You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The 1 Solo Piano Element You're Not Working On Enough - #133

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam talk about one thing you probably need to be working on more to be a good solo pianist. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at yo ears. Daily jazz. What? How many periods are going to put in that sentence, man? Yeah, you know like the daily period, jazz period.

That's what I'm saying, man. What are we talking about today? Well, we were talking about, we are talking about the one solo piano element you're not working on enough. And I don't mean to point my finger at you. You're pointing your finger directly at me. It's the proverbial you. I'm pointing it at the audience. I'm pointing it, whoever it applies to.

Yeah, we get a lot of questions about solo piano, because we're both pianists, and I think for some reason people think it's more mysterious than it actually is, and there's one thing that kind of ties all of it together, and that's what we're going to talk about today. And that one thing Peter Martin is, what's the one thing?

Oh, sorry, I was just, I was looking at an email. Concentration, perhaps? Sorry. We're multitasking today. My bad. All right, closing the computer. There we go. All right, I'm going to try to set that up again.

What is the one thing that people need to work on more in their solo piano playing? Time. That's correct. Okay. Yeah, it brings everything together. No matter what kind of voicings you know, or if you're working on stride, or you're working on sway. I don't know. What are the other tech?

I don't know. Swag. I'm not much of a solo pianist, but I have a good time feel. That goes a long way. Hey, now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, any of the, you know, voicing, you know, the different zones, all this stuff is fun and interesting, but it's all for not if you don't have a good sense of time.

And it just, I think it goes back to the whole thing of solo piano, we are the whole band. That's right, you know. And by that, I don't mean we are trying to duplicate or replicate or substitute for the whole band, like where we're pounding on the piano for the drums and playing a baseline, no. but in terms of everything that a whole trio or a quintet or a big band or an orchestra, everything in terms of the general feel of the music with the elements of harmony, melody, and rhythm, we have to exhibit all of that within our performance, a complete thing. Just because people come to a solo piano gig, they're not like, oh, it's only one person, so it's cool if it's not great.

If you go to a small restaurant as opposed to like a huge restaurant, you still want a fork and a knife and presentation and you want all the different choruses and good wine and whatever else. else, it's just in a smaller setting. And so for the piano, we have to do all that. And for some reason, the time, that's why we say this is the one element that most people are not giving enough effort into. That's the one area that they let slip because they think, oh, I don't have to play with anyone in time.

That's right. But you have to, you know, normally you've got multiple people to establish the groove and playing good time and kind of negotiate the feel and everything. And you've got everybody contributing to that. Now it's only you. So you've got to be even more attentive than normal. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I wouldn't say it's like even more important because it's always important, but it's definitely more exposed. You know, you're more exposed because it's just you. So I was just thinking here of some actionable things people can do. Oh, I love it. I love it when you get action to help work on this. And that's really to break down the different elements. You know, I like to work on, and I have been working on the last couple of years to try to get my solo piano chops better, is just my left hand, whether that's, you know, root musician voicings, stride things, kind of laying down roots and then hitting rootless voicings.

But working on it with a metronome over, you know, tunes I'm learning and really not letting myself off the hook by messing up the form or losing a beat or anything like that. You want to practice and do not stop. Be disciplined. If you mess up, keep the time and the pulse going with that metronome. Don't go back and try to fix it there. You know, you're practicing keeping your time feels strong. Yeah. And, you know, I think most people, most pianists that I hear that are playing solo that don't have great time, they tend to slow down if I'm being observant.

Yes. I hardly hear anybody pick up too much. No. So you have to realize that, that when you're without the metronome, your natural tendency is probably going to be to drag a little bit. And so I think it's okay to lean on the front end, just a hair. Yeah. Or at least think about it.

Better to rush than to drag. We know that. Better to rush than to drag. Like what trumpet players say better to be sharp than in soon. Oh, hello. Hello. It's always good to throw a little trumpet player shade with our actionable advice. A little shade on top of it.

No, but I think, and you preach this a lot about separate hand practice. But I think it is important, and I think it's especially important in solo piano playing because you do have to keep these elements together. You have to have hand independence, true hand independence to make it sound good. And if your left hand is dragon, you know, your right hand is not going to feel right. Man, if only somebody would create a course that incorporated the different elements needed to be become a better jazz pianos. You call it like, I don't know, like elements of jazz piano or something like that. Yeah, something. Anyway, side note.

