You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Worst Jazz Advice We Ever Got

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

It's the same, but opposite SpeakPipe question from yesterday. Today, Peter and Adam give the worst jazz tips they've received. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Peter & Adam's Worst Jazz Advice:Play only rootless voicings when playing with bass playersPlay patternsOnly work on lines in your right handOnly play the written solos on big band chartsBring your Real Book everywhereBig band is the only real jazzPractice mostly in common keysTell everyone they sounded great after every tuneThe Ultimate TipLet 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, Peter. Hey, man. You remember that terrible advice I gave you? Oh, you mean that all my practice should be based upon only listening to this podcast every day? Yeah. Don't follow that. Okay. I'm Matt Vanis.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the Ulyard Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice and Anti-Jazz advice or jazz anti-advice. Oh, man. I'm really looking forward to this episode. So we've been putting out a call for speak pipes. We just happened to, in the same week, get two speak pipes on the flip side of the same issue. So yesterday, Drew from California asked what's the best jazz advice we ever got.

And then we had gotten literally a couple days later from Sean here. What's the worst jazz advice we've ever. If Sean's from California, I'm wondering if there's a relation. I don't believe he is. You're going to like this speak pipe. I kind of can't wait for you to hear. Here we go. Hey, guys.

How you doing? My name is Sean from Berlin. First of all, love the podcast. Made my journeys on the road, especially over the last couple of years. is a lot better, highly entertaining and informative. Yeah, I want to go negative today. I hate to do it, but maybe you guys can recount some of the worst jazz advice you've personally received or heard about.

Mine would be some of the earliest transcription I did. I try to understand a little bit of what Oscar was doing. The teacher was very discouraging, actually. And now I realize that's a thing with Oscar somehow. really negative feelings about his playing, which is hard, hard to imagine somehow. But I guess it is a thing. So thanks a lot. Isn't that great?

That's great. First, I want to just say thank you, Sean Jones, for calling in with that question while you're on tour in Berlin. I don't think that's Sean Jones. No, thank you, Sean. That's awesome. Yeah. I knew as soon as he said, I want to go negative that you would be really into.

Hey, man, why I got to be a negative guy? Because sometimes you like to go negative. I can go dark. But in a funny way. And I also knew that... Funny ha-ha, like you're laughing at me, funny? No, no, no. But I also thought that we would both connect with him on this thing.

I'm assuming he means Oscar Peterson. Because you do hear this. Like, people are like, you know, it's just the jazz Olympics or whatever. And it's like, what the fuck you talking about, man? Just they were jelly before jelly was even jelly. Come on now. Come on, man. For real.

But this is great because this sparked a lot of crappy, frankly, advice that I've received. Some of these are from really good musicians. And I'm not going to say who they are because I want to call them out. All that would be all that would be all. Awesome. I'm not going to do it because I still like them. If we ever do our thing like the Patreon addition of that, that's what we're going to do. We're going to be like, if you're a Patreon member, we'll tell you.

We get to call out who these. But this is the thing. I mean, we're a little bit tongue and cheek today. But also, let's remember bad advice. All the crappy advice we've given out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, make your own list of the worst advice we ever given you. No, but we can learn a lot.

Sometimes like you can almost learn more from what not to do than what's you do. Exactly. And we learn that from Christian McBride. I'm going to tell you what not to do. Yeah, his two minutes, classic two minute jazz, one of our most watched YouTube videos ever. He's like, how do you get a good sound? Well, I can tell you a few things not to,

then this all the thing. It's great. The problem with these are, I think we got all these where people were telling us to do these things, but they were actually things they should have been saying not to do, right? Yeah, totally. And we'll start out here with my number one, which is to only play rootless voicings when you're playing with the bass player.

Come on. What's up with that? Yeah. You know who, and this is a kind of a paraphrase from an Ethan Iverson blog post, but like every jazz pianist in history besides Bill Evans. Yeah. Played rooted voicings with bass players and it sounds awesome. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Now, maybe you, I don't know at what level you were given this advice, but I was definitely given it as well. I think maybe we misunderstood and it was like just as you're learning rootless voicings or whatever to keep. But I mean, that's the problem. And that's why, you know, I think in teaching anybody, we have to be very careful what we say. Whenever we get dogmatic and say like,

this is the way you do this. Yeah. Because you can remember you're impressionable as you're learning because you're ignorant. You don't know. So whatever you fill somebody's head up with. And that's really ultimately, we're responsible for getting good information. But it starts to get in your, okay, oh, I can't play rude of voice. And then it sort of makes sense on a logical level because it'll get in the way of the

base and stuff. But that's why it's so important to learn bass lines. Learn what is the bass player doing. So then you actually know how you fit in. then you start to learn, oh, you can play rooted, you can play not rooted. It's all part of the wonderful palette that we have as pianists. Yeah, and we talked about it before. Just the sonority of some rooted voicings are, it's just stronger than rootless.

