever catch yourself in the middle of a solo being like, I'm so bored with myself right now? Well, not really, but I think that's probably, you know, if you are feeling bored, you know, like, it's possible that you can be excited and engaged and your soul still sounds boring. But if you're, if you're bored, it's very

easy to fake the flunk at that point. So you've got to find a way, we have to find a way always to be engaged. And it's, and it's not about like bells and whistles and like just crazy random stuff flying around in your soul. That's not the way to get out of the boredom thing. But I think a certain level of concentration for sure. And commitment to yourself not being bored is the starting point.