You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Posture of Practicing

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Peter and Adam take You'll Hear It live to YouTube and answer some listener questions - today, they discuss the best way to sit at the piano, talk about how to end tunes harmonically, and take a question on solo piano comping ideas for walking bass lines. Links From This Episode:There's a new course from Open Studio - Your Sound Is Your Signature! Join jazz bass extraordinaire Christian McBride as he teaches you how to play ballads, odd time signatures, fast tempos, and more! Featuring our beloved Guided Practice Sessions to help refine the concepts of this course. For more info, just follow this link.Friday's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)3:00 PM - Piano Guided Practice Session with Adam Maness on YouTube8:00 PM - Shelter in Place #25 solo piano concert from Peter Martin on YouTubeFor the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today. Peter, it's our first day live on YouTube. I feel like it's going all right so far. I mean, we're 15 seconds into it, but, you know, it feels solid as we're going here. Well, of course it feels solid here.

What does it feel like to our dear listeners? I don't know. But so, yeah, to our dear listeners, we're switching things up a little bit. We will be live 4 p.m. Eastern every Monday. You can join us on YouTube on the Open Studio, YouTube channel. We'll put a link here in the description. Yes. So that if you want to come and ask us questions, you know, we've been doing like email questions.

We've been taking speak pipes, which is like a voicemail question system that we have for pretty much the entire time we've had the ULher podcast. We did a little bit of Instagram live in the early pandemic days. The gram, we had trouble like really picking up on the algorithms of the gram. Here's what's so cool, though, about doing this live in the pot suite. You could ask us questions and you can be like, hey, what's our voices are you guys always? And I could be like, oh, you mean that. voicing and we can show you. That's right. Well, indeed we can and that's always the that's the fun part of it. And like this view right here, do you see what's happening here?

Of course, if you're listening, you have to imagine. Imagine Adam and I across a long table from each other with barely in the shot. With some plexiglass between us. With some plexiglass, somebody astutely referred to that plexiglass as a sneeze guard. It's a giant sneeze guard is what it is. But we're not even sneezing in here. But this has been really good for my posture because if you have bad posture. I don't know if you notice this at him. You will not be in the shot. Look at that. You follow the shot. Yeah, you got to keep that lumbar region. That's right. Like curved a little bit. But that's an important part of playing too. We're always getting questions about voicings and different things. And occasionally folks will ask about position,

which I always think is especially important for every instrument because obviously the technique and the posture and how you're physically approaching each instrument is different. But it's always important. And if you're, can clue into, look, can I get up on my high horse? No, please. This is what our free four Monday episodes need to be like this. Exactly. That's right.

So the idea is that we always have the opportunity to put ourselves in the best position, literally physical position, to be able to practice, to be able to, you know, achieve something in our practice, but even better yet, practice the way that we want to be when we go to perform, automate it, make it a habit, get into those good habits so that when we get a chance to get back out there and play. or do solo piano, solo oba, whatever you do, that these great ways of kind of just sitting or standing or holding your instrument are ingrained in us,

kind of setting us up for success, as it were. Yeah, I mean, we talk about that a lot in the Daily Guide of Practice session. I think it's something that needs to be a part of your practice session. I think it's something that's not talked about enough is how important posture. Even like mental posture is, like how you set yourself up mentally

when you're about to improvise or perform, that's a posture. That's a posture that you can take. You can take a stance in your mind on how you're about to approach what you're just about to do. You know what I mean? So for me, posture has become an important thing.

You know, as I get deeper into meditating and realizing how important posture is to that process, like I start to understand the significance between having a little curve on that lumbar region, like right, right, you know, at the small of your back, having that little curve, it does make me play the piano better. Like, there's no two ways around it. And every classical teacher I've ever had, and every great classical pianist I've ever been around and hung out with and pick their brain, they talk a lot about positioning and posture. And it makes me think

that these are people that have to deal with the most technical, like way more technical than us just kind of blowing through all the things you are. You know what I mean? Sure, sure. That literature is so hard to play that if it's important to them, that they have their feet flat on the floor and that they're loose and their wrists and arms are in the right position. As I sit here in an office chair with arms, by the way. Pod Suite is not super, I could actually go on the end.

See, like even this is way better, just for how I feel like I'm able to move around on the instrument. So whatever your instrument is, no matter what you play, but especially I think the piano where we have all of this stuff here. Yeah. Like this little contact, right? Between some buttons and us is super important. So important.

