You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Crucial Element You're Not Practicing

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

"Hello darkness my old friend..." What does a Simon and Garfunkel song have to do with this episode? Stay tuned to find out! Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Until midnight CST, non-Premium members can leave voice messages for Peter and Adam. Go to http://youllhearit.com/podcast/ to leave yours. But hurry - the SpeakPipe hotline goes back to Premium members only in 2020.Are you going to the JEN Conference? If so, stop by and say hi to us! From January 7 - 10, Peter and Adam will be doing special live You'll Hear It's, giving away special prizes, and answering any jazz or music questions you want to ask them. Just look for the Open Studio booth (Booth 718) and get your daily jazz advice in person.Support the You'll Hear It podcast by signing up for You'll Hear It Premium! You'll get access to exclusive bonus episodes, the YHI archive of past episodes, giveaways, and much more! Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/yhi for more info.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. Yeah. Drop down and gave me 20 before the decade's over. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Coming at you today. It's New Year is Eve, Peter.

It's the last day of 2019. How's your year been, man? Well, how's your decade been, big guy? Dude, decades been, baller, I got to say. Now, do you subscribe? We had a big debate about this the other day in my household about, is the decade ending today or is it ending a year from today? I think the nerd side of me will say it's ending a year from today,

but the completely non-nerd practical person who's about to switch from a 1-9 to a 20, is set because it's the 2019. Oh, I thought she meant 1900. I was like, dude, you're 20 years later on that one. 2019 to 2020. I think this is, we're in the 20s. These are the roaring 20s. It's the new.

It's the jazz age. Again, it's a new decade. To me, I know technically it doesn't start until, of 2021, I think. Is that right, Andrew? Is that a lot? Or was that just the millennium? The millennium and centuries decades don't. So we're arguing about nothing here.

Whoever was in your household was wrong. Well, you have a little ask Google thing that's spying on you in your house, right? Of course. Yeah, we asked that and it said 17, it's so indecisive. 17% of the people think it's not, the decade starts a year later, and then the rest of people. So I was like, you know, I like to go against the

tie. I'm not a big bandwagon guy. Well, I'll tell you what. I know we have, just a crap ton of nerds that listen to this show. So please, if you know the correct answer and you're dogmatic about it. There is no correct answer. I did do enough research to know that. Oh, there's no correct answer. There's two lines of thought.

Like if you're talking about the 20s, yes, of course, they'll start tomorrow. Then we're entering a new decade. But this is, there's a way of counting, like if you think about one to 10. Okay, think about the year zero. Right. Okay. When did the, we don't need to go through all this. But that's in the first decade of the, if it's the, like, this is the thing, right?

So maybe the year 2000 wasn't the first. year of the new millennium. We lost a year somewhere. We never get that year back. But it was certainly the first year of that decade. Yeah. Andrew's totally lost interest in this. He doesn't care. He's eating jelly beans over there having a good time. In any case, we want to wish everybody a happy new year. This is super exciting. And I want to, yesterday was your birthday. So this is an exciting time because you are 41, as we say here, right? Or 41. 41. 41. And it's a new, year. It's a new decade. We're going to have a whole new podcast in 2020. I know. A whole new pod cave. Is it going to be happening tomorrow?

We might be a few days behind on the actual new cave because it's being built as we speak. Yeah, we got to go to Jen. We got a lot going on. But when we get back from Jen, when we get back from New Orleans, we're going to have a whole new setup. It's going to look super cool. Can we tease out some of the features? Or do we not want to do that? I think they're locked in, right? Yeah. Double keyboards.

Dopeo. Dopeo keyboards. Yeah, we're going double keyboards. And not, no offense, not the M audio. Well, although it is an M audio. Oh, it is an M audio. But not the crappy M audio. It's a nice animal. We're going to actually be going. for that M Audio sponsorship. Big shout out to M Audio.

Love you guys. No, you know what? We thought because we've dogged on this M audio so much over 2019, we're going to get the high, high-end M-audios that everybody. Yeah, they were rated really, really nicely. So we'll see how it works. So it turns out you had to spend more than $47 to get a good keyboard, but not complain about it.

Apparently. But look for that. And then, you know, we mentioned the Jen Conference in New Orleans. Yes. Come see us. We will be down there. We'll be at Booth 718 all week. We'll be at the.

booth, Rachel will be at the booth, come say hi. We'll have some open studio artists are going to be at the booth. We're going to kidnap them and bring them down there. We know that John Jones is going to be there. He's the gen president this year. Warren Wolf is going down. And last year I was down there, Brian Fielding and I were manning the booth and we had a ton of artists stop by. Some that weren't open studio artists just to say like, hey, I love open studio. And we slapped them and say, get out of here. You're not an open studio art. Come back when you sign the contract.

