You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Take 4 and call it 7

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

On this episode Adam and Peter talk about how to change the meter of a tune from common time to odd time!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

Hey, Peter, you know what day it is? I don't know, but this is take three, so a little bit, feel a little bit of pressure. I'm putting on my professional voice so that we don't have a take four. Okay. Because after all, Peter, it's Monday, and on Monday, all we want... I mean, just play the right note. Is to play the right note. You sound creepy, a.

Thank you very much. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the ULhead podcast. Explain. Come on, sorry. Is that early? Yeah, a little, a hair.

early. I've been trying to play with the timing of it, which is apropos for our discussion today. Oh, I see what you did. You lopped off the eighth beat. I'm always, I'm always one beat ahead. You're always one beat ahead. When I'm in seven. When I'm in seven. So that's what we're talking about today. We just had a Yula here at Live where we talked about this. And I wanted to share this with our podcast, listeners as well. And you can never talk about this too much. So we played a little

on the live. Well, we're on take four. Wait, no, is this take three or take four? Stop, forget the takes, buddy. Because it was, keep bringing up the takes. We're going to take 17. I mean, apropos to your comment, you can never talk about this too much. We are borderline. Not for the listeners.

I mean, they're like, what are you talking about? Just so the listeners, this one doesn't fly. We're sinking to the bottom here. That's right. But they are listening to it. So apparently it worked out well. So what we want to talk about, though, is playing a tune in seven that usually isn't in seven. So we kind of like we're, we play the tune Donnelly.

We started it off in four. You know that old chestnut. And then like kind of halfway through, you just. started playing in seven. Yeah. I think it was kind of a... It was like, what the... No, it was...

That's right. That's what we did. Yes. And I wanted to talk today about that. What did we do? How did we take a tune that's usually in four? Yes. And put it into seven.

Right. And so, yeah, we can try this on some other tunes, maybe a little all the things you are, maybe a little giant steps. I don't know. Whatever you were a little Stella by Starlight. Yeah. Once you know how to do this,

you can kind of do this Willie Nilly. Willie Nilly. Willie Nilly. Willie Nilly. I don't know I put a h in there but you can do this

Borsh belt of you there. Thank you very much. But you just have to account for some things. Now notice we didn't do the melody of Donnelly No. In seven.

That's illegal in this county. We'd have to go across the river to Illinois. Ah, he's laughing again. I know. I'm sorry. In Brooklyn, Illinois, I think you can do this.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I think on this one the melody would be, I mean, you could do it with them. It could kind of be like a let's see.

I'm saying. You'd have to make some adjustment. You basically just start blowing after a while. Yeah, that was not too... But the giant steps could be... Giant steps worked perfect. That would be like... Oh, that's five, right?

No, you could do it like... That's three. So, no, it'd be like... That's three. Gang, gang, gang, gang, dang. Exactly. Ging, gand. And I think that's kind of what maybe the...

Finding that clave... Right. Right. Maybe that's where it's coming from. This brings us sort of the crux of the episode here is finding the claveite. The crux of the episode. is what, you know, what is it

a clovey? It's kind of the big beats is the way you might think of it. The outline, like the rhythmic outline. The rhythmic outline, right? So if you're in seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two, three, four, five, actually, as I had a drummer friend who said, seven, seven's easy, man, it's just one, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one,

two, three, three, four, six seven, one, super easy to feel. No, but if you are one, two, three, four, six, seven, one, two, three, four, six seven, one, two, three, four, six, seven. As soon as soon as you go to that clovey, I feel so much better, though. So what we're doing here is two half notes and two dotted quarter notes. Dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, don't.

It's back to the dot of lead. Right, because two dotted quarter notes is three beats. Right. It puts a nice little thing, a nice little halfway point between your fifth through seventh beats. Right, which is why math is important for music. The more you know. The more you know. So, okay, so we did that on Donnelly.

So let's talk about jumping steps, right? Okay. So if you want to do like, right? Tune in four, right? How do you translate that? It's the same clave. It's want, dunk, don't, don't. So much fun to play over.

Yes. And it just kind of, it can switch, uh, I was going to say a boring tune like giant steps. A simple boring, boring, little old trope like that. Already frigging hard tune like Giant Steps into something. Something even harder. A little more interesting, right? And you could even do this with, you we've done Donnelly and Giant Steps so far,

but you could do this with like a great American songbook standard. Like you were doing it with all the things. You are. Same coffee. Can you show the folks a little bit better? And against that, so if you're tapping your foot instead of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, you can simply tap one, two, dunk, dunk, one.