So important. And I mean, I think that, you know, this is definitely an area where you've got to find that sweet spot of, you know, really getting in touch with your body and thinking about this. But don't overthink it because it can be, it can, take over and you can start to be like wow i have to be per weight is my shoulder you know it has to be natural and the whole point of it is that we're getting in touch with how our body feels how we need what you know that the the balance between tension and you know strength without tension is what it really is so it's relaxed but it's strong so it's not like uh but it's not so

but getting in touch with all those sort of variations um as you practice so that when and you do go to play. You don't have to think about it. That's the beauty of it. That's exactly right. So what you want to do in your practice routine, even if you just do this one thing, you start your routine by saying like,

okay, edge of the seat, back straight, feet flat on the floor, big deep breath. Just like if you've ever done any kind of like, you know, whatever. Breathing. Yeah, breathing exercises or headspace app, right? Yeah. You come back to the breath. Think about coming back to that starting position.

That's all you got to do. You don't got to stress about it. Right. Just say like edge of the seat, feet flat on the floor, back is straight, shoulders are relaxed. All right. That's it. That's where I need to be right now. Like that's it. This is the power position. It makes everything better. Right. Absolutely. All right. Well, we answered our own question. That's what I'm talking about. Now we should take some of our dear listeners. I always feel funny when I say that because I love that phrase, our dear listeners.

But it makes me think of Kim Jong-un and our dear leader. We don't mean to put ourselves into that position at all. Jeffrey Davidson has a question here. It says, when it comes. to improvising lines, should a 5-7-1 resolution be practiced separately from its tritone sub? For example, should E-7-A-minor be practiced separately from B-flat-7-sharp 11 to A-minor? That's a great question, Jeffrey. Yeah, so, like, I think the answer to that is absolutely yes. And even though it's the same, so what Jeffrey's saying here is like if you have a 5-1 in the key of A-minor. Right, you have E-7-alt, right, which is.

If we look at the top five notes here of this, and I have G sharp D, C, or D sharp, G sharp D, G, C, E, right? Like a C triad on top of the shell. Yep. Now, we know that E7 alt, if we just move that root, that's a B-flat 7 sharp 11. That's what he said. Yeah, B-flat 30-E-sharp 11.

Which is the same chord, same scale, right. So he makes a good point. Should we think about that any differently? And like on the surface, I would say, like, You don't have to because you can certainly do like any sounds you want to get out of. But I think I do. Yeah.

I think when I'm actually in the thick of it, even if I'm not playing the bass note, like even if I'm just like, like I switched there from E7 halfway through that line to B flat. Right. And it just made me think about the sound a little different because I think I'm anticipating,

oh, the bass player is going to play a B flat. Right. That kind of changes the color of the notes I have, right? Because now the interval between the bass note and what I'm playing is different. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's even as much as there may even be that, there's oftentimes that third way of thinking about it too.

So you've got the E7-9 flat 13. And even if the voice is exactly the same with a different root, the function of each note is a little bit different. But the third way would be E-7, B-flat, and then just thinking about that C-triad, right? Right. Either way.

And it kind of imprint. supervising off that. And I think all these things, the more different ways that we're hearing them, the more entry points as we practice, it's not to overcomplicate, it's actually to kind of connect things in a way. So you might take, you know, each day it's kind of a different way, each one of those three ways of practicing over that chord. That's a great question, though, Jeffrey, awesome stuff. Yeah. Amy says, do you have an open studio course that explores taking a tune in a new harmonic direction, say instead of resolving a chord at the end of a chorus, you take it to a new key. What works well and why? That's a great question. I don't think we have like a specific course just on that, although we could probably at some point make some kind of substitution course. Reharm course. I've thought about this. Like there's a way to do this, but we'll get there, Amy. But here's some ideas like if you want to resolve to maybe an unexpected place. And we've talked about this a little bit before, but you know, some of the standard ways to do this are to, I mean, the very first thing that I learned, I don't know about you, is

if you were doing like, you know, um, right, resolving to that, that flat to, I call that the Charlie's Angel commercial break. It's totally, right?