So I like this idea of, you know, practicing the left hand with the metronome really locking in. So a way to extend that, keep that metronome going and then practice the different elements, you know, just your right hand improv without your left hand. That's right. But still with that metronome going, because these are all, like, what you don't want to do is get into a thing, yeah, I mean, probably 80%, 60%, 90% of the time, your left hand's going to be playing the time either in a stride or a baseline or some kind of comping pattern. But you want to, you know, for the more advanced solo piano stuff where you can really flow between the hands and get some different voicing. I mean, voices, multiple voices going at the same time and lines that even go between the hands. Both hands have to have that technical ability to really play the time so you can practice just your lines in your right in, just lines in the left hand, just comping in the left hand. Yep.

Just comping in the left hand. Each of the different elements you're going to break down and practice within the time. Then when you pull them back together, you'll be playing better time. That's absolutely true. Just baselines in the left hand is also important. You know what? How about a little baselines in the right hand? Absolutely.

Right hand can move down there? Totally. It's not going to hurt them. No. Well, watch your shoulder. No. But I actually think what you just said about practicing just the lines. with your right hand with the metronome,

is more important than people might think, and it's probably something they're not working on enough, because I think pianists have a crutch where they lay down a chord of voicing, and their brain goes to that scale or whatever. And you need to get out of that thinking. Pianists have a crutch of a voicing. They need to get a crush on playing a good time.

Hello. Look how we turn that. This is a wordsmith over here. We're making lime-aid out of lemons, which is hard because it's a different fruit. So if I were to work on one thing that's going to improve my solo piano playing, it's going to be time. It's going to be time in all the different elements. If you can work on that on a consistent basis, you are going to show great improvement in your solo piano playing.

And it almost doesn't matter what kind of technique you use to play solo because your audience is going to feel good as you're playing it. You can go straight knuckles. Well, I mean, you wouldn't actually. You could go straight knuckles. Knuckles in time would be good. This guy has some accurate knuckles on the keyboard. Well, the thing is, too, I have a very monkey-like approach to the, an ape-like approach to the instrument. That's right.

Yeah, no, this is great stuff. Yeah, solo piano, time. I love the... And then, you know, remember, too, that the whole thing of practicing time is about building up your confidence. It's not about becoming automated or anything like that. It's really building up your confidence so that you can start to explore all the other fun things that solo piano, you know, affords us in terms of arrangements and spontaneous things going on. Yep, so we hope this helps you in your solo piano journey, those of you who are on that pathway. Are we all?

We appreciate any ratings and reviews. I'm going to try to breeze through this section before Peter gets strong. Too late. Ratings and reviews. I'm not even going to put, okay, look, ratings and reviews on the podcast. You know what? I'm back to six. Forget you, man.

We're doing six stars and we're going for 100. No, I want it just to read for today's review. this is a nice one because it's from J.D. Fasioly. What's up J.D. Fasioly? Hey, that's not his real ass name, though. Well, it could be. I know Paolo Fasioly, who's the inventor and owner of the Fasiole Piano Company. I'm sorry, you just dropped that name down there on the floor. I don't mean I know, although I do know it too. No, you look at you. Sorry. Anyway, J.D. Faziole, maybe that's like his nephew from Arizona.

He says, great podcast, guys, exclamation point. You're tackling important topic for pianists and other musicians and doing it in a fun way. Thanks. So you don't have to feel like you've got to come over here for your rating and review has to be like, you know, an English essay. It could take you 20 seconds like J.D. Fazioly. Well, however long it takes you, we seriously appreciate any ratings and reviews. They really help us get this podcast in front of other ears. Also, if you have any ideas for future episodes, you can go to you'll hear at dot com. You can leave us a voice message, you can leave us a comment, even just pop in to say hi, and let us know what you're thinking of the podcast. We're still running our, you'll hear it special for Open Studios All Access Pass.

That's every course that Open Studio offers 10% off when you put in. You'll hear at 10 in the offer code field at checkout. You're going to want to check that out. It's very cool. Go to openstudornetwork.com slash podcast. Podcast. Yeah. That's confusing. That's what it is. That's all we have for today, I think, right? Unless you got another topic on solo piano? I got one more topic. All right. You'll be heard.