Drop down and give you 20, son. But last year, man, I got a ton of people. that came by and were like, you'll hear it, and like a ton of listeners and open studio folks. So we expect to see y'all again. So come say hi. 7. And we're going to have swag. And then Tuesday, the 7th, January 7th at 3 p.m. is Peter Martin's keynote, how being a jazz musician taught me to be a startup founder. That's in the Foster 2 room.

Go check that out. And then Thursday, January 9th at 3.30 p.m. be in the live studio audience for a live taping of a few you'll hear it episodes. That's right. We're going to pack it as many as we can. We're going to do some Q&A. We're going to call it like a live speak pipe. The live,

the live pipe. A live pipe. I just hope more than, more than like one person shows up. That would be great. That would be so bad if nobody shows up. That would, we will literally have to smoke a speak pipe if nobody shows up.

That would not be a good luck. Not be a good luck. Okay. So why do you even put that out in the air? Sorry, man. Wow. Oh, I'm just trying to promote.

You know what? Next decade, I'm not going to tolerate that. Okay. Today, yes. Fair enough. Okay. So now, oh, another exciting thing today with the, with the,

this is always a time. of renewal. I'm always excited. New Year's resolutions, all that kind of good stuff. But today is the final day to get your speak pipe in. The speak pipe is being closed at midnight, right? Andrew was going to go out and party and shoot off a gun into the sky. We're making him stay home. He's staying home and shut down the speak pipe. Until 1159 central time to shut, manually turn the server off. Yeah. He's going to be the only one when the countdown is going down. He's going to have this finger on the button. And everybody else is going to be, you know, throwing up confetti and kissing and he's just going to and press off.

And then he's going to go outside. And then he's going to throw him a gun. So get your speak pipes in. You can go to you'll hearit.com to leave us your speakpipe. We have one from... Please do it before you go out drinking tonight. We do not accept drunken... It could be fun.

That could be fun. Okay, yeah, do it when you get back, actually. This one's from Philippe. Let's check it out. Hello, Adam and Peter. This is Philippe from South Mexico. Thank you for your huge curiosity. It's very inspiring.

I like to ask you about silence in the music. And often I think about in silence a play, you know, of actors where they can be silent for a second or more, the whole play, and that gives the huge impact to the other actors and the public, of course. So in the music, when someone is brave enough to, because it takes a lot of courage, I think, to don't play for half a second or whatever or more,

know and that creates really well many emotions can be a thick atmosphere it can be attention can be even someone who is in the corner isn't didn't play yet or silence can be used that way you know and and also the analogy with atoms you know and with no there is more void than matters although I knock my head against a wall it's not like that doesn't feel that way but Is it possible in the music? There is more silence than sound, or maybe it's different from you than for me.

I like to have your feedbacks on that. Silence. Thank you. Nice, man. How's an effective use there? Philly from South Mexico, you always have such great observations and questions. He did the one about humor from a couple months ago that was really good. And I love this topic.

I titled this, the crucial element you're not practicing. And he doesn't really touch on this, but I thought maybe we could talk about something that we haven't talked a lot about, but I think is crucial, and that's to practice silence. Yes. You know, it's not something that, I mean, this is something you can just throw in on the gig, but like everything else. Let's practice it right now. It's very difficult in this neighborhood with that.

I know, there's a lot going on. But it is something that you can actually work on and get better at. Right. For sure. And just, like he said, it takes a brave person to practice silence in a confident way. Get on the floor and shut your mouth, son. But if you work at it in, you know, in the shed, in the woodshed, it can really. help you're playing on the bandstand and give you that confidence.

I agree. And let's talk about some actual ways to practice that in a second here if we can. But I was looking for this quote. Look, these quotes, I always hear, like, you'll hear it later. Oh, he never said that. It was somebody else. But I really agree with this, and I remember it being Mozart, and somebody has put it on the internet. And if it's

on the internet, it's true, right? Yeah, most likely. Okay, good. From Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, that guy. I've heard. Powder wig. Yep. Hung out in Austria. A little bit. The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. I totally agree.

I mean, didn't... Mic drop. Yeah. But isn't that true? Yes. That is... And it's not something that we think about because we're always thinking about information

and notes, notes, notes, and voicings and rhythms and whew! And hip or whatever. But don't forget, all of that is set up by expectations. And expectations are set up by silence. Yes. And so the... And rhythmic intensity and rhythmic drama can often... I mean, actually, I think it's almost mandatory to have some amount of silence.