You know, it's just like, you know, it's a little bit, I mean, if it's super like, stressful situation, it's like,

it's a little bit more diminished, but this is like, come back, come back for something else. But there's, there's a few other ways you can do it. You could also do Amy instead of resolving to just like, you know,

here's a two five ending. Like, we're ending a tune on a two five. I was two, this. I don't know why I always do this. It's not even a tune. Why is that my go-to for ending when we do a podcast? That's what I always go to. I don't know why. I feel like it's because it's weight,

it's going to resolve, you know what I'm saying? Right. But instead of that you could do, well, I mean, you could do. Oh, come on now. You're talking about the Adam Man is special. Talking about the High Ridge, yeah. That makes me think of our friend, Byron.

I hope he's doing all right. Love this. okay during the pandemic. So that Amy is... This is so funny. That's that, like, if we're, again, a 2-5 going to C, you know, D minor,

D-7, and then B-flat, 7-sus. Also, an unexpected way. You also could have, you know, the C can be the melody. You could also do F minor. That kind of vibe. You know, sounds really good. Me like you a lot.

Other than that, you know, it's really... You could go to the relative minor. which kind of makes it... Yeah, exactly. Is that what we're going next? Totally. So I just turned the gain up a little bit.

I don't know if you knew that I could do that. I don't know that I actually did it correctly, but Nick was saying that the volume's a little bit low, so let us know, oh, much better thanks. Looks like Peter knows how to find the gain. Hello. There you go. Hello.

But I just want to put a button on Amy's question about resolving. Amy, try literally any chord. Yeah. Like any root chord could work. Like I can make anything pretty much, even like a B. Yeah. You know? And I think that's kind of the key.

Isn't it? We've talked about this before. And I do get into this a little bit on some jazz piano lessons. I've done some ending things. But, you know, the way to practice this, the way to explore this, the way to start to find your own pathway in this. And a great ear training practice technique is take the note. you're going to end on. You were ending on the tonic, which is good.

There's a lot of tunes in there. And then find every different way. Like, you just take a root and see how many different chords. So you might think, oh, that's the only thing you can do on that. But you can also do with D flat as the root and C, you know, major minor with the major seven. Yeah. What else can you do with the D flat? A little.

Oh, you're just talking about like just trying every different combination. Every different combination. Just for that route. Yeah, you could do like major seven sharp five. Yep, sharp five, right? Or fully diminished with the major seven. Fully diminished with the major seven. And then what you want to do is you want to connect this with the line before.

So, you know, and not everyone's going to work with every situation, which is fine. Then you can also get into some unusual ones. This is like an F over D over D flat. Yeah. Doesn't really work. Adam's not liking that one. Adam's not like it that way. But that's the whole thing.

Like you want to start to hear these. You said, no bueno. And then you go to the next note, say D, and you're doing, well, that's going to not work because it's back to the two. No, but that could work. Yeah, that's the thing. That's why you try literally any root note. So I like yours better. Even if you go back to D.

Oh, come on. Bruce Hornsby. Bruce Hornsby. There's so many. You can. And you can. Yeah. So other ones.

on D, A flat over D. And then that one's a good one to be like, that's a good one to be like, Final Frontier kind of vibe, yeah. And then, so I mean, yeah, the possibilities are really endless. E flat, F over E flat. But really the way I developed, you know, and I think the way everybody sort of develops the choices

is by trying out of, I mean, I remember you should just sit there for hours and would just like mess around, like on body and soul, you know. How does it end? So that's on the ninth, right? Right. So then you've got... Yeah, yeah. You've got...

If it's not the tonic, your world's, like, can open up big time. Yeah. So your only restriction is what root, what root, new, what root choice you have and what the melody is, you know? Alejandro says, can you drop some comping ideas for solo piano between walking bass and rootless voicings? So between walking bass and rootless voicing, some comping ideas. Oh, I think he means like, you know, okay, so we have an option of walking a walking baseline, right? And then we have an option of rootless voicing. What's in between that?

This is good. So what you might try to start with on the Hondro is literally some root shell voicing in your left hand. Just three note voicings, right? Like if you can get these, especially if you can reach tense, but you don't have. have to reach tense necessarily. Right. But then you can start, right, practicing, splitting these up between the root note and the shell.

And you can get like a legit feel with just your left hand. Then you add in the right hand and you got that sort of three zone concept here where you have like the root down here. Yeah. Right? In this half of your left hand. And then this middle part is just all chords. And then this part of your right hand is all the melodics.

stuff so you can, you know, do like these counter melodies. But you're just playing chords here, like in the middle, the root is on the left hand, left side, and the melody is on the right-hand, right side. And you can do that with improvising with all that stuff. Yeah. Great stuff, great stuff.