And sometimes if you're in that range, if you're listening to the bass player, it's totally cool. And in fact, adds a lot. Nice. Okay, so some of the, the first thing that came to my mind for bad advice was play patterns. Oh. And I mean, the thing is, I don't know. And actually, I do too, but I guess it was the way that it was presented. And it was like, use that as the foundation for how you're going to improvise.

And again, because I was young and dumb, I was like, oh, instead of creating melodies or instead of playing ideas to play patterns and then manipulate them and develop them. Now, of course, a pattern can be a melody. That's how I think of them. Yeah. But this idea that you're going to learn patterns and then take them through all the different keys. And then it's almost like a mathematical approach to improvising. And then a lot of people will look at like, well, okay, that's the way John Coltrane soloed, you know, at times.

but in fact, if you really analyze the way he's playing, he's not. Not to say that there weren't certain patterns. I mean, there's always patterns in art that you can identify. But it's kind of like that's more when you're coming after something's been created and you're analyzing it.

But in terms of the impetus to how you're going to create, if you're thinking from a pattern mathematical standpoint, I think it can be a little bit against... I feel like this is also a time... It's probably a time capsule for you and I. Because this was big in the 80s, right? Like learning of these pattern books.

You know, remember all those? Patterns for jazz improvisation. Although that's actually... I mean, there's some good stuff. There's some good stuff. But it's like anything, right? If that's the only thing you're doing to approach this music, of course it's going to get repetitive and you're not actually going to learn. Yeah.

And it's like, how do you take? I mean, it's just like, you know, with running, it's like part of your workout should be doing sprints. But if you do that every day and everything is about that, you're going to get injured. You're not going to, you know, develop. Absolutely. Cool. So. So some of these are turning out good.

Yeah. So one of one that sticks out to me as soon as we heard that speak pipe was of, of, pretty famous pianist once told me like, you know, only work on chords in your left hand and lines on your right hand. I cannot believe Ethan Averson told you. No, no, no, no, no. It was, he said something like, your right hand is your alto saxophone. And again, this was like a very 80s, 90s way to, right? And I remember for a couple years, I did that. And I was, and then I was like, had to play ketchup trying to get my left hand in shape. And I was like, what did this guy do to me? So he actually said only work on. It wasn't like, mostly work on. Like, I was

working on, like, soloing with both hands or whatever. He was like, no, no, no, no. Left hands for the saxophone section Right hand is the solo And I was like Oh man Man man Man the big band mentality You gotta be careful with that

Okay Speaking of Yeah So this one I've gotten from several folks And some of them somewhat reputable I think I don't know

But that's the only play The written solos on big band charts Maybe this was because I was Solowing so bad at that time I doubt it To stick to the written solo But I've heard this from a lot Like actually just

I was just doing those Workshops out in Portland Some of the high school bands And I was telling them like You know Let's get away from the page and improvise, oh, my band director said to play the solo that's there. And so, yeah, sometimes it's like you can't play very well, so you want to play. I remember they would say,

like, suggested solo. But it's kind of like you're not going to really, I mean, you could use that in practice and then maybe, but at a certain point, you got to improvise. It's going to sound bad, but you got to, you got to touch the hot oven and get burned, you know? I agree. I mean, if it's, if it's like, you know, if the Basie chart or whatever, I can see saying like solo in the style of Count Basie. You know what I mean? Maybe. But this was really only played, like, like never. go from that. It's not jazz. I'm too narcissistic for that, that.

Ever. Okay, so mine, what is this, number five? Yeah, we're not counting today. We have so much bad advice. Oh, my gosh. I remember someone saying, keep your real books in your car so that they're with you at all times. Actually, that's good. Keep her in the car. Just don't ever take them out. Yeah, don't ever take them to pick me in.

No, like, you know, don't bother memorizing tunes. Just use the real book. Well, this is dangerous now because the kids now. They have the app. They got the app. I am guilty. Someone calls a tune. I'm not going to say I know. I'm very proud that I do not have that app. I mean, I know what it is. And not to say that I haven't slopped through some tunes that I didn't know. I will be freely. I've done that. You haven't mastered when someone calls it,

scaming it, scamming it, scanning it and memorizing the changes and then closing your phone before you can notice. That's the key. Oh, that's next level. Right. Yeah. But that's not the advice you got it. But when the, but then they're like, and yeah, not E flat. Let's do an F. You're like, oh. Exactly. Exactly. I can just slop my way. See, it doesn't matter the key if I don't know it. I'm like, whatever. Any key. I'm good. That's funny. Bring your real look everywhere. Okay. Some other advice that I got, this is more sort of conceptual, but that is big band is the only real jazz.