You know, we talk about syncopation. We talk about different grooves, things that are very, very integral to any kind of music that has a steady beat to it. Or even a non-steady beat, a floating kind of thing. The silence is what sets off rhythmic intensity and drama, you know. So I think this concept of the silence, yeah, it's also just silence. It's like meditation and like being able to appreciate. silence, there's that element. But in terms of music, I love this idea of it being between notes. So the amount of that, the intensity of that, the spacing of it, all those kind of things. So

important. Well, and that kind of brings us to where you might start practicing, thinking about the negative space as opposed to just the positive space. I think we've talked about this a little bit, but something that I like to do to practice just kind of whittling down my phrasing to what I like is to practice thinking about the duration between. phrases, right? And messing with the length of that, thinking about even specific beats of like, okay, I'm going to wait three beats between any phrase, you know, some restrictive practice that you can do just to hear it, you know, and feel it. Because it is different, you know, when you leave greater length of space between phrases or sometimes I'll practice doing

short negative space between phrases, but really try to switch up the phrases so it doesn't sound like one phrase with different motifs, but every phrase is way different, but with like a short duration in between. Doing that can really help open your mind to like, oh, this is as important as the length of my phrase or what I'm actually playing. It's going to be a big thing. Well, and it's so integral to the connection between how much silence where you're using it with what length, to the overall length of the phrase. So that's affecting the story. And then there's so many You know, there's the silence between phrases. There's the silence within phrases, between motifs and stuff.

So many, it's almost like, it's so simple, like a lot of concepts in music, like a lot of concepts in life. The simplest, most important facets and kind of elements of music are the ones that are actually very easy to implement in a way that can really enhance your improvising, can really enhance your composition. if you just put on the mindset of thinking about it. You know what I mean? But a lot of times we skip over that because we're like, oh, yeah, I know. You have to use signs. Don't play too much.

I know that. But I want to learn, like we're so much into doing the things that are hard, you know, and what could be easier than not playing or leaving space. Although when we talk about the rhythmic element, it is difficult, actually, to leave the proper,

not even the proper amount, but for the proper timing of the silence, especially when we're talking about how it relates to grooves. And if you think about someone like the, for instance, instance, I don't know, like a bass player or a drummer that's like really good, funky drummer where you can't really define exactly the amount of space, but there's like the judgment call of how much silence is put at different times, you know, on like the micro and the macro level.

Like, man, that's like some genius type stuff. But it springs from a very simple place of like not playing versus playing. Now you've got to play good when you're playing. Yeah. But you got to set that up with something as well, which is usually silence. And you have to be able to control that silence just as well as you can control what you're playing too. That negative space has to be in your command.

Yeah. So I'm glad you talked about the macro level because it's something that I think about a lot as a, even on like the course of a tune, you know, depending on the tune, I might want some moments of silence. You know, those could be hits, right? Even just don't, don't, don't.

Those little things of beats of silence where the whole band is breaking. The reason why they're so effective is because it gives this little silence, you know, beat in the air. Down to, I mean, sometimes on ballads, I like to do very pregnant pauses, you know, if I'm doing like a solo piano intro.

You got to check your health care plan before you hit a pregnant pause. I make sure you got that maternity phrase. Yeah, that's right. But you know what I mean? Like a use of silence can be very effective. I have this one arrangement of this Katie Langtune where we just kind of break.

I mean, I've heard this done by so many musicians. We just kind of break like it's a hit, but it's up in the air for us. Yeah. And we just cue it back in. And I like to see how long we can kind of go before someone might start clapping. And as soon as I hear a clap,

we're back in. And it's like, it's a really great moment in the set. And then if you're going to be a real jazz position, you turn on and scorn and, oh, come on. But then think about two. Silence cannot be just complete silence, but in the course of a set or even a gig, you can do, you know, and we do this all the time, tunes with just bass or tunes with, you know, no drums of tunes with where you're silencing one element for a while. And that way when it all comes back in, it's much stronger. Yeah.

So this idea of, you know, the power of silence, which I think is, you know, Noah would deny that. But when you talk about a group of two or more doing that together, that is truly a wonderful, powerful thing. I mean, it's like anything dramatic by one person or you could even take it from like a single line to a chord to, you know, in octaves or whatever. Anytime you're expanding that out, you have the power for that to be even more dramatic.

So it's like you have to use that at the right time. Yep. You know, you can't overuse it. I mean, you can. And there's probably sometimes when you just want to be aware of that because that is really powerful. Because you're combining two things that are really some of the strongest patterns that everybody responds to in art. You know, doing things together, first of all, especially when you have like disparate elements going on and then bam, something happens at the same time. But that is really not a time-based thing actually in so far as like unless you link it up with time.