Yeah, that's the gunk, dunk, dunk, dunk. And notice when I'm doing those dotted quarter notes too. Sometimes I'm actually subdividing it into 16th, so you might go, dunt, dunt, duck, duck, dung, feeling those upbeat, The eighth and a lot. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, feeling that subdivision can really help you get out of two, because if you think, one, two, three, one, two, three, then you don't have to go, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Because that's what starts to make it sounds kind of square. You can start accenting in weirder places, not just on those clavis, but you've got to get that clave internal before you can do that. Just like you have to get like a two feel internal if you want to play straight ahead of stuff, too, you know. Yeah, and I think absolutely. So I'm tapping, I'm like, and then I'm going to try to kind of accentuate the feeling with the right hand. That's what really brings it alive, man. That's so cool that you can do that.

Check that down. So great, man. And then I think a good entry point. I can't do that, by the way. Yeah, you can do that. No, but the end of the entry point could be like one, two, two. So this is really just playing the baseline at the beginning of each measure. Well, if we're looking at it as four plus three.

Yeah. Right. I mean, because at first, that's actually easier to game, playing the clave with the baseline, right? Or even, like, both hands. Right. But you can't play that all the time. So then it goes, maybe play with the right hand,

and then just the whole notes with the left hand or whatever that is I'm playing. And then you can experiment, too, with, like, leaving things out, right? What I mean? Like, leaving space, not having to play every single. beat of that clothe of that metar rhythm. Right. And you can do that both hands together like that or hands separately.

And so you have a lot of opportunities for different ways to practice this. By restricted a little bit like you might say, I think we talk about this on a lie where you'd say oh well that was actually with the soulings. That's kind of jumping a step ahead but you could do the same thing with the comping

where you're going to come in on the end of one. Yeah. Which would seem hard and it is at first but then it becomes kind of nice because you know you're either playing or somebody's playing or maybe not and you're just feeling that one. That's the obvious place.

But you really want to delay that sometimes so it might be like so it's all the end of one with the right hand. Then it could be both hands. One, two, deep, five, six, seven. Yeah, you have to practice this too, by the way. It doesn't come automatically.

It doesn't come automatically. Can you demonstrate maybe some anticipations of one as well? It's like a whole other level. Right hand. left hand, both solo? Whatever you are. Give me a little challenge here. I'm right handle. Keep the baseline solid

and his pick with your right. So like add a four kind of, I mean going into it or I? And a seven. Oh, and a seven. Okay. One, teck, see, look how great does that sound? Ah, that's a bit after, but that's the thing though. Oh, man. And that's good practice too because the tendency will be that one, two, three, four. Which is cool, too, to do it together.

but having new ways to practice our independence of the hands you know we think it's all in the hands it's all in our minds it's all in like what we can what you can get the mind to and actually doing this a little slower yeah will help and it's even though it's a little harder you got to be able to hear it first four five six seven so and for me it's my tendency and it's easier so I would want to restrict myself

would be doing the anticipations based on the four and the three so it'd be like ah yeah like that's easy easier for me. So I'd want to stay away from that and wait and do the hardwood. That's a good one. And then maybe even with some soloing, would that work? Oh, no, the one we were doing was on the Anna one,

starting the solo, right? One, two, three, five, to kick. Yeah, go ahead. But, you know, it just takes repetition. It just takes doing it again and again. Yeah. And a lot of, once you kind of start thinking about this way of practicing,

it is restrictive, but there's a lot of different possibilities. I mean, just with like that's starting. I just want to try one thing. Like this is the way my thought process would go. Not everyone is successful in terms of your practice or even for a kind of pattern-based improvisation. But that's okay because it's still kind of a challenge. But I would start on two and see what that sounds like. So it'd be like one. See that was I messed up. And then here's a bonus one. It's like do the left hand but never play on the one. Let me see if I can do it. Yeah, you got it. Ah, I did a one. And that can kind of force you in that kind of

of precision, you know, I hit a couple of them on one by action. I know, man. Totally mess me up. I'm sorry, man. Come on, Peter. Just. Come on, Angela. Anyway, this was fun, man.

Yeah, it was pretty fun, man. Fourth Times Charmed. Next week. That's what they say, I think. We still got about 30 seconds before things could go on here. I swear. If you want to start this over. And I swear, oh, and I swear, when the mood comes to bed, mad, mad, and

ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for being here. I was about to go down here, baby. Oh, he's got a break, folks. I was going to play the theme, but I think we should just go out on Peter's singing, I swear, by All for One. Was that who did this one?

Boys to Men? Boystamend? I don't know. Was it Boyst to Men? It was Boister Men. I don't remember the song, but I remember the group.