True. And I've gotten this a lot of, you know, from a lot of different levels. I mean, look, I understand people are passionate about something. But it's like when it becomes this is what, you know, I mean, it's sort of like string quartets, the only hip chamber music, you know. That is true, though. Well, no, it's, yeah, exactly. But I mean, but as much as like we love piano trio, we're not.

like that's the only thing. I mean, that's the beautiful thing about this music is that there's these different cool ensembles. You can write for them. You can play in them. Varieties of Spice of Life. But this whole concept, and it still exists. And I was, you know, especially like in high school going to these different like Allstate Jazz Band or whatever, All District and all these things, like you get a lot of that like big band. This is real jazz. And it's just part of it, you know. It's not even my favorite part, to be honest. It's weird. Sorry, can I say that? Yeah. Is this thing on? Boom, boom. Okay. Okay. Okay. My, next one is if you're crunched for time.

That does not say that. Now, you're adding that. Well, that's what it was. That was the context. If you're crunched for time, practice in the keys that you mostly play in on the gig. Well, but that's actually true. That seems logical. If you're crunched for time, that's what you have, though.

You're cleaning it up. If you're crunch for time, practice in the keys, you don't play it a lot so that you're prepared. That's what I think. Practice if you're crunched for time, practice in the stuff you're not good at. Don't just practice in the stuff. I love it what you have better. Practice mostly in common keys.

But that was the gist of it And that's what I took away for a couple months Not good Okay, yeah, that's, I mean, look, We've all gotten that where it's like, I mean, why would you teach somebody At least be a little bit aspirational? Even if you think they're not going to do it,

give them a little bit of a challenge. Don't be like, yeah, just do the ones that are expected. But you know what it is? We're teaching what we know. Okay, this one actually was given to me And that was like, tell everyone they sounded great after every tune. Hey, man, it's not a great. How'd I sound?

Yeah, it's not. But this was like one of these, this guy was just like giving me networking. They used to call it networking. Now what is it called? It's like social media, you know? But you should flip the script. You just tell everybody.

You just tell everybody. Exactly. That was terrible. Yeah, you're still networking. You're still making, I'm an impression. But that was, remember when this was really important? And actually, we still think it's. Remember what you're talking about?

Humanity. Humanity, like talking to people. No, we talked about yesterday is like engaging and stuff. And this is a problem because now people like are like, oh, maybe they'll, text you after the gig like so it'd be really good but it used to be a thing of like make sure you really communicate let people know how good they sound but this is bad advice because like you're supposed to make an impression based on your playing yep and the whole thing what we talked about

yesterday in terms of engaging that's showing up show up show up show up and then let you're playing i mean it's nothing wrong to talk and if somebody sounded good say they sounded good but wouldn't they were like yeah tell everyone they sounded good so they'll remember you then it doesn't mean anything yeah i mean how everybody sounded good a better way to do this than probably just tell everybody they sounded great after every tune is actually to network and to be successful at it. Pick something that you genuinely, even if it was a jive solo, pick something that you genuinely liked about either the playing or just the person like, hey man, I really like that hat. Come on, man.

No, but you know what I mean? Is this the good advice or the bad advice? This is the good advice. Be genuine about it, though. You know what I mean? Like, don't just say you sound great even if you don't think that. Right. If you didn't like the whole thing or whatever, pick something positive to network with.

You know, say like, hey, man, like, I really like. it when you did this or whatever. Right, right, right. And then what I was? How'd I sound? But just make sure you always say that at the end. Did you like it when I did? All right, remember that about the hats, though,

because we're going to come to that for an ultimate tip in a minute. But first, we want to just say, we are sponsored by Open Studio, which is Jazz Lessons from Jazz Legends. Yep. That's what we are. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We are Jazz Lessons. We are Jazz Legends?

No, we're Open Studio is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's jazz lessons. Let's not call ourselves Jazz Legends. We're podcast legends. We're close if not. We're getting good. We're well on our way. No, but check out Open Studio. We have a number of new courses, but what is becoming the most popular is what we call the all-access pass.

And the reason we call it that is, that's what the name is, and that's what it is, actually. All-axis to everything. Although that may be changing soon. You get Peter Martin's personal cell phone number. That's right. Bill Murray's 800 number. I can tell you about that. But, but yeah, Open Studio, we've got, especially in the piano world, but we've got trumpet.

Sean Jones has two wonderful courses. Base, we've got a couple. covered by Christian McBride and Ruben Roger. We have Greg Hutchinson, Peter Sprague, two-minute name, Romero LeBombo. Get your Brazilian jazz, guitar. We've got the Brazilian Rhythm Section course. That's a really good course. That's been popping with a lot of our members are enjoying it.

But come check out our offerings there at OpenSidual Network.com. Yeah, go to you'll hear.com to get in some free stuff that we offer, you know, the blogs. Yeah. Obviously. That's really the best way to sort of sample our flow, as we say. You kind of see the kind of thing that we do. And then if you want to, if and when you're ready, we are ready for you. That's right.

Okay. All right. What's our ultimate whack advice? Ultimate whack advice. Wear piano ties and berets. You'll hear it.