And so by doing that. and then adding the silence. You've linked both those up. People doing things together, a continuum of time, and then bam, some silence to even further appreciate what just happened, really.

So like when you talk about doing a hit, and then when you come in, you have the timing of whatever space that you left, whether that's out of time, whether that's a specific number of beats, but you have a bunch of, you know, at least three very strong elements coming together

that can cause some great drama. And that's why you hear these things so much in either the climax or a surprise place, something that you want to do dramatic, an arrangement. And it can be in a solo. It can be spontaneous or it can be written in advance.

It's great stuff. But I think silent, the silence is just as important as an element as those other things. I appreciate too. I like a nice silent solo break. Yes. You know,

sometimes where it's like there's been a lot of solo breaks on the set and everybody's kind of flashed a little bit and maybe someone's like, you know, you point to the pianist and they just. Yeah. Holla.

You're back and everybody's back. Or I love it when a drummer you know, you're trading fours, and they just decided to just... Yeah. You know what I love is when... Yeah, no, that's great, but I love it when, like, you don't... When the piano player goes out of time on the solo break and the drummer just slops his way through

and everybody comes in at the wrong place. No, I don't. I'm just kidding. I hate that. I hate that. But that's another thing that happens sometimes. No, but that, that, that's... This is actually a really important, different kind of silence than we've talked about so far. The silence that comes out of...

The drama... The drama of it comes out of another tune or maybe even another time. time you've heard that tune. So like a night in Tunisia, there's that famous solo break. If you get to there and leave some silence, you're heightening the expectation that the audience has that something's going to go there.

Nothing more dramatic than not doing something what everybody thinks. It's like a fake out. It's anticipation. But if you do that again, the next song, it's not going to be the fact. No, no, no. Then you're corny. So one other area, I mean, there's a lot of other areas, and thank you, Philippe, so much for bringing up this cool concept. But one other

area I'm thinking about two, or an element of silence that I think is important, especially as improvisers is the power of silence after you have improvised or played something that's especially profound that you want to bring more not necessarily from a timing standpoint or even like a collective thing you want to bring more chance for the listener to digest it you know and i always compare this to giving a speech as i will be doing next week as you so eloquently say Ted style, Ted Turner style, most likely. But no, you know, the idea of saying something that's really profound.

See, I just did it. Left a little silence. It wasn't that profound what I said, but pretend like it was. But it held greater importance because you dropped down and give you 20. Yeah, see? That didn't work as well, actually. It's been funny, though. Can't yell.

Yeah. Four score and seven years ago. You know, great speech deliverers. great orators do this all the time. They use space, negative space, whatever that is, you know,

silence and spacing in order to not only improve what's coming up, but even more importantly, improve what just happened. That's right. So that's something that I don't necessarily think about when I'm improvised, but I do teach and think about it was at one time. I mean,

hopefully I probably should think about it more, but it's one of those things. It starts to become a little bit automatic and very much connected with listening. Yep. But the same time when you kind of want to, you know, appreciate something that you played or anybody played, give us some space. Yep. Because silence is also space, you know.

And space is the place. Do not use Mace up on my face. Okay? Doing a little rhyming at the end of the year. Thank you very much. You're wishing I would use a little silence now, right? Have you ever seen the movie Silence and the Lamb speaking of silence? Great movie.

I'm just seeing how long. You got so silent then. I get nervous. Philippe, thanks with another great question. Keep them coming. They're so creative and interesting. Even if we're not. Yeah, even if we're not.

And then, you know, again, please come see us at the Gen Conference in New Orleans. How you do it? No one says that. Come on, man. In New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans. Yeah. We will be there.

Or is they saying in France, Newver or Lyon. New Orleans. We'll be there Tuesday, the 7th. 3 p.m. That's Peter's Talk. And then Thursday, the 9th, that's the live. You'll hear it at 3.30. And then come by our booth. Booth 718. We've got a bunch of swag. You can check out our courses. It's going to be fun. Sounds good. So we want to wish everybody, happy new year. Yes. Blessings to everybody. Be safe tonight. Yeah, be safe tonight. And excited. Thank you guys so much for listening to us this year. We have, are we doing the new season or are we already in the new season. We're in the new season. We're in the new season. We started the new season. a couple days before the new year. We did. But look, we're really excited for next year, and we couldn't do this without you guys.

Thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for spreading the word. We're not even going to get into it. We're going to wait until next decade. I'm tired of talking about all the seven stars and all that. We had a bunch of people with, thank you for the ratings and reviews. You know, I love those. And until next decade, you'll